June 25, 2024 • 33 mins
Why is Elon Musk so obsessed with birth rates? And what is he doing about it? Those questions are at the heart of today’s episode, as well as the Bloomberg Businessweek feature by Sophie Alexander and Dana Hull. They join David Papadopoulos to talk about their reporting (and their scoop on Musk’s twelfth known child). Plus, what’s happening at X? Falling revenues have led to a high-level shake-up, as Kurt Wagner comes aboard to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Radio news. In the past, we could rely upon you know,
simple limbic system rewards in order to procreate it. But
once you have both control and you know, abortions and whatnot,
now you can still satisfied limbic instinct, but not approcreate.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well you are.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Muski is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Well, he's a legitimate, super genius and legitimate.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
He says, He's always voted for Democrats, but this year
it will be different.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 6 (00:50):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Anything he does is fascinating.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Welcome to Elon Ang, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
It's June twenty fifth. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Kids
can't live with them, can't live without them, can't stop
making them. It has been widely reported that Elon has
over ten children, but thanks to a new story by
Bloomberg's own Sophie Alexander and Dana Hall, we know that
(01:32):
Elon has at least twelve, including three kids with his employee,
Chevon Zillis of Neuralink, but his own procreation is part
of a larger story of Elon infertility. We'll get into
all of that, and also why Linda Yakarino is feeling
the heat. X has been a money loser for the
last couple of years, and now we have an executive
shake up at the platform. To discuss the shakeup at X,
(01:55):
we're joined by Kurt Wagner, tech reporter for us here
at Bloomberg and a for I'm high school football star.
Speaker 6 (02:02):
Hello Kurt, Hey, how you doing?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And Max Chapkin, intrepid Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I was the captain of my track team.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Okay, congratulations Mack, A captain, said one of seven? Okay,
Kurt So. Over at X, a fellow by the name
of Joe Benneroche is out. Who is he and what
does his dismissal there tell us?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So?
Speaker 6 (02:27):
Joe Benneroche was essentially Linda Yakrino's right hand man. He
came over with her from NBC. I think his official
title was Head of Business Operations, but he was also
the only PR or comms person at the company. So
anytime you needed comment from X or you needed to,
you know, reach out about a story or working on
(02:50):
Joe was sort of the guy that you went to,
and he was very, very close to Linda. As far
as I could tell, he was fiercely loyal to her.
He traveled anywhere she went. When she she testified before Congress,
Joe was sitting literally right behind her in the room there.
So he was considered the gatekeeper to Linda, and so
(03:10):
when he was pretty unexpectedly fired, it sounds like, according
to reports a few weeks ago, it was pretty shocking
because it sort of suggested, well, wait a minute, there's
something going on here. There's a problem here that isn't
evident necessarily from the outside, but clearly if she's getting
rid of this person who's sort of been by her
side for that first year on the job, that's somewhat
(03:31):
telling me.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
No way, mccurr. I mean that there's a problem there
at X. We know there's a problem there at X.
But when you say there's a problem there, as in
the losses and the problems are piling up so much
that Linda herself is feeling the heat from Elon.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I think that's right. Yeah. I mean because obviously when
you see her speak publicly, the public perception is everything
is great, business is growing, we're winning back advertisers like,
isn't aren't we doing all these things that you want
us to do that that you being the advertising community
and the user community want us to do. So Again,
the outward perception is that there are no issues where
(04:09):
the business is on the mend. But this move here,
I think told a different story to a lot of
people who have who have been watching the company.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Being Elon Musk's PR guy is not an easy job.
It's like it's like being Dale Earnhardt's driver, you know,
Steve Jobs interior designer. Like there's no doubt who the
actual head of communications is. It's Elon Musk and so
Joe Benneroch, you know, he was the guy. The way
I think of him is the guy who turned off
the poop emoji.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Was the poop emoji totally gone?
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Yeah, poop Emog's gone now. If you ask for comments
sometimes well for a while, anyway you did, there was
this guy Joe who would, who would, who would do
his best?
Speaker 5 (04:48):
And you got his answers are better than the poop emoji.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
You just got the sense that it's a no win
situation because Elon Musk is sort of on the record saying,
you know, I hate PR. PR is worthless. Meanwhile, he's
very very very sensitive to public perceptions, very attuned to
what you know, the conversation is around him, And so
if you're his PR person, I don't know. I think
(05:12):
it's it's kind of hopeless. You never get credit for
anything good, and you're you're blamed for everything bad. And
as Dana can attest, there is a long, long, long
line of Tesla former Tesla PR people who have sort
of been churned through that place for I think similar reasons.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
Well, and if I could just add, I mean, he
took over a team so Twitter one point zero had
almost one hundred PR people when Elon got there, so
globally right, I mean, you think about it, sounds crazy.
It probably was too big of a team for company
that size, but that just shows you how much they
were in the news. And now Joe was doing this
(05:49):
by himself, you know what I mean. So it's it
to Max's point, it was a terrible job. In my opinion,
it sounds really tough.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
So we should just say that the reason that Joe
Benneroch was fired. According to the FT, had to do
with X's management and his management. Again, this is according
to their sources. Of the new porn policy. Basically, there
was a word change in X's terms of service and
supposedly he handled it poorly.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
You know, Max, I feel like we baited them into
that policy change. We had just done an entire episode
about porn just a few days earlier.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
They basically explicitly put adult content in their terms of service,
and according to reporting from the FT, she blamed him
for failing to kind of smooth things over with advertisers,
give them a heads up, which sort of makes sense.
On the other hand, with a lot of these things,
I'm not sure they are pr guy problems. It seems
more like X problems.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
Well, and I think the issue is that the understanding
was that the policy. While the language changed, the actual
enforcement didn't change. It's not as if they were suddenly
saying these things are allowed and they weren't before. It
was basically, you know, it's business as usual, but we're
tweaking the language here. But it still got it covered
as if it was this brand new thing. So now
you had all these new headlines coming out saying, you know,
(07:07):
X allows porn or X and it's just like a
terrible look, even though they didn't actually change the policy.
And so I think that was, you know, to Max's point,
the f he was saying, Joe was sort of the
scapegoat here.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Right, the fall guy for the black guy the company
took there. Now, I saw as well that Elon at
some level is trying to court advertisers himself, again, saying
last week that when he told them to go fuck themselves,
he actually didn't mean go which, by the way, I'll
say to the two of you guys, if and when
I ever tell you guys to go for yourself, I'm
gonna mean it. I think I'm not taking it back, David.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I think what he actually said is when I said
go fund yourselves, what I meant is only some of
you should go ford yourself.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Kurt, I don't know. Does this I mean? Is that
the kind of plea that gets him anywhere with the
well heeled advertisers of America?
