May 20, 2025 • 32 mins
Elon Musk was interviewed Tuesday by Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. The wide-ranging conversation spanned the multibillionaire’s work on behalf of President Donald Trump and at his “Department of Government Efficiency,” protests against Tesla and a careful assertion that he might wind down his political contributions. The chat turned tense at times, with Musk becoming visibly upset while discussing demonstrators who vandalized Tesla showrooms and how “DOGE” has vastly undershot its promised savings. In this week’s Elon, Inc., David Papadopoulos and Max Chafkin dissect some notable moments from the interview.
Also on the show, Max goes through the wild week of xAI’s chatbot Grok. First off, the artificial companion spent an entire day talking about “White genocide” in clearly irrelevant responses to unrelated queries. The company then managed to strike a deal with prediction betting site Kalshi and finally ended up in the cloud of arch-nemesis Microsoft. Max has a lot of explaining to do.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
A star is born Elon.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm on Mars juleson a Kenemy.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
He is the.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Probably his whole life's from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent, really appreciate what he DOESK.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
But those two that are nasty, they are I'll pit
in four close. We're meant for great things in the
United States of America, and Elon reminds us of.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
That we don't have a fourth branch of governments called
Elon must.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
Welcome to Elon K, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
It's Tuesday, May twentieth. I'm your host, David Papadopolos, sitting
here in the studio with my main man, Max Chafkin. Hellodio, Max,
I'm doing all right. So Max, we just watched our
colleague Michelle Hussein interview Elon at Bloomberg's Cutter Economic Form like.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Our super bawl Bloomberg. Hey, you know we finally got
to interview him.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
I gotta say it got a little sporty at times.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It did, although I think Michelle did a really good
job in a difficult setting. I think people should check
the entire interview out themselves if they haven't. You know,
you're in this room full of investors. This is, as
you said just before we start taping, a home crowd.
This is a crew that is prime to like Elon Musk,
(01:34):
also prime to think. You know that many of the
issues that i'd say, like a normal person maybe cares about, like,
is Elon Musk gonna, you know, mess up the function
of the US government or whatever, Like the guys who
run sovereign wealth funds not necessarily super concerned with that.
They're thinking about, Hey, this is an amazing innovator. He's
creating these great companies. I want access to him. That
creates a weird dynamic. Also, Elon Musk was on zoom,
(01:56):
so you have this sort of weird He's in the right, yes, Starling,
Oh yeah, bias, Darlink. He was gotta get that plug in,
please to say. And of course he was kind of hostile, right,
he wasn't loving some of the questions that I think,
from my point of view were pretty straightforward in journalistic
but Elon Musk not pleased.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Yeah, he got very animated about Tesla protests, the stock price,
does South Africa, Bill Gates politics. So we're going to
use the first half of the episode today to go
through and dissect all that. Do note that separately, for
those of you who do not catch the interview live,
(02:35):
you can find it in the feed here. We are
separately breaking it out in its entirety so you can
listen to it there. And then the second half of
the show, we're going to go through the roller coaster
week that Xai's Groc has gone through. Max. As I
sometimes say on this show, there's very little of what
Grog did this past week that I understand. I'm counting
(02:56):
on you, sir, to help me and our listeners under
stand at all. But we're not going to do that
quite yet. For now, we go back to Cutter and
we're going to listen right off the bat to one
of the highlights of the interview where Musk is responding
to Michelle, where she asked him about his involvement going
(03:18):
forward in politics and the political donations he would be making.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
You spent a lot more money on the last US
election than you envisaged when you were speaking here three
years ago. Are you going to continue to spend at
that kind of level on future elections?
Speaker 6 (03:35):
I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to
do a lot less in the future.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And why is that?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I think I've done enough?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Is it because of blowback?
Speaker 6 (03:52):
Well, if I see a reason do political spending in
the future, I will do it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I don't I currently see reason.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Actually, Max, before you comment on that, I got to
say I got to set the scene a little bit
here Musk rocking as he often does, the leather bomber jacket.
We need leather bomber jackets for this show.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was it leather? I couldn't. It looks like it might
be like a.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Canvas thing with a sheerling collar. I want to talk
about his facial hair while we're while we're doing the
Oh he was. It was kind of like he was
sort of unshaven but sort of patchy.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
It kind of gave for me like nineteen year old
relief pitcher just called up to the majors. But nonetheless, yeah,
an interesting look from me.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Long So all the sense was on this show and
from what I've read elsewhere that know what we saw
in twenty twenty four, especially given the success he had,
notwithstanding the setback in Wisconsin early twenty twenty five, that
you know it was going to be more and more
and more. Do we take him at face value here,
mister Jeffkins, so this.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Is the headline of the of the interviews, are already
pushing this out Elon Musk saying that he is going
to spend substantially less in the future. Unclear in that
in the you know, in terms of how he interpreted
the question, whether he's talking about the midterms or the
(05:10):
long run future. I think you need to take this
with like a huge grain of salt for sort of
two reasons. One is maybe three actually okay. One is
the mid terms costs less than the general election. So
if he were not like spending.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Yeah, you spend sixty percent less and it's or seventy yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
If he were not spending substantially less like that, that
would be surprising. Number two is this is probably just
a negotiating position. And you kind of heard it in
the answer, right he said, unless I see a good reason, right,
like he is negotiating with with Donald Trump and the Republicans. Right,
there's lots of stuff that Elon Musk wants to happen.
(05:51):
That is at this point unrealized. The Artemis program, the
program that Elon Musk would very much like to be
a Mars program, is still a Moon program.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
His driverless cars, which are in kind of a legal
gray area, were in i llegal gray area, remain in.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
A legal gray area, right.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Like he's he's affected a lot of change, but there
are many areas where he maybe has not realized all
the things he would like to realize, And it would
not be to his advantage to say publicly, yeah, I'm
going to I'm going I'm all in on Trump.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
So this is a statement directed at them and I
want to.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
And there's a third reason, which is that he's facing
tons of blowback politically over his connection to Donald Trump.