Speaker 6 (07:58):
Oh boy? Maybe when you're in the south of France
at can that which is.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Where he which is where he made these comments he was.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
Yeah, which is where he was as someone who's been
to that festival a handful of times in the past.
There's a lot of schmooz in that goes on, a
lot of you know, parties and drinking and wheeling and
dealing and things like that. So maybe he was able
to do more damage control behind the scenes than we're
aware of. But I think what he says on stage
is sort of on repeat now. I think it's like
(08:26):
he says a lot of the same stuff. And I
think if you're an advertiser, you've probably made up your
mind one way or the other. Either you're okay with
dealing with the uncertainty of an Elon Musk at the Helm,
or it's not worth the risk and you've moved on.
And so it's hard for me to imagine that he's
out here changing hearts and minds by doing a twenty
minute stage interview.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
All right, listen, Kurt, thanks for joining us. We'll have
you on again soon always.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
Okay, we're now going to welcome in Dana Hall or
Elon Musk Report or Extraordinary. Hello Dana, Hello, Hello, and
Sophie Alexander Report here for us as well. Bloomberg News
Hello Sophie. Hello, So you do add a great piece
about Musk's obsession with babies and staving off population decline.
(09:19):
Everyone should go read it. Lots of detailing insight I
hadn't seen before in the subject, Sophie. Let's start with
the basics, though, for the uninitiated, the headline of your
story is Elon wants you to have more babies.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Why well, Elon thinks that the issue that this planet
is facing is population collapse. He thinks global warming is
lower on the list of concerns, things like nuclear war
lower on the list of concerns. All of that is below,
you know, people not having enough children. And so basically
(09:54):
he's right that fertility is declining around the world, but
our population is not declining. Still, we are still a
growing population, so it becomes complicated. But essentially Elon is
worried that, especially rich white countries, are not having enough babies.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
We actually have an audio clip of him expressing some
of those concerns. Let's listen to it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
If we don't make enough people to at least sustain
our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization is
going to crumble. Just the old question like will civilization
and with a bang or a whimper.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Okay, continue on this line of thinking here from him?
If the population are we talking about the population across
the globe or we talking about the population of specific
countries that like the United States, where he's worried about
a possible decline in.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Population, Well, it's really I mean, I think that's the
question that a lot of you know, experts in the
population field have for him, because when they are looking
at the numbers, this is quote, not a story of decline.
It's what someone from the UN's Population division told me.
But I mean, it seems like Elon is really focused
on these play is where the population is slowly declining
(11:05):
because fertility rates are declining. But in the US that's
still not really the story. Because of immigration, our population
has remained steady, even growing thanks to immigrants moving here,
even as our birth rates do decline. And the same
is true of Canada and places like that. It's a
different story when you look at Japan or Korea, and
(11:26):
a lot of people who are pro natalists and obsessed
with population collaps like Elon is will immediately jump to Korea,
and you know, places like Italy as well. They'll say,
you know, in five hundred years, there's not going to
be Koreans, There's not going to be Italians. Italy is
just going to be one big empty museum.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
So on that point, though, Dana, if you are the US, Canada, Japan, Korea,
why not indeed simply address the problem by opening your
border a bit more so ife you were saying, the
US and Canada certainly do to extend places like Japan
and Korea less. Oh, I don't know. There are certainly
plenty of people across the world who would be up
(12:04):
for moving to these countries.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Now, yeah, I mean, I think immigration is one aspect
of birth rates. But I mean, if you talk to demographers,
there are a lot of reasons why fertility is on
the decline in you know, western industrialized nations and even
in countries like India as well. Women are delaying childbirth,
they are more educated. Having a kid is incredibly expensive,
(12:27):
The cost of childcare is prohibitive. I mean, there are
all kinds of reasons why people are not having kids,
like a lot of and women like they want to
be in the workforce and so. And if the cost
of childcare exceeds a mortgage or exceed your rent, you're
gonna think twice about having, you know, three kids when
maybe you can barely afford two. And so there are
(12:50):
a number of reasons why fertility is on the decline
in many countries. And I just think it's fascinating that
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, has kind
of made this his big policy issue. I mean, he
talks about population collapse all the time and has for years.
What Sophie and I really dug into and discovered is that,
(13:10):
like he's not just talking about it, he is putting
it in practice with his own DNA. I mean, the
man has at least twelve children that we know of.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
During the reporting of the story, you uncovered that there
is a child number twelve. Correct, yes, and so tell
us a little bit about tell us about the child
and how you guys wound up stumbling upon that.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
To be clear, you know, Musk has many children, and
when we talk about the numbers, he fathered six with
his first wife, Justine. The eldest died as an infant.
That he had five others with Justine. He has three
children with Grimes. He had twins with Chavon Zillis, who
was an executive at Neuralink. We learned all about that
(13:53):
in the Walter Isaacson book. And then in kind of
reporting this story, like a lot of people said to
me over and over again, oh, well, you know he
is a lot more than eleven kids, and I was like, well, no,
I didn't know that, Like what exactly did you mean?
And you know, the sourcing on this is is very complex,
but ultimately we were able to confirm that, yes, he
did have a third child with Chavn And that's an
(14:16):
issue because she is or was an executive at Neuralink,
one of his companies. So you know, just the optics
of that for a typical CEO have, you know, raising
kids with someone who's basically their employee. It is like
a whole separate issue.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Now, this topic of him sort of bringing Max these
pro natalism views into the workplace, there been reports of
late that that is increasingly getting him in trouble.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of needless to say,
when you're fathering children with employees, there are a lot
of potential hr issues there. In addition to this this
new baby with you know, someone who's kind of in
his inner circle in his businesses. Wall Street Journal had
reported in this larger piece, essentially accusing him of having
(15:05):
sexually harasses employees, of him attempting to get another employee
to have one of his babies. And again, I mean,
this is an un this is an unconventional version of
kind of a difficult work environment. But you can you
could easily see how this would be super uncomfortable if
you are a woman who were working for Elon Musk
(15:25):
or really just anyone. The other thing is this is
I feel like we need a sound that we play
on this podcast when we discover a new baby, like
a like a clackson or whatever, because you know, we're
up to twelve now, and you know, you never know
there could be more.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
When the podcast started, they were like, uh, there were
like just four. Actually just last month, Elon talked a
bit at a conference about how strangers or are just
offering him babies. Let's listen. Yeah, I don't know if
everyone heard.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You want to read it, It says Elon, come pick
me up, I'll give you a baby, thank you.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Well, I mean I certainly courage everyone in this room
to have at least three children. Like looks maybe it's
got to come from somewhere.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
But Sophia, I guess back to the overall macro numbers though.