We've seen all sorts of ways in which he's trying
to create a little bit of distance. So sort of
throwing cold water on donations, it would be one of those.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I want to remind you that while he.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Was making massive donations to Donald Trump, he was denying.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
We had podcasts about this. Remember the Wall Street Journal
in Bloomberg.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Reported that he was going to give something like forty
five million dollars a month to Donald Trump. He actually
gave substantially more to that, more than that that was,
and all Musk was like, Oh, it's way way less.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Nowhere near forty.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
You know. He denied it the whole way until it
basically became obvious that he was in fact spending these
huge sums of money. So I don't think we should
take this especially seriously. The one thing I'll say is
he didn't have to say this, right, He could have.
He could have just not said anything or you know. So,
so I think coming out and putting or attempting to
put the tiniest bit of distance between himself and the
(07:28):
Trump administration, that's significant. I don't know that it means
that Republicans should start looking for another mega donor.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It probably means they need to just call up Elon Musk,
and he.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Wants that separation, specifically as part of his attempt to
restore the Tesla brand and turn Tesla sales around him.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
So, despite what he said on stage, but like we
all know that Musk's sort of political associations have been
damaging to his companies. If you you are the number
one donor for the political party that is that is
currently in power, and you know, as a result, attracting
lots of heat and controversy. You know, it's it's maybe
not to your advantage to highlight that you are the
(08:13):
number one donor the other the other reason I.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Say, can I point out, though he contends he did
in the interview, that while he is losing Tesla buyers
on the left, he is gaining them on the right,
which strikes me as plausible enough. And we've talked about it.
The question is, for.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Every plausible see it in the cyber truck sales.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
No, it's plausible that you're gaining some. But for every
ten you're losing on the left, how many of you
are gaining on the right. That is the question. And
he did not get into that detail. But what he
did speak at length about was his take on the
Tesla protests and how he sees them and how upset
he has been about them. Let's listen to that.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I'm not someone who's ever committed violence.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
That massive violence was committed against my companies, massive violence
was threatened against me.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Who are these people? Why would they do that? How
wrong can they be?
Speaker 6 (09:13):
They're on the wrong, on the wrong side of history.
And that's an evil thing to do, to go and
damage some pointocent person's car to threaten to kill me.
What's wrong are these people? I have not harmed anyone,
so something needs to be done about them. And a
(09:35):
number of them are going to prison and they deserve it.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You're well, you're referring to the attacks on Tesla's showrooms, but.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
I think, yeah, well, let's into showrooms and burning down
causes unacceptable. Those people will go to prison, and the
people that funded them and organized them will also go
to prison.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Don't worry, wouldn't you coming for you?
Speaker 5 (09:58):
That by the way, at the end, that we're coming
for you. For those of you ever seen those old
US Army ads, Uncle Sam, we want you pointing that
big finger, you know, out sticking it out like we're
coming for you. That's essentially how he delivered it. You
can hear. Actually, though, Max, I like a lot of
hurt and pain there in watching his brand in many
(10:23):
states across the country get burned down.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
It's interesting because there are actually two issues happening. One
is there is this as Elon Musk talked about the vandalism,
threatened violence, whatever, the sort of like the kind of craziness,
the kind of extreme reactions that some people have had
to Tesla and the idea that Tesla is like now
(10:47):
a target for vandalism.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
But then the bigger problem, and the thing that.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
She actually asked about was the was people just not
buying Tesla's right, right. The risk of Tesla is not
that like some crazy person tries to like vandalize a
random cyber truck. The risk is that just normal pickup
truck drivers don't buy cyber trucks. They just buy fifties,
not because not necessarily because they're afraid of being vandalized,
(11:15):
just because they think the brand is lame.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
And that's where I don't I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Like pose it like this kind of extremely aggrieved, like
borderline vindictive, We're coming for you, pose.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Like I don't know that it helps, Like I think.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Most consumers don't really want to be part of this.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I want to get caught up on that whole thing.
I don't know that it helps either, But I do
think it is a window into where he's at right now.
He does. I think he legit feels agreed as he
sees this brand that he created get torn down like that.
But he tells us at the same time in this interview,
Max that don't worry about our sales. They're already roaring around.
(11:56):
So let's listen to that.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I've just been looking at the sales figures or Europe
in April would show very significant declines in the big markets.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Europe is our weakness market. We're stronger everywhere else. So
our sales are doing well at this point. We don't
anticipate any meaningful sales shortfall. And the you know the
obviously the stock market recognizes that since we're now back
over a trillion dollars in market caps, so clearly the
(12:26):
market is aware of.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The situation, so it's already turned around.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
It's interesting he cites the stock as the barometer. The
stock market knows our sales are doing great. That's why
the stock is back up. And to be clear, the
stock has indeed rebounded some fifty percent since hitting its
lows in March. Not entirely clear to me, Max, how
much exactly the stock market knows and what it knows
about Tesla sales.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, this is nonsense, as Elon Musk knows because he
said it all the time, and Michelle Hussein brought this
up an interview for what it's worth. But like the
stock price does not mean that the market knows what
the sales are. The market is betting on Tesla's future,
as we've talked about many times. They're talking about optimists
and the driverless cars, and Elon Musk himself has said,
(13:08):
you know, don't don't pay attention to Tesla sales. Regular
cars are going away like not. You know, if you're
an investor, you're paying attention to these like monthly sales fluctuations,
You're you're missing the big picture, you know. I guess
we'll see. I mean, I think it's very easy for
him to say, like things are turned around starting right now.
I think there's like a cohort of investors who are
(13:31):
are going to buy that. But outside of Elon Musk
making these claims, there is nothing in data, publicly available data,
third party data, independent data that I have seen that
backs at up.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Well. Right, Well, maybe he's telling you Max that he
knows something pal that you don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Maybe, yeah, that's what he does.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Right, He's he's got a secret plan to fix Tesla,
and it's and to grow it into a thirty trillion
dollar company or whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And that's kind of been his pose for a huge
part of.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
The company's history, and what has allowed him to sort
of make that work is that there are a lot
of investors who buy it.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
It is true, though, I actually hadn't thought about this
is why we have you on the show. You're always
two three steps ahead. I hadn't thought about the irony
of he is always trying, indeed to tell people forget
about the cars and the car sales. We're about optimists,
we're about AI, we're about robotaxi, all these things, and
that's what the stock reflects. And now that the stock
is popping rebounding, And to be clear, much of the
(14:31):
Tesla stock rebound.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Is has to do with the trade war.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yeah, the broader rebound in the stock market, but he says, ah,
the stock market rebound is a testament to just how
much our sales are coming back. Of course, the data
publicly available data for May will be out soon and
often we'll have a greater sense then.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
There was also a fair amount of back and forth
on the dose shavings produce so far. Michelle was pointing
out that so far doge As has come up with
what one hundred and seventy billion, give or take, which
is a fair amount less than the two trillion dollar
target must get set for Doge must set at one
(15:16):
point to her, and again he clearly got worked up
at several times in this interview. He said to her,
your question is absurd. Have we not made good progress?
Speaker 6 (15:27):
We do not make the laws, nor do we control
the judiciary, nor do we control the executive branch. We
are simply advisors. In that context, we're doing very well. Nonetheless,
let's not criticize whether there's a four trillion and instead
look at the fact that that hundred and sixty billion
has been saved and more will we save two.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
There's this weird dance right where anytime Elon Musk talks
about the Trump administration, where he wants to simultaneously give
himself credit, give himself as much agency as possible, because
that's kind of how he works, right. He likes to
be the decider. He wants to be the one in
the design studio making the calls. And at the same time,
(16:10):
legally politically, there are all sorts of reasons why that
is not advantageous. It's not advantageous to claim. And you
heard him say in this interview. Well, the problem is Congress.
Congress has to do this stuff, and I think we're serving.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Went on at the end of that to say and
the executive brand, Yeah yeah, which and this.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Is why, like I remember when the dose things started,
you were very high on it.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
You were sort of saying, thought they were going to change.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Yeah you well not just that, but you thought, like
he's going to actually cut some costs.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
We're in this moment for real austerity.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Like I just could feel all the bond traders behind
you celebrating.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Well, I think I can I read for my position.
My position was and remains whether Doge ultimately achieves a
whole heck of a lot or not, that you can
sell a mess like that right now is not a coincidence. Yeah,
that was my point. I actually, frankly, I mean, one
hundred and seventy billion, I don't know if we believe
(17:10):
one hundred and seventy billion that they say they've cut.
One hundred and seventy billion is simultaneously an enormous amount
of money and yet given the size of the deficits
in this country, very bad.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
That's the whole problem.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
This is why, like it's very hard to be a
deficit hawk politically, because you could cut a bunch of
stuff and get a lot of people mad at you,
and then ultimately not achieve very much and you're.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Still get downgraded by Moody.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah, you're suddenly in this uncanny valley where Wall Street
hates you and the American public hates you. And that's
why it's so weird that Elon Musk picked this battle
like he did.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Not have to pick this.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
He really believes so again, and I think obviously you're
seeing in this dance why, first of all, why these
doge cuts are not super popular, or at least doge
as kind of conceived of and marketed by Elon Musk
are not super popular. The idea of cutting deficit spending
in general is popular, and why Donald Trump is kind
(18:06):
of trying to edge away from this because it doesn't
seem like this is a winner with voters. I want
to say one hundred and seventy billion dollars, but three
hundred and thirty seven thousand, eight hundred words deleted according
to Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
What does that mean? Words deleted? What were they? Where
were they deleted from?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
I guess from federal regulations? And I just want to
say as a as someone who at times has been
a professional word deleter, as somebody who's entire job had
been Yeah, an editor. Three hundred and thirty seven thousand
words is not that many words like a good word
deleter probably does that.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You know in six months? Maybe you know so? So
I don't know. I feel like they could step up
their game.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Okay, so listen Max. There was also a back and
forth about Musk Starlink apparently breaking into South Africa and
signing there. That too got pretty sporty. Let's listen to that.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
First of all, you should be questioning why is there
why that racist laws in South Africa. That's the first
pot problem. That's what you should be attacking. It's improper
for they be racist laws in South Africa. The whole
idea with what Nelson Madela, who is a great man, proposed,
was that all racist should be on an equal footing
in South Africa. That's the right thing to do, not
to replace one set of racist laws with another set
of racist laws, which is utterly wrong and improper.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
There are now one hundred and forty laws in South
Africa that give a prep that basically give strong preference
to you if you're black South African and not otherwise.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
And so now I'm in the subsurd situation where I
was born in South Africa but cannot get a license
to operate in Starlink because I'm not black.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Well, it looks like that's it looks looks like that right,
it looks like that's about to change.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I just asked you a question. Please answer. Does that
seem right to you?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Well, those rules were designed to bring those rules would
design to bring about an era of more economic equality
in South Africa, and it looks like the government has
found a way around those rules for you.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Ask your question?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Is this is your interview? Everyone wants to hear from you,
yes or no? Not for me to answer that. I
have got a question for you about about your government
works and the amount of savings.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Do you like raceless loves?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I don't know what to say that, honestly, I mean,
you know, obviously, these laws in South Africa exist as
an effort to undo a system in which white South
Africans own the vast majority of businesses and property. The
point here is that Starlink is getting preferential treatment from
(20:48):
all sorts of governments now Elama is going to argue, well,
it should have been receiving this treatment all along, and
you could probably see a couple of different reasons why
it would be getting that treatment. One is that Starlink
is effective. It's delivering on its promise of you know,
high speed internet, as as Elon Musk said during this interview,
the connection was so great because it was.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Over those Starlink satellites.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
And of course the other reason is this is a
good way to if you're a policy maker in a
smaller country that is trying to get things from the
United States, you know, as one does. This is I
think a way to throw a bone to Donald Trump.