On I mean, I get why individual countries are having
declines in birth rates for any number of reasons, including,
by the way, dropping teen pregnancy, which is a great achievement.
But overall, the world went from, as your story says,
two billion humans on earth to eight billion now and
(16:41):
projected ten billion going forward. I don't remember exactly when,
so I just ask again, what's the problem here.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It's complicated. I think there are a lot of different
issues that people would bring up. I think the Musk
Camp they sort of see this like upcoming ten billion number,
and they see it not too far off in the distance.
The UN projects that that's going to happen by the
time we hit twenty one hundred the year twenty one hundred,
so ten billion people plus by twenty one hundred. Okay,
(17:12):
then what happens after that? And their whole problem is, well,
if birth rates continue to decline, especially at the rate
that they have been, then we're just going to have
like a huge drop in population over the coming decades centuries.
So that is sort of what they see as a problem.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Let me just stop you there for a second, let's
pretend that this argument is correct and that there is
a huge drop of some kind or another in population
decades down the road. Does that matter in a like
a really negative, awful kind of way.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, then then the second part of it is that
a lot of these these drops are happening primarily in
wealthy countries with the biggest consumers. So a lot of
pernatalists are really genuinely concerned about the global economy and
what's going to happen to economic growth if this can
needs to happen if we have fewer consumers and if
they're older, and also then we're just gonna have a
(18:04):
sort of lopsided population. We're gonna have a lot of
old people people are living longer and fewer young people
to take care of them. So that is another concern.
Social security, of course, who's gonna pay for that? Things
like that. These are all things that pronata lists will
bring up when they talk about their concerns.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Well, Sophie's talking about talking kind of about sort of
the more mainstream version of this, and then there's a
race science tinged version of it, which is that it's
not just the fear that you know, we're going to
be really old and there's going to be no one
to you know, change our adult typers. It's it's the
fear that white culture will be lost, and like and
(18:44):
you do. They're versions of this kind of concern about
population that don't have that second part, you know, where
they're really just saying like, look, we need we need
birth rates to stay up, and these western countries need
a lot of immigration. Elon Musk as you right bring
up David or hinting at anyway, he's very much not
in favor of just like opening the border because he's
(19:05):
worried about italianness, koreanness, americanness, whatever. And you can really
see like there is some really dark connections here to
eugenics and to some periods of you know, global history
that I think we'd all like to not go back to.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, it is this interesting and very precarious
fine line between what could be sort of well thought
out long term concerns about whether it be underpopulation or
overpopulation as it's related to climate change, and then the
use of those arguments, turning those arguments in by governments
into exercises in eugenics and other sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I think, yes, exactly. And I think the thing that
the people who are in this field, first of all,
demographers are very aware of this dark history. This is
essentially how the field of demography was created with these
sort of ill intentions.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
So okay, so demography as a study is only born
once these sort of of.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
The eugenics movement, essentially of you know, billionaires.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Give academic rigor and backing to their beliefs pretty much. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
An Emily Merchant has written quite a bit about this.
She's a professor at UC Davis, and she has a
whole book on this population bomb, the Making of the
Population Bomb, which is in the sixties. There's this guy
named Paul Erlick from Stanford and he publishes this book
about how, you know, our population is going so fast,
(20:36):
we're not going to be able to sustain this. The
end is coming. We're not going to have enough food,
there's going to be a global famine, and we're all
going to die out, probably by nineteen eighty five. In
this era that everyone's really freaked out. But I think
what demographers want all of us to know is that
Number One, it's very hard to change behavior, very hard
(20:56):
to change birth rates. You're not going to be able
to convince someone to have more kids just because they're
getting like a twelve hundred dollars check or even no
matter how big the amount is.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
By the way, and I think China, once it's reversed
the one child policy, I think China is finding that
out right now.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yes, this is a very sticky thing because it's well,
first of all, it becomes a cultural thing. You know,
how many babies you want to have is influenced by
what you see around you. But then the other thing
that they really want people to know is that it
is really hard to predict the birth behavior, the fertility
behaviors of people far into the future.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Yeah, it is super hard to know what it's going
to take one hundred years. But Elon Ink will still
be rolling along Max in one hundred years. That's my sense, Dana.
That gets us into the something called the Population Well
Being Initiative that you guys reported on at length for
the story. Tell us what it is and what its
(21:54):
relationship is with the pro natalist movement and with Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah. So PWI is a real, relatively new kind of
interdisciplinary research center between economics and population at the University
of Texas at Austin, and it was created by a
ten million dollar donation from Elon Musk, which is extraordinary because,
you know, for a billionaire, ten ten million does not
seem like a lot of money, but it is Elon
(22:20):
Musk's largest donation to hire education to date, and it
is a huge sum for essentially the social sciences. I mean,
usually when rich people give money to hire it it's
to like name a building, or to like fund tuition
for students, or it's like a new you know, it's
like a new wing of something. To sort of give
(22:42):
ten million dollars to the social sciences is unheard of.
And the other thing is that this is an anonymous donation.
Musk has never acknowledged that he gave this donation. UT
Austin has never acknowledged that Musk donated the money. We
only know about it because Sophie got the Musk Foundation
tax records. We saw this ten million dollar line item
(23:03):
to UT Austin and we were like, what is this
donation for? And we just like painstakingly pieced it together.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
So, Danna, what is the relationship between the institute and
the University of Texas of Austin. It's housed within the university.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yes, yeah, so the PWY, the Population Well Being Initiative,
is housed at UT Austin. The lead scholar who kind
of leads it is this guy named Dean Spears. Dean
and Elon have a relationship that we know of via
lots of public records, acts, requests, and emails. And now Dean,
who is an economist by training, is like the kind
(23:41):
of public face of this new pro natalist movement. He
had an op ed in the New York Times, He's
coming out with a book in the fall. He got
a six figure advance from Simon Schuster, and so this
is Musk basically using his money and wealth and influence
to kind of launder his ideas through academia. I mean,
that's you know, that's one way to look at it.