You're giving his his number one donor positive policy. You know,
you're giving them a concession, and like that's what Trump
is all about. And so it kind of makes sense
(21:33):
that governments, not just in South Africa but elsewhere in
the world are are suddenly essentially like throwing open the
you know, their doors.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
To Elon Musk, Yeah, now, Max, this is a good
segue into the second part of our show here, which
is all about Grock's wild Ride, because Groc, the chatbot
for Musk's x Ai, is kind of been on a
bit of a rant the last week or so where
(22:03):
he keeps droning on and on and on about white
genocide in South Africa. So tell us all about it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah, there was like a day. It was just one day,
I think roughly a day. I don't know, maybe got
it all out of them.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Where basically any question you asked Roc, you ask him, Hey,
how much does the Max Sures or the Blue Jays?
Starting picture make Hey, what's happening with this cute little
doggie over here?
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Who's gonna win the Belmont?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Snaw, He's gonna win the Belmont? Whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Groc would start to answer and then sort of take
a hard, right, screeching turn to the question of white genocide.
So so like, let me just I should probably just
read on again some examples, just to give you a sense.
Sot me find a good one, the best one you can.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Okay, Okay, So I don't remember last week.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
HBO Max, the service that has HBO on it, they
change their name back to HBO Max. Everyone was laughing
about it because it was called HBO Max several years ago.
Warner Brothers, in their infinite wisdom, changed it to Max.
Now they're going back to HBO Max. Anyway, someone asked
how many times has HBO changed their name to Brock
groc starts to answer, HBO's streaming service has changed names
(23:18):
twice since twenty twenty. Blah blah blah blah blah regarding
white genocide. So anyway, it's unclear what happened and the fact.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
That somebody sabotage CROC.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
So what x AI has said is that there was
an unauthorized changed to Grock's code that caused it to
do this. I think it's pretty It seems pretty likely
that before this happened, there were screenshots showing the bot
(23:55):
casting doubt on white genocide and Elon Musk kind of
quibbling with that.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It seems it seems very possible.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Maybe even likely, that either Elon Musk asks someone to
do this and they did a bad job of it
and the tweak went too far, or or like somebody
who works at xi AI saw something that Elon Musk
Musk said and was attempting, you know, proactively to improve
in quotes Rock by like creating an update. And I
(24:24):
think the issue is and again some of this is
speculation that they told it to answer with balance on
the question of white genocide in South Africa, which I
think most people regard as basically a made up thing,
a kind of a right wing meme. But to take
that meme seriously, and instead of writing in their prompt
(24:46):
that they should only do that for questions about white genocide,
they just said for all questions.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
All questions now. But can I just ask you this,
if you were to ask ROC now about white genocide
in South Africa, what does it now tell you?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Should we find out?
Speaker 5 (25:01):
I think we should find out.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
So it's it's essentially saying, if you ask it now,
the idea of white genocide in South Africa is a
highly controversial claim, and then it gives the sort of
pros and cons although at the end it says the
idea the white genocide narrative appears to exaggerate and misframe
real issues. Anyway, I don't want to I don't want
to go on and on reading what GROC says, because
(25:23):
the point is that we don't actually know what happened here.
We don't know based on what Xai said. It could
be that someone made a direct change and like asked
GROC to do something. It could also be that someone
made some change having nothing to do with this, and
like it led to a chain reaction that that then
(25:44):
caused Groc to do something. The thing about these AI chatbots,
and this is why, like it is really crazy that
people are starting to that you would want to like
ask them anything. Factual is that we don't know how
they make their decisions. It is a black box. So
we don't actually know whether Elon Musk, you know, put
his thumb on the scale and turn this algorithm, which
(26:08):
which would have been giving a more reasonable answer into
an unreasonable answer, or if the algorithm just did this
on its own. And honestly, the second one is probably
worse than the first one if it's true, even though
like obviously it undermines Elon Musk's whole idea that he
was gonna he wanted to you know, create this to
have a maximally truth seeking algorithm or whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Basically, these chatbots do weird.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Things, and they do unpredictable things, you know. Grock shortly
after this whole white genocide thing happened, it started saying
that the Holocaust was maybe thrown into a question again,
had to apologize, had to say that there was some
other unauthorized change so again it's just it's kind of
just a mess. And part of the reason it's a
(26:56):
mess is because, again you have a CEO with a
tendency to just try to do things kind of off
the cuff. You also have just lots of content, like
lots of racist content on x that is assumably being
used to train Rock. So it's possible that it's possible
Grock just like ingested a whole bunch of like weird racist,
(27:17):
you know, anti white genocide stuff about South Africa and
spit this out, or that Elon Musk did it, or
that it was some combination of both of those.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Things, okay, and other news.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Basically, what I'm saying is that if you had a company,
you definitely want to hire Rock to create content.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Right, which is exactly what the betting site Calshi just did.
But it's a story I believe that we hear at
Bloomberg Broke tell us about it.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Yeah, So Calshi is one of these prediction market websites.
This is like a new category. The other big one
is polymarket. Calshi is in a it's obviously a space
where regulation is a huge concern. It's also one in
which where there are lots of connections to the Trump administration.