(24:04):
And it's just kind of unheard of that that Musk
is doing this. I mean, this is a guy who
wants to colonize Mars, but now he's basically funding academic
research that aligns with his worldview.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I think a lot of the people who are funding
the initial movement had very specific goals, but you know,
who's to say what people believe in academia? It's I mean,
this is something that the story I hope gets at,
which is just because someone is funding something, does that
mean that they're influencing the research? And does that mean
that the people that who they are funding have the
(24:36):
same beliefs as the funder. So, I mean it's complicated.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I think like he believes this stuff. I think, I mean,
it's always hard.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
I think there's no doubt.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, I mean, like I was thinking back, you know,
the very first time I met Elon Musk. I think
it was like in like fifteen years ago, maybe sixteen
years ago. This was one of the first things that
came out of his mouth was this was anxiety about
global popular collapse, which at the time I was like,
that's a weird way to open a conversation.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
But I'm Elon Musk, and I'm worried about population.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Addition to, you know, like Dana says, attempting to you know,
insert his personal beliefs into mainstream academia, which is totally
a thing that rich people do all the time. He
is also, whether maybe wittingly or unwittingly, creating some legitimacy
to this kind of weird online thing which is kind
(25:30):
of connected to what these demographers are doing and kind
of not connected.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Dan.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
There's also somebody from the Population Well Being Initiative now
inside the Biden White House, a fellow by the name
of Mike Garuso. Jeruso, Yeah, tell us a little bit
about him and how he scored that job.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
So he the Population Well Being Initiative is kind of
this like interdisciplinary group of scholars. Some are full time
at u T Austin, some are post stocks or graduate
student summer at other universities. They've come together, they've done
conferences that they are on a lot of papers together.
Mike Russo was one of the early hires, and now
he is on the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
(26:11):
And then he helped to write like a paper, you know,
like a sort of presidential report. And so now you have,
you know, Musk who's pretty much seen as being like
a de facto endorser of Donald Trump, also wielding his
influence within the current Biden administration.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I'm just wondering if we think any of Elon's other
kind of weird pet causes also might have institutes at
weird at you know, state universities, Like do you think
there's a like University of Colorado simulation like simulation research,
or like a a sort of Joe Rogan Aliens theory
scholar at like somebody who like Elon's got a lot
(26:49):
of weird, quirky beliefs, He's got a lot of money.
There could be other and clearly, what you know, one
kind of thing that's hanging in the background of this
is this is a very rich person who has taken
a very unconventional approach to philanthropy. Right, it's not like
it kind of feels like he's writing these checks, you know,
just off the cuff or something. So who knows, there
could be way in addition to more babies, there could
(27:11):
be you know, more donations.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
What I find kind of funny and ironic is that
he's always railing about how universities are sort of like
where the woke mind virus lies. And now we're seeing
him basically like influencing academia. And I would not be
surprised if there are other donations. You know, Tex records
are always like a year behind in terms of when
we get them. But he's also influencing, like I mean,
(27:34):
there's but there's also a campaign that goes along with.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
This I mean, oh, perhaps not. But I ask Sophie,
is there not at some level potentially a direct or
indirect line between the natalist movement and the sudden emergence
in a post Roe v Way world of crackdowns and
abortion in states across the country.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I think there's absolutely a direct line. I think there's
concern that the line will become more direct. But already
conservative politicians are alluding to these missing people that would
have not been missing had there not been abortion allowed,
who would really be a huge help to our economy
if they existed, because we need more workers. So yes,
there is there is a line there. And that's another
(28:20):
thing that demographers, especially feminist demographers, are concerned about, is
that this concern over population collapse is going to be
you know, misused by people who want to restrict reproductive
freedoms and not just abortion, birth control as well.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
Well.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Sophie, terrific story. Join us again soon when you have
another one. Thank you. To wrap up this week, we're
back on the feud watch. Mister feud is hear himself?
Max Chat It's not oh it's a few day, it's
a feud. It's a feud. Tell us about it. Max, Okay,
you can't take it seriously.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
You are musk Now has brought up this idea a
couple of times. I don't think it's a feud as
much as like a a amusing conspiracy theory, but that
the ex wives of billionaires are a threat to civilization.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Another threat to civilization.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
You know, this guy has a lot these were There
are a lot of threats going on, and I guess,
I guess.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
How many can humanity take?
Speaker 4 (29:20):
I should make a threat board right with all the
woke mind virus population.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Before the threat change for the threat board, I need
a feud rankings.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Okay, so, but this is the sort of objects of
his ire are Melinda Gates and Mackenzie Scott. Those would
be the ex wives of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
There's a sort of political point here, which is that
they're both making donations to left leaning organizations and democratic politicians.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
I do think I think Ewan said it quote might
be the downfall. This was the quote, right, that those
donations are indeed to the downfall of civilization. Point there,
they might be downfall Western civilization.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
I feel like, I don't know, like it would be
irresponsible not to because this is so funny, but I
have to say, like I do I think this is
this is crazy say it, but I do think if
you squint you kind of see like a genius bit
of cyber truck marketing, because you know, this is like
you got the cyber truck, which is this post apocalyptic vehicle.
You can seal the windows, and of course anyone the
(30:25):
buyers of the cyber truck, like, let's be honest, they're
gonna be somewhat receptive, like, you know, my ex wife
is a danger to civilization message, so I would not
be surprised if we start. You know, Tesla doesn't advertise,
but I think this could be a really great way
to increase the audience the buyers of the cyber truck.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Dana, longtime Tesla reporter, thumbs up or thumbs down on
Max's theory.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
This is all way yeah, yeah, I mean the cyber
truck does sort of appeal to this post apocalyptic version
of the world. But I just wanted to be clear.
But he's mad at Musk is sort of mad at
Mackenzie Scott because of her donations to progressive causes, and
then he's upset with Melinda Gates because she endorsed Biden, right,
(31:11):
But I just think it's like, why is he making
such a thing about like what rich women are doing
with their money? Like why is he going after these
two particular women. Is it an extension of his beef
with Jeff and Bill? Is it a new Is it
like an independent beef that stands on its own with
these women?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I think it's an independent beef. The framing of this,
framing them as ex wives, I think sort of creates
and especially Elon as as himself a billionaire with some
ex wives. I feel like it sets it up as
a direct feud rather than a proxy war between Elon
and Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
But it's it's pretty weird. Okay, we're done now this week.
But before we hang up here, I just got to
say again, I don't mind at all this idea of
a global civilization threat board. That's kind of fun, But
we need to prioritize we need the feud rankings first,
and then we can go on to these other pots.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
I don't think we can. I don't think any I
don't think the Mackenzie Scott or Melinda Gates feud makes
the top five. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Definitely not top five. But are they top fifty?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Oh we have a top fifty.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
Yeah, of course, all right, Max, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Right to civilization you got. It's gotta be on the
top fifty.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
By default, you gotta be top fifty. Fair Max, thanks
as always, great to be here, Dana, thank you. This
episode was produced by Stacy Wang. Naomi Shaven and Rayhan
Harmanci are senior editors. The idea for this very show
(32:49):
also came from Rayhon Blake Maple's Handles Engineering, and we
get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott and Toni and
muffarech and Arifat Jalasho Perry. Our supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson.
The elon Ing theme is written and performed by Taka
Yasuzawa and Alex Seviera. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer,
(33:10):
and Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A
big thanks as always to our supporter Joel Weber. I'm
David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review
our show, it'll help other listeners find us. See you
next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Radio news. In the past, we could rely upon you know,
simple limbic system rewards in order to procreate it. But
once you have both control and you know, abortions and whatnot,
now you can still satisfied limbic instinct, but not approcreate.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well you are.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Muski is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Well, he's a legitimate, super genius and legitimate.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
He says, He's always voted for Democrats, but this year
it will be different.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 6 (00:50):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Anything he does is fascinating.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Welcome to Elon Ang, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
It's June twenty fifth. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Kids
can't live with them, can't live without them, can't stop
making them. It has been widely reported that Elon has
over ten children, but thanks to a new story by
Bloomberg's own Sophie Alexander and Dana Hall, we know that
(01:32):
Elon has at least twelve, including three kids with his employee,
Chevon Zillis of Neuralink, but his own procreation is part
of a larger story of Elon infertility. We'll get into
all of that, and also why Linda Yakarino is feeling
the heat. X has been a money loser for the
last couple of years, and now we have an executive
shake up at the platform. To discuss the shakeup at X,
(01:55):
we're joined by Kurt Wagner, tech reporter for us here
at Bloomberg and a for I'm high school football star.
Speaker 6 (02:02):
Hello Kurt, Hey, how you doing?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And Max Chapkin, intrepid Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I was the captain of my track team.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Okay, congratulations Mack, A captain, said one of seven? Okay,
Kurt So. Over at X, a fellow by the name
of Joe Benneroche is out. Who is he and what
does his dismissal there tell us?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So?
Speaker 6 (02:27):
Joe Benneroche was essentially Linda Yakrino's right hand man. He
came over with her from NBC. I think his official
title was Head of Business Operations, but he was also
the only PR or comms person at the company. So
anytime you needed comment from X or you needed to,
you know, reach out about a story or working on
(02:50):
Joe was sort of the guy that you went to,
and he was very, very close to Linda. As far
as I could tell, he was fiercely loyal to her.
He traveled anywhere she went. When she she testified before Congress,
Joe was sitting literally right behind her in the room there.
So he was considered the gatekeeper to Linda, and so
(03:10):
when he was pretty unexpectedly fired, it sounds like, according
to reports a few weeks ago, it was pretty shocking
because it sort of suggested, well, wait a minute, there's
something going on here. There's a problem here that isn't
evident necessarily from the outside, but clearly if she's getting
rid of this person who's sort of been by her
side for that first year on the job, that's somewhat
(03:31):
telling me.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
No way, mccurr. I mean that there's a problem there
at X. We know there's a problem there at X.
But when you say there's a problem there, as in
the losses and the problems are piling up so much
that Linda herself is feeling the heat from Elon.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I think that's right. Yeah. I mean because obviously when
you see her speak publicly, the public perception is everything
is great, business is growing, we're winning back advertisers like,
isn't aren't we doing all these things that you want
us to do that that you being the advertising community
and the user community want us to do. So Again,
the outward perception is that there are no issues where
(04:09):
the business is on the mend. But this move here,
I think told a different story to a lot of
people who have who have been watching the company.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Being Elon Musk's PR guy is not an easy job.
It's like it's like being Dale Earnhardt's driver, you know,
Steve Jobs interior designer. Like there's no doubt who the
actual head of communications is. It's Elon Musk and so
Joe Benneroch, you know, he was the guy. The way
I think of him is the guy who turned off
the poop emoji.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Was the poop emoji totally gone?
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Yeah, poop Emog's gone now. If you ask for comments
sometimes well for a while, anyway you did, there was
this guy Joe who would, who would, who would do
his best?
Speaker 5 (04:48):
And you got his answers are better than the poop emoji.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
You just got the sense that it's a no win
situation because Elon Musk is sort of on the record saying,
you know, I hate PR. PR is worthless. Meanwhile, he's
very very very sensitive to public perceptions, very attuned to
what you know, the conversation is around him, And so
if you're his PR person, I don't know. I think
(05:12):
it's it's kind of hopeless. You never get credit for
anything good, and you're you're blamed for everything bad. And
as Dana can attest, there is a long, long, long
line of Tesla former Tesla PR people who have sort
of been churned through that place for I think similar reasons.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
Well, and if I could just add, I mean, he
took over a team so Twitter one point zero had
almost one hundred PR people when Elon got there, so
globally right, I mean, you think about it, sounds crazy.
It probably was too big of a team for company
that size, but that just shows you how much they
were in the news. And now Joe was doing this
(05:49):
by himself, you know what I mean. So it's it
to Max's point, it was a terrible job. In my opinion,
it sounds really tough.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
So we should just say that the reason that Joe
Benneroch was fired. According to the FT, had to do
with X's management and his management. Again, this is according
to their sources. Of the new porn policy. Basically, there
was a word change in X's terms of service and
supposedly he handled it poorly.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
You know, Max, I feel like we baited them into
that policy change. We had just done an entire episode
about porn just a few days earlier.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
They basically explicitly put adult content in their terms of service,
and according to reporting from the FT, she blamed him
for failing to kind of smooth things over with advertisers,
give them a heads up, which sort of makes sense.
On the other hand, with a lot of these things,
I'm not sure they are pr guy problems. It seems
more like X problems.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
Well, and I think the issue is that the understanding
was that the policy. While the language changed, the actual
enforcement didn't change. It's not as if they were suddenly
saying these things are allowed and they weren't before. It
was basically, you know, it's business as usual, but we're
tweaking the language here. But it still got it covered
as if it was this brand new thing. So now
you had all these new headlines coming out saying, you know,
(07:07):
X allows porn or X and it's just like a
terrible look, even though they didn't actually change the policy.
And so I think that was, you know, to Max's point,
the f he was saying, Joe was sort of the
scapegoat here.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Right, the fall guy for the black guy the company
took there. Now, I saw as well that Elon at
some level is trying to court advertisers himself, again, saying
last week that when he told them to go fuck themselves,
he actually didn't mean go which, by the way, I'll
say to the two of you guys, if and when
I ever tell you guys to go for yourself, I'm
gonna mean it. I think I'm not taking it back, David.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I think what he actually said is when I said
go fund yourselves, what I meant is only some of
you should go ford yourself.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Kurt, I don't know. Does this I mean? Is that
the kind of plea that gets him anywhere with the
well heeled advertisers of America?
Speaker 6 (07:58):
Oh boy? Maybe when you're in the south of France
at can that which is.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Where he which is where he made these comments he was.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
Yeah, which is where he was as someone who's been
to that festival a handful of times in the past.