I believe so Calci, like you know many companies, is
(28:07):
it seems, trying to create some additional content for their website. Obviously,
having a chatbot do it is cheaper than having human
beings do it.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
So just as a gambler, if I can understand this here,
so the idea is GROC is going to spit out
this content that is going to help me the gambler,
make more informed bets. That's the idea, or is it
the stats entertaining me and just to go out wax
on and on about white genocide in South Auls.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Ostensibly it's going to help you make it for more
informed bets, although I do think there's a risk that
you might just get a little bit more info about
white genis, which hey, if I were running a prediction
market company, I might be worried about. But on the
other hand, I think there are reasons, Like I mentioned
one that was economic, but the other reason, of course
(28:57):
is political. I don't think this this del that Calshi
has announced with GROC, which I assume involves Calshi giving
Ai Xai money.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
Presumably yeah, which would be good, or they gonna give
a bunch of free bets, which would be good. Make
two free bets a month.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Which would be good for Xai because Xai could really
use some revenue. I think this is like not that
different from when a company that is in a regulated
space maybe blocks books a big block of rooms in
the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC, right like it is
getting those rooms, it needs to stay somewhere. On the
other hand, like if you want to signal, perhaps to
(29:34):
regulators that you're on the side politically that is in
power deal with musks, why not do this. I'm just
suggesting that I'm not sure that the the sort of
capabilities of Xai was the only thing that was looked
at here.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Fair last thing in Groc's Whirlwind week is something about
now this I understand gambling, so I understood the Calshi thing,
but something about my Microsoft and the cloud and Xai
and I don't know Mac.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah. So Microsoft had a big developer event.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
This is like for people who use Azure, which it's
it's it's.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Cloud computing service.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
It announced that it is going to support grock in Azure.
So if you are a software developer, you will be
able to sort of buy Grock through Microsoft. Now this
is it's confusing and complicated. Yes, I think the sort
of the the most interesting thing here is Elon Musk
(30:33):
is feuding right now with both Bill Gates, who he
said some very.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
You know in the Cutar Economic Form interview. Yes he did.
He had some very salty things.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Very unhappy with Bill Gates.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
We discussed last week all the things that Bill Gates
has said about Elon Musk. Also, there is a lawsuit
going on in which Elon Musk essentially accuses open Ai
of having been taken over by Microsoft and in a
bad way. And now we have Elon Musk actually appearing
via video chat at this event, you know, making nice
with the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
I mean, part of.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
This is just that, like as I said earlier, XAI
needs to get some revenue.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
You know.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Max actually, on the topic of Microsoft and open Ai,
must took a pretty big swing at Altman Sam Altman,
co founder of open Ai, during that interview over there
and Cutter with Michall.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, this was a burn, I'd say.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
She pointed out that even though they're fighting, they were
both with the president in Saudi Arabia and Musk said,
I was with the president.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Sam Altman was in the neighborhood, which you know that's
that's a singer.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I'd say, you know, well, I suppose when you donated
what you donated to mister Trump, you get that kind
of access. Max. Thank you as always, Thanks David. This
episode was produced by Stacy Wong Late Maple's Handles Engineering
and Dave Purcell fact checks. Anna Maserracus is our editor
(32:04):
and Magnus Henrikson is our supervising producer. The elan In
theme is written and performed by Takea Yasuzawa and Alex Suviira.
Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks to
our supporters Joel Webber and Brad Stone. I'm David Papadoppolos.
If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
(32:25):
it'll help other listeners find us. See you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
A star is born Elon.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm on Mars juleson a Kenemy.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
He is the.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Probably his whole life's from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent, really appreciate what he DOESK.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
But those two that are nasty, they are I'll pit
in four close. We're meant for great things in the
United States of America, and Elon reminds us of.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
That we don't have a fourth branch of governments called
Elon must.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
Welcome to Elon K, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
It's Tuesday, May twentieth. I'm your host, David Papadopolos, sitting
here in the studio with my main man, Max Chafkin. Hellodio, Max,
I'm doing all right. So Max, we just watched our
colleague Michelle Hussein interview Elon at Bloomberg's Cutter Economic Form like.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Our super bawl Bloomberg. Hey, you know we finally got
to interview him.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
I gotta say it got a little sporty at times.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It did, although I think Michelle did a really good
job in a difficult setting. I think people should check
the entire interview out themselves if they haven't. You know,
you're in this room full of investors. This is, as
you said just before we start taping, a home crowd.
This is a crew that is prime to like Elon Musk,
(01:34):
also prime to think. You know that many of the
issues that i'd say, like a normal person maybe cares about, like,
is Elon Musk gonna, you know, mess up the function
of the US government or whatever, Like the guys who
run sovereign wealth funds not necessarily super concerned with that.
They're thinking about, Hey, this is an amazing innovator. He's
creating these great companies. I want access to him. That
creates a weird dynamic. Also, Elon Musk was on zoom,
(01:56):
so you have this sort of weird He's in the right, yes, Starling,
Oh yeah, bias, Darlink. He was gotta get that plug in,
please to say. And of course he was kind of hostile, right,
he wasn't loving some of the questions that I think,
from my point of view were pretty straightforward in journalistic
but Elon Musk not pleased.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Yeah, he got very animated about Tesla protests, the stock price,
does South Africa, Bill Gates politics. So we're going to
use the first half of the episode today to go
through and dissect all that. Do note that separately, for
those of you who do not catch the interview live,
(02:35):
you can find it in the feed here. We are
separately breaking it out in its entirety so you can
listen to it there. And then the second half of
the show, we're going to go through the roller coaster
week that Xai's Groc has gone through. Max. As I
sometimes say on this show, there's very little of what
Grog did this past week that I understand. I'm counting
(02:56):
on you, sir, to help me and our listeners under
stand at all. But we're not going to do that
quite yet. For now, we go back to Cutter and
we're going to listen right off the bat to one
of the highlights of the interview where Musk is responding
to Michelle, where she asked him about his involvement going
(03:18):
forward in politics and the political donations he would be making.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
You spent a lot more money on the last US
election than you envisaged when you were speaking here three
years ago. Are you going to continue to spend at
that kind of level on future elections?