There's a lot of schmooz in that goes on, a
lot of you know, parties and drinking and wheeling and
dealing and things like that. So maybe he was able
to do more damage control behind the scenes than we're
aware of. But I think what he says on stage
is sort of on repeat now. I think it's like
(08:26):
he says a lot of the same stuff. And I
think if you're an advertiser, you've probably made up your
mind one way or the other. Either you're okay with
dealing with the uncertainty of an Elon Musk at the Helm,
or it's not worth the risk and you've moved on.
And so it's hard for me to imagine that he's
out here changing hearts and minds by doing a twenty
minute stage interview.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
All right, listen, Kurt, thanks for joining us. We'll have
you on again soon always.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
Okay, we're now going to welcome in Dana Hall or
Elon Musk Report or Extraordinary. Hello Dana, Hello, Hello, and
Sophie Alexander Report here for us as well. Bloomberg News
Hello Sophie. Hello, So you do add a great piece
about Musk's obsession with babies and staving off population decline.
(09:19):
Everyone should go read it. Lots of detailing insight I
hadn't seen before in the subject, Sophie. Let's start with
the basics, though, for the uninitiated, the headline of your
story is Elon wants you to have more babies.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Why well, Elon thinks that the issue that this planet
is facing is population collapse. He thinks global warming is
lower on the list of concerns, things like nuclear war
lower on the list of concerns. All of that is below,
you know, people not having enough children. And so basically
(09:54):
he's right that fertility is declining around the world, but
our population is not declining. Still, we are still a
growing population, so it becomes complicated. But essentially Elon is
worried that, especially rich white countries, are not having enough babies.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
We actually have an audio clip of him expressing some
of those concerns. Let's listen to it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
If we don't make enough people to at least sustain
our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization is
going to crumble. Just the old question like will civilization
and with a bang or a whimper.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Okay, continue on this line of thinking here from him?
If the population are we talking about the population across
the globe or we talking about the population of specific
countries that like the United States, where he's worried about
a possible decline in.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Population, Well, it's really I mean, I think that's the
question that a lot of you know, experts in the
population field have for him, because when they are looking
at the numbers, this is quote, not a story of decline.
It's what someone from the UN's Population division told me.
But I mean, it seems like Elon is really focused
on these play is where the population is slowly declining
(11:05):
because fertility rates are declining. But in the US that's
still not really the story. Because of immigration, our population
has remained steady, even growing thanks to immigrants moving here,
even as our birth rates do decline. And the same
is true of Canada and places like that. It's a
different story when you look at Japan or Korea, and
(11:26):
a lot of people who are pro natalists and obsessed
with population collaps like Elon is will immediately jump to Korea,
and you know, places like Italy as well. They'll say,
you know, in five hundred years, there's not going to
be Koreans, There's not going to be Italians. Italy is
just going to be one big empty museum.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
So on that point, though, Dana, if you are the US, Canada, Japan, Korea,
why not indeed simply address the problem by opening your
border a bit more so ife you were saying, the
US and Canada certainly do to extend places like Japan
and Korea less. Oh, I don't know. There are certainly
plenty of people across the world who would be up
(12:04):
for moving to these countries.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Now, yeah, I mean, I think immigration is one aspect
of birth rates. But I mean, if you talk to demographers,
there are a lot of reasons why fertility is on
the decline in you know, western industrialized nations and even
in countries like India as well. Women are delaying childbirth,
they are more educated. Having a kid is incredibly expensive,
(12:27):
The cost of childcare is prohibitive. I mean, there are
all kinds of reasons why people are not having kids,
like a lot of and women like they want to
be in the workforce and so. And if the cost
of childcare exceeds a mortgage or exceed your rent, you're
gonna think twice about having, you know, three kids when
maybe you can barely afford two. And so there are
(12:50):
a number of reasons why fertility is on the decline
in many countries. And I just think it's fascinating that
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, has kind
of made this his big policy issue. I mean, he
talks about population collapse all the time and has for years.
What Sophie and I really dug into and discovered is that,
(13:10):
like he's not just talking about it, he is putting
it in practice with his own DNA. I mean, the
man has at least twelve children that we know of.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
During the reporting of the story, you uncovered that there
is a child number twelve. Correct, yes, and so tell
us a little bit about tell us about the child
and how you guys wound up stumbling upon that.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
To be clear, you know, Musk has many children, and
when we talk about the numbers, he fathered six with
his first wife, Justine. The eldest died as an infant.
That he had five others with Justine. He has three
children with Grimes. He had twins with Chavon Zillis, who
was an executive at Neuralink. We learned all about that
(13:53):
in the Walter Isaacson book. And then in kind of
reporting this story, like a lot of people said to
me over and over again, oh, well, you know he
is a lot more than eleven kids, and I was like, well, no,
I didn't know that, Like what exactly did you mean?
And you know, the sourcing on this is is very complex,
but ultimately we were able to confirm that, yes, he
did have a third child with Chavn And that's an
(14:16):
issue because she is or was an executive at Neuralink,
one of his companies. So you know, just the optics
of that for a typical CEO have, you know, raising
kids with someone who's basically their employee. It is like
a whole separate issue.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Now, this topic of him sort of bringing Max these
pro natalism views into the workplace, there been reports of
late that that is increasingly getting him in trouble.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of needless to say,
when you're fathering children with employees, there are a lot
of potential hr issues there. In addition to this this
new baby with you know, someone who's kind of in
his inner circle in his businesses. Wall Street Journal had
reported in this larger piece, essentially accusing him of having
(15:05):
sexually harasses employees, of him attempting to get another employee
to have one of his babies. And again, I mean,
this is an un this is an unconventional version of
kind of a difficult work environment. But you can you
could easily see how this would be super uncomfortable if
you are a woman who were working for Elon Musk
(15:25):
or really just anyone. The other thing is this is
I feel like we need a sound that we play
on this podcast when we discover a new baby, like
a like a clackson or whatever, because you know, we're
up to twelve now, and you know, you never know
there could be more.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
When the podcast started, they were like, uh, there were
like just four. Actually just last month, Elon talked a
bit at a conference about how strangers or are just
offering him babies. Let's listen. Yeah, I don't know if
everyone heard.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You want to read it, It says Elon, come pick
me up, I'll give you a baby, thank you.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Well, I mean I certainly courage everyone in this room
to have at least three children. Like looks maybe it's
got to come from somewhere.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
But Sophia, I guess back to the overall macro numbers though.
On I mean, I get why individual countries are having
declines in birth rates for any number of reasons, including,
by the way, dropping teen pregnancy, which is a great achievement.