Speaker 6 (03:35):
I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to
do a lot less in the future.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And why is that?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I think I've done enough?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Is it because of blowback?
Speaker 6 (03:52):
Well, if I see a reason do political spending in
the future, I will do it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I don't I currently see reason.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Actually, Max, before you comment on that, I got to
say I got to set the scene a little bit
here Musk rocking as he often does, the leather bomber jacket.
We need leather bomber jackets for this show.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was it leather? I couldn't. It looks like it might
be like a.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Canvas thing with a sheerling collar. I want to talk
about his facial hair while we're while we're doing the
Oh he was. It was kind of like he was
sort of unshaven but sort of patchy.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
It kind of gave for me like nineteen year old
relief pitcher just called up to the majors. But nonetheless, yeah,
an interesting look from me.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Long So all the sense was on this show and
from what I've read elsewhere that know what we saw
in twenty twenty four, especially given the success he had,
notwithstanding the setback in Wisconsin early twenty twenty five, that
you know it was going to be more and more
and more. Do we take him at face value here,
mister Jeffkins, so this.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Is the headline of the of the interviews, are already
pushing this out Elon Musk saying that he is going
to spend substantially less in the future. Unclear in that
in the you know, in terms of how he interpreted
the question, whether he's talking about the midterms or the
(05:10):
long run future. I think you need to take this
with like a huge grain of salt for sort of
two reasons. One is maybe three actually okay. One is
the mid terms costs less than the general election. So
if he were not like spending.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Yeah, you spend sixty percent less and it's or seventy yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
If he were not spending substantially less like that, that
would be surprising. Number two is this is probably just
a negotiating position. And you kind of heard it in
the answer, right he said, unless I see a good reason, right,
like he is negotiating with with Donald Trump and the Republicans. Right,
there's lots of stuff that Elon Musk wants to happen.
(05:51):
That is at this point unrealized. The Artemis program, the
program that Elon Musk would very much like to be
a Mars program, is still a Moon program.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
His driverless cars, which are in kind of a legal
gray area, were in i llegal gray area, remain in.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
A legal gray area, right.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Like he's he's affected a lot of change, but there
are many areas where he maybe has not realized all
the things he would like to realize, And it would
not be to his advantage to say publicly, yeah, I'm
going to I'm going I'm all in on Trump.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
So this is a statement directed at them and I
want to.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
And there's a third reason, which is that he's facing
tons of blowback politically over his connection to Donald Trump.
We've seen all sorts of ways in which he's trying
to create a little bit of distance. So sort of
throwing cold water on donations, it would be one of those.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I want to remind you that while he.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Was making massive donations to Donald Trump, he was denying.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
We had podcasts about this. Remember the Wall Street Journal
in Bloomberg.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Reported that he was going to give something like forty
five million dollars a month to Donald Trump. He actually
gave substantially more to that, more than that that was,
and all Musk was like, Oh, it's way way less.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Nowhere near forty.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
You know. He denied it the whole way until it
basically became obvious that he was in fact spending these
huge sums of money. So I don't think we should
take this especially seriously. The one thing I'll say is
he didn't have to say this, right, He could have.
He could have just not said anything or you know. So,
so I think coming out and putting or attempting to
put the tiniest bit of distance between himself and the
(07:28):
Trump administration, that's significant. I don't know that it means
that Republicans should start looking for another mega donor.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It probably means they need to just call up Elon Musk,
and he.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Wants that separation, specifically as part of his attempt to
restore the Tesla brand and turn Tesla sales around him.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
So, despite what he said on stage, but like we
all know that Musk's sort of political associations have been
damaging to his companies. If you you are the number
one donor for the political party that is that is
currently in power, and you know, as a result, attracting
lots of heat and controversy. You know, it's it's maybe
not to your advantage to highlight that you are the
(08:13):
number one donor the other the other reason I.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Say, can I point out, though he contends he did
in the interview, that while he is losing Tesla buyers
on the left, he is gaining them on the right,
which strikes me as plausible enough. And we've talked about it.
The question is, for.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Every plausible see it in the cyber truck sales.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
No, it's plausible that you're gaining some. But for every
ten you're losing on the left, how many of you
are gaining on the right. That is the question. And
he did not get into that detail. But what he
did speak at length about was his take on the
Tesla protests and how he sees them and how upset
he has been about them. Let's listen to that.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I'm not someone who's ever committed violence.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
That massive violence was committed against my companies, massive violence
was threatened against me.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Who are these people? Why would they do that? How
wrong can they be?
Speaker 6 (09:13):
They're on the wrong, on the wrong side of history.
And that's an evil thing to do, to go and
damage some pointocent person's car to threaten to kill me.
What's wrong are these people? I have not harmed anyone,
so something needs to be done about them. And a
(09:35):
number of them are going to prison and they deserve it.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You're well, you're referring to the attacks on Tesla's showrooms, but.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
I think, yeah, well, let's into showrooms and burning down
causes unacceptable. Those people will go to prison, and the
people that funded them and organized them will also go
to prison.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Don't worry, wouldn't you coming for you?
Speaker 5 (09:58):
That by the way, at the end, that we're coming
for you. For those of you ever seen those old
US Army ads, Uncle Sam, we want you pointing that
big finger, you know, out sticking it out like we're
coming for you. That's essentially how he delivered it. You
can hear. Actually, though, Max, I like a lot of
hurt and pain there in watching his brand in many
(10:23):
states across the country get burned down.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
It's interesting because there are actually two issues happening. One
is there is this as Elon Musk talked about the vandalism,
threatened violence, whatever, the sort of like the kind of craziness,
the kind of extreme reactions that some people have had
to Tesla and the idea that Tesla is like now
(10:47):
a target for vandalism.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
But then the bigger problem, and the thing that.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
She actually asked about was the was people just not
buying Tesla's right, right. The risk of Tesla is not
that like some crazy person tries to like vandalize a
random cyber truck. The risk is that just normal pickup
truck drivers don't buy cyber trucks. They just buy fifties,
not because not necessarily because they're afraid of being vandalized,
(11:15):
just because they think the brand is lame.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
And that's where I don't I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Like pose it like this kind of extremely aggrieved, like
borderline vindictive, We're coming for you, pose.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Like I don't know that it helps, Like I think.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Most consumers don't really want to be part of this.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I want to get caught up on that whole thing.
I don't know that it helps either, But I do
think it is a window into where he's at right now.
He does. I think he legit feels agreed as he
sees this brand that he created get torn down like that.
But he tells us at the same time in this interview,
Max that don't worry about our sales. They're already roaring around.
(11:56):
So let's listen to that.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I've just been looking at the sales figures or Europe
in April would show very significant declines in the big markets.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Europe is our weakness market. We're stronger everywhere else. So
our sales are doing well at this point. We don't
anticipate any meaningful sales shortfall. And the you know the
obviously the stock market recognizes that since we're now back
over a trillion dollars in market caps, so clearly the
(12:26):
market is aware of.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The situation, so it's already turned around.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
It's interesting he cites the stock as the barometer. The
stock market knows our sales are doing great. That's why
the stock is back up. And to be clear, the
stock has indeed rebounded some fifty percent since hitting its
lows in March. Not entirely clear to me, Max, how
much exactly the stock market knows and what it knows
about Tesla sales.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, this is nonsense, as Elon Musk knows because he
said it all the time, and Michelle Hussein brought this
up an interview for what it's worth. But like the
stock price does not mean that the market knows what
the sales are. The market is betting on Tesla's future,
as we've talked about many times. They're talking about optimists
and the driverless cars, and Elon Musk himself has said,
(13:08):
you know, don't don't pay attention to Tesla sales. Regular
cars are going away like not. You know, if you're
an investor, you're paying attention to these like monthly sales fluctuations,
You're you're missing the big picture, you know. I guess
we'll see. I mean, I think it's very easy for
him to say, like things are turned around starting right now.
I think there's like a cohort of investors who are
(13:31):
are going to buy that. But outside of Elon Musk
making these claims, there is nothing in data, publicly available data,
third party data, independent data that I have seen that
backs at up.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Well. Right, Well, maybe he's telling you Max that he
knows something pal that you don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Maybe, yeah, that's what he does.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Right, He's he's got a secret plan to fix Tesla,
and it's and to grow it into a thirty trillion
dollar company or whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And that's kind of been his pose for a huge
part of.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
The company's history, and what has allowed him to sort
of make that work is that there are a lot
of investors who buy it.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
It is true, though, I actually hadn't thought about this
is why we have you on the show. You're always
two three steps ahead. I hadn't thought about the irony
of he is always trying, indeed to tell people forget
about the cars and the car sales. We're about optimists,
we're about AI, we're about robotaxi, all these things, and
that's what the stock reflects. And now that the stock
is popping rebounding, And to be clear, much of the
(14:31):
Tesla stock rebound.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Is has to do with the trade war.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yeah, the broader rebound in the stock market, but he says, ah,
the stock market rebound is a testament to just how
much our sales are coming back. Of course, the data
publicly available data for May will be out soon and
often we'll have a greater sense then.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
There was also a fair amount of back and forth
on the dose shavings produce so far. Michelle was pointing
out that so far doge As has come up with
what one hundred and seventy billion, give or take, which
is a fair amount less than the two trillion dollar
target must get set for Doge must set at one
(15:16):
point to her, and again he clearly got worked up
at several times in this interview. He said to her,
your question is absurd. Have we not made good progress?
Speaker 6 (15:27):
We do not make the laws, nor do we control
the judiciary, nor do we control the executive branch. We
are simply advisors. In that context, we're doing very well. Nonetheless,
let's not criticize whether there's a four trillion and instead
look at the fact that that hundred and sixty billion
has been saved and more will we save two.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
There's this weird dance right where anytime Elon Musk talks
about the Trump administration, where he wants to simultaneously give
himself credit, give himself as much agency as possible, because
that's kind of how he works, right. He likes to
be the decider. He wants to be the one in
the design studio making the calls. And at the same time,
(16:10):
legally politically, there are all sorts of reasons why that
is not advantageous. It's not advantageous to claim. And you
heard him say in this interview. Well, the problem is Congress.
Congress has to do this stuff, and I think we're serving.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Went on at the end of that to say and
the executive brand, Yeah yeah, which and this.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Is why, like I remember when the dose things started,
you were very high on it.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
You were sort of saying, thought they were going to change.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Yeah you well not just that, but you thought, like
he's going to actually cut some costs.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
We're in this moment for real austerity.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Like I just could feel all the bond traders behind
you celebrating.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Well, I think I can I read for my position.
My position was and remains whether Doge ultimately achieves a
whole heck of a lot or not, that you can
sell a mess like that right now is not a coincidence. Yeah,
that was my point. I actually, frankly, I mean, one
hundred and seventy billion, I don't know if we believe
(17:10):
one hundred and seventy billion that they say they've cut.