But overall, the world went from, as your story says,
two billion humans on earth to eight billion now and
(16:41):
projected ten billion going forward. I don't remember exactly when,
so I just ask again, what's the problem here.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It's complicated. I think there are a lot of different
issues that people would bring up. I think the Musk
Camp they sort of see this like upcoming ten billion number,
and they see it not too far off in the distance.
The UN projects that that's going to happen by the
time we hit twenty one hundred the year twenty one hundred,
so ten billion people plus by twenty one hundred. Okay,
(17:12):
then what happens after that? And their whole problem is, well,
if birth rates continue to decline, especially at the rate
that they have been, then we're just going to have
like a huge drop in population over the coming decades centuries.
So that is sort of what they see as a problem.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Let me just stop you there for a second, let's
pretend that this argument is correct and that there is
a huge drop of some kind or another in population
decades down the road. Does that matter in a like
a really negative, awful kind of way.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, then then the second part of it is that
a lot of these these drops are happening primarily in
wealthy countries with the biggest consumers. So a lot of
pernatalists are really genuinely concerned about the global economy and
what's going to happen to economic growth if this can
needs to happen if we have fewer consumers and if
they're older, and also then we're just gonna have a
(18:04):
sort of lopsided population. We're gonna have a lot of
old people people are living longer and fewer young people
to take care of them. So that is another concern.
Social security, of course, who's gonna pay for that? Things
like that. These are all things that pronata lists will
bring up when they talk about their concerns.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Well, Sophie's talking about talking kind of about sort of
the more mainstream version of this, and then there's a
race science tinged version of it, which is that it's
not just the fear that you know, we're going to
be really old and there's going to be no one
to you know, change our adult typers. It's it's the
fear that white culture will be lost, and like and
(18:44):
you do. They're versions of this kind of concern about
population that don't have that second part, you know, where
they're really just saying like, look, we need we need
birth rates to stay up, and these western countries need
a lot of immigration. Elon Musk as you right bring
up David or hinting at anyway, he's very much not
in favor of just like opening the border because he's
(19:05):
worried about italianness, koreanness, americanness, whatever. And you can really
see like there is some really dark connections here to
eugenics and to some periods of you know, global history
that I think we'd all like to not go back to.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, it is this interesting and very precarious
fine line between what could be sort of well thought
out long term concerns about whether it be underpopulation or
overpopulation as it's related to climate change, and then the
use of those arguments, turning those arguments in by governments
into exercises in eugenics and other sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I think, yes, exactly. And I think the thing that
the people who are in this field, first of all,
demographers are very aware of this dark history. This is
essentially how the field of demography was created with these
sort of ill intentions.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
So okay, so demography as a study is only born
once these sort of of.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
The eugenics movement, essentially of you know, billionaires.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Give academic rigor and backing to their beliefs pretty much. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
An Emily Merchant has written quite a bit about this.
She's a professor at UC Davis, and she has a
whole book on this population bomb, the Making of the
Population Bomb, which is in the sixties. There's this guy
named Paul Erlick from Stanford and he publishes this book
about how, you know, our population is going so fast,
(20:36):
we're not going to be able to sustain this. The
end is coming. We're not going to have enough food,
there's going to be a global famine, and we're all
going to die out, probably by nineteen eighty five. In
this era that everyone's really freaked out. But I think
what demographers want all of us to know is that
Number One, it's very hard to change behavior, very hard
(20:56):
to change birth rates. You're not going to be able
to convince someone to have more kids just because they're
getting like a twelve hundred dollars check or even no
matter how big the amount is.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
By the way, and I think China, once it's reversed
the one child policy, I think China is finding that
out right now.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yes, this is a very sticky thing because it's well,
first of all, it becomes a cultural thing. You know,
how many babies you want to have is influenced by
what you see around you. But then the other thing
that they really want people to know is that it
is really hard to predict the birth behavior, the fertility
behaviors of people far into the future.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Yeah, it is super hard to know what it's going
to take one hundred years. But Elon Ink will still
be rolling along Max in one hundred years. That's my sense, Dana.
That gets us into the something called the Population Well
Being Initiative that you guys reported on at length for
the story. Tell us what it is and what its
(21:54):
relationship is with the pro natalist movement and with Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah. So PWI is a real, relatively new kind of
interdisciplinary research center between economics and population at the University
of Texas at Austin, and it was created by a
ten million dollar donation from Elon Musk, which is extraordinary because,
you know, for a billionaire, ten ten million does not
seem like a lot of money, but it is Elon
(22:20):
Musk's largest donation to hire education to date, and it
is a huge sum for essentially the social sciences. I mean,
usually when rich people give money to hire it it's
to like name a building, or to like fund tuition
for students, or it's like a new you know, it's
like a new wing of something. To sort of give
(22:42):
ten million dollars to the social sciences is unheard of.
And the other thing is that this is an anonymous donation.
Musk has never acknowledged that he gave this donation. UT
Austin has never acknowledged that Musk donated the money. We
only know about it because Sophie got the Musk Foundation
tax records. We saw this ten million dollar line item
(23:03):
to UT Austin and we were like, what is this
donation for? And we just like painstakingly pieced it together.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
So, Danna, what is the relationship between the institute and
the University of Texas of Austin. It's housed within the university.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yes, yeah, so the PWY, the Population Well Being Initiative,
is housed at UT Austin. The lead scholar who kind
of leads it is this guy named Dean Spears. Dean
and Elon have a relationship that we know of via
lots of public records, acts, requests, and emails. And now Dean,
who is an economist by training, is like the kind
(23:41):
of public face of this new pro natalist movement. He
had an op ed in the New York Times, He's
coming out with a book in the fall. He got
a six figure advance from Simon Schuster, and so this
is Musk basically using his money and wealth and influence
to kind of launder his ideas through academia. I mean,
that's you know, that's one way to look at it.
(24:04):
And it's just kind of unheard of that that Musk
is doing this. I mean, this is a guy who
wants to colonize Mars, but now he's basically funding academic
research that aligns with his worldview.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I think a lot of the people who are funding
the initial movement had very specific goals, but you know,
who's to say what people believe in academia? It's I mean,
this is something that the story I hope gets at,
which is just because someone is funding something, does that
mean that they're influencing the research? And does that mean
that the people that who they are funding have the
(24:36):
same beliefs as the funder. So, I mean it's complicated.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I think like he believes this stuff. I think, I mean,
it's always hard.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
I think there's no doubt.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, I mean, like I was thinking back, you know,
the very first time I met Elon Musk. I think
it was like in like fifteen years ago, maybe sixteen
years ago. This was one of the first things that
came out of his mouth was this was anxiety about
global popular collapse, which at the time I was like,
that's a weird way to open a conversation.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
But I'm Elon Musk, and I'm worried about population.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Addition to, you know, like Dana says, attempting to you know,
insert his personal beliefs into mainstream academia, which is totally
a thing that rich people do all the time. He
is also, whether maybe wittingly or unwittingly, creating some legitimacy
to this kind of weird online thing which is kind
(25:30):
of connected to what these demographers are doing and kind
of not connected.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Dan.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
There's also somebody from the Population Well Being Initiative now
inside the Biden White House, a fellow by the name
of Mike Garuso. Jeruso, Yeah, tell us a little bit
about him and how he scored that job.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
So he the Population Well Being Initiative is kind of
this like interdisciplinary group of scholars. Some are full time
at u T Austin, some are post stocks or graduate
student summer at other universities. They've come together, they've done
conferences that they are on a lot of papers together.
Mike Russo was one of the early hires, and now
he is on the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
(26:11):
And then he helped to write like a paper, you know,
like a sort of presidential report. And so now you have,
you know, Musk who's pretty much seen as being like
a de facto endorser of Donald Trump, also wielding his
influence within the current Biden administration.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I'm just wondering if we think any of Elon's other
kind of weird pet causes also might have institutes at
weird at you know, state universities, Like do you think
there's a like University of Colorado simulation like simulation research,
or like a a sort of Joe Rogan Aliens theory
scholar at like somebody who like Elon's got a lot
(26:49):
of weird, quirky beliefs, He's got a lot of money.
There could be other and clearly, what you know, one
kind of thing that's hanging in the background of this
is this is a very rich person who has taken
a very unconventional approach to philanthropy. Right, it's not like
it kind of feels like he's writing these checks, you know,
just off the cuff or something. So who knows, there
could be way in addition to more babies, there could
(27:11):
be you know, more donations.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
What I find kind of funny and ironic is that
he's always railing about how universities are sort of like
where the woke mind virus lies. And now we're seeing
him basically like influencing academia. And I would not be
surprised if there are other donations. You know, Tex records
are always like a year behind in terms of when
we get them. But he's also influencing, like I mean,
(27:34):
there's but there's also a campaign that goes along with.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
This I mean, oh, perhaps not. But I ask Sophie,
is there not at some level potentially a direct or
indirect line between the natalist movement and the sudden emergence
in a post Roe v Way world of crackdowns and
abortion in states across the country.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I think there's absolutely a direct line. I think there's
concern that the line will become more direct. But already
conservative politicians are alluding to these missing people that would
have not been missing had there not been abortion allowed,
who would really be a huge help to our economy
if they existed, because we need more workers. So yes,
there is there is a line there. And that's another
(28:20):
thing that demographers, especially feminist demographers, are concerned about, is
that this concern over population collapse is going to be
you know, misused by people who want to restrict reproductive
freedoms and not just abortion, birth control as well.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
Well.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Sophie, terrific story. Join us again soon when you have
another one. Thank you. To wrap up this week, we're
back on the feud watch. Mister feud is hear himself?
Max Chat It's not oh it's a few day, it's
a feud. It's a feud. Tell us about it. Max, Okay,
you can't take it seriously.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
You are musk Now has brought up this idea a
couple of times. I don't think it's a feud as
much as like a a amusing conspiracy theory, but that
the ex wives of billionaires are a threat to civilization.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Another threat to civilization.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
You know, this guy has a lot these were There
are a lot of threats going on, and I guess,
I guess.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
How many can humanity take?
Speaker 4 (29:20):
I should make a threat board right with all the
woke mind virus population.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Before the threat change for the threat board, I need
a feud rankings.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Okay, so, but this is the sort of objects of
his ire are Melinda Gates and Mackenzie Scott. Those would
be the ex wives of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
There's a sort of political point here, which is that
they're both making donations to left leaning organizations and democratic politicians.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
I do think I think Ewan said it quote might
be the downfall. This was the quote, right, that those
donations are indeed to the downfall of civilization. Point there,
they might be downfall Western civilization.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
I feel like, I don't know, like it would be
irresponsible not to because this is so funny, but I
have to say, like I do I think this is
this is crazy say it, but I do think if
you squint you kind of see like a genius bit
of cyber truck marketing, because you know, this is like
you got the cyber truck, which is this post apocalyptic vehicle.
You can seal the windows, and of course anyone the
(30:25):
buyers of the cyber truck, like, let's be honest, they're
gonna be somewhat receptive, like, you know, my ex wife
is a danger to civilization message, so I would not
be surprised if we start. You know, Tesla doesn't advertise,
but I think this could be a really great way
to increase the audience the buyers of the cyber truck.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Dana, longtime Tesla reporter, thumbs up or thumbs down on
Max's theory.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
This is all way yeah, yeah, I mean the cyber
truck does sort of appeal to this post apocalyptic version
of the world. But I just wanted to be clear.
But he's mad at Musk is sort of mad at
Mackenzie Scott because of her donations to progressive causes, and
then he's upset with Melinda Gates because she endorsed Biden, right,
(31:11):
But I just think it's like, why is he making
such a thing about like what rich women are doing
with their money? Like why is he going after these
two particular women. Is it an extension of his beef
with Jeff and Bill? Is it a new Is it
like an independent beef that stands on its own with
these women?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I think it's an independent beef. The framing of this,
framing them as ex wives, I think sort of creates
and especially Elon as as himself a billionaire with some
ex wives. I feel like it sets it up as
a direct feud rather than a proxy war between Elon
and Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
But it's it's pretty weird. Okay, we're done now this week.
But before we hang up here, I just got to
say again, I don't mind at all this idea of
a global civilization threat board. That's kind of fun, But
we need to prioritize we need the feud rankings first,
and then we can go on to these other pots.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
I don't think we can. I don't think any I
don't think the Mackenzie Scott or Melinda Gates feud makes
the top five. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Definitely not top five. But are they top fifty?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Oh we have a top fifty.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
Yeah, of course, all right, Max, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Right to civilization you got. It's gotta be on the
top fifty.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
By default, you gotta be top fifty. Fair Max, thanks
as always, great to be here, Dana, thank you. This
episode was produced by Stacy Wang. Naomi Shaven and Rayhan
Harmanci are senior editors. The idea for this very show
(32:49):
also came from Rayhon Blake Maple's Handles Engineering, and we
get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott and Toni and
muffarech and Arifat Jalasho Perry. Our supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson.
The elon Ing theme is written and performed by Taka
Yasuzawa and Alex Seviera. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer,
(33:10):
and Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A
big thanks as always to our supporter Joel Weber. I'm
David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review
our show, it'll help other listeners find us. See you
next week.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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