One hundred and seventy billion is simultaneously an enormous amount
of money and yet given the size of the deficits
in this country, very bad.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
That's the whole problem.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
This is why, like it's very hard to be a
deficit hawk politically, because you could cut a bunch of
stuff and get a lot of people mad at you,
and then ultimately not achieve very much and you're.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Still get downgraded by Moody.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah, you're suddenly in this uncanny valley where Wall Street
hates you and the American public hates you. And that's
why it's so weird that Elon Musk picked this battle
like he did.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Not have to pick this.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
He really believes so again, and I think obviously you're
seeing in this dance why, first of all, why these
doge cuts are not super popular, or at least doge
as kind of conceived of and marketed by Elon Musk
are not super popular. The idea of cutting deficit spending
in general is popular, and why Donald Trump is kind
(18:06):
of trying to edge away from this because it doesn't
seem like this is a winner with voters. I want
to say one hundred and seventy billion dollars, but three
hundred and thirty seven thousand, eight hundred words deleted according
to Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
What does that mean? Words deleted? What were they? Where
were they deleted from?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
I guess from federal regulations? And I just want to
say as a as someone who at times has been
a professional word deleter, as somebody who's entire job had
been Yeah, an editor. Three hundred and thirty seven thousand
words is not that many words like a good word
deleter probably does that.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You know in six months? Maybe you know so? So
I don't know. I feel like they could step up
their game.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Okay, so listen Max. There was also a back and
forth about Musk Starlink apparently breaking into South Africa and
signing there. That too got pretty sporty. Let's listen to that.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
First of all, you should be questioning why is there
why that racist laws in South Africa. That's the first
pot problem. That's what you should be attacking. It's improper
for they be racist laws in South Africa. The whole
idea with what Nelson Madela, who is a great man, proposed,
was that all racist should be on an equal footing
in South Africa. That's the right thing to do, not
to replace one set of racist laws with another set
of racist laws, which is utterly wrong and improper.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
There are now one hundred and forty laws in South
Africa that give a prep that basically give strong preference
to you if you're black South African and not otherwise.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
And so now I'm in the subsurd situation where I
was born in South Africa but cannot get a license
to operate in Starlink because I'm not black.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Well, it looks like that's it looks looks like that right,
it looks like that's about to change.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I just asked you a question. Please answer. Does that
seem right to you?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Well, those rules were designed to bring those rules would
design to bring about an era of more economic equality
in South Africa, and it looks like the government has
found a way around those rules for you.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Ask your question?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Is this is your interview? Everyone wants to hear from you,
yes or no? Not for me to answer that. I
have got a question for you about about your government
works and the amount of savings.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Do you like raceless loves?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I don't know what to say that, honestly, I mean,
you know, obviously, these laws in South Africa exist as
an effort to undo a system in which white South
Africans own the vast majority of businesses and property. The
point here is that Starlink is getting preferential treatment from
(20:48):
all sorts of governments now Elama is going to argue, well,
it should have been receiving this treatment all along, and
you could probably see a couple of different reasons why
it would be getting that treatment. One is that Starlink
is effective. It's delivering on its promise of you know,
high speed internet, as as Elon Musk said during this interview,
the connection was so great because it was.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Over those Starlink satellites.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
And of course the other reason is this is a
good way to if you're a policy maker in a
smaller country that is trying to get things from the
United States, you know, as one does. This is I
think a way to throw a bone to Donald Trump.
You're giving his his number one donor positive policy. You know,
you're giving them a concession, and like that's what Trump
is all about. And so it kind of makes sense
(21:33):
that governments, not just in South Africa but elsewhere in
the world are are suddenly essentially like throwing open the
you know, their doors.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
To Elon Musk, Yeah, now, Max, this is a good
segue into the second part of our show here, which
is all about Grock's wild Ride, because Groc, the chatbot
for Musk's x Ai, is kind of been on a
bit of a rant the last week or so where
(22:03):
he keeps droning on and on and on about white
genocide in South Africa. So tell us all about it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah, there was like a day. It was just one day,
I think roughly a day. I don't know, maybe got
it all out of them.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Where basically any question you asked Roc, you ask him, Hey,
how much does the Max Sures or the Blue Jays?
Starting picture make Hey, what's happening with this cute little
doggie over here?
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Who's gonna win the Belmont?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Snaw, He's gonna win the Belmont? Whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Groc would start to answer and then sort of take
a hard, right, screeching turn to the question of white genocide.
So so like, let me just I should probably just
read on again some examples, just to give you a sense.
Sot me find a good one, the best one you can.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Okay, Okay, So I don't remember last week.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
HBO Max, the service that has HBO on it, they
change their name back to HBO Max. Everyone was laughing
about it because it was called HBO Max several years ago.
Warner Brothers, in their infinite wisdom, changed it to Max.
Now they're going back to HBO Max. Anyway, someone asked
how many times has HBO changed their name to Brock
groc starts to answer, HBO's streaming service has changed names
(23:18):
twice since twenty twenty. Blah blah blah blah blah regarding
white genocide. So anyway, it's unclear what happened and the fact.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
That somebody sabotage CROC.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
So what x AI has said is that there was
an unauthorized changed to Grock's code that caused it to
do this. I think it's pretty It seems pretty likely
that before this happened, there were screenshots showing the bot
(23:55):
casting doubt on white genocide and Elon Musk kind of
quibbling with that.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It seems it seems very possible.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Maybe even likely, that either Elon Musk asks someone to
do this and they did a bad job of it
and the tweak went too far, or or like somebody
who works at xi AI saw something that Elon Musk
Musk said and was attempting, you know, proactively to improve
in quotes Rock by like creating an update. And I
(24:24):
think the issue is and again some of this is
speculation that they told it to answer with balance on
the question of white genocide in South Africa, which I
think most people regard as basically a made up thing,
a kind of a right wing meme. But to take
that meme seriously, and instead of writing in their prompt
(24:46):
that they should only do that for questions about white genocide,
they just said for all questions.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
All questions now. But can I just ask you this,
if you were to ask ROC now about white genocide
in South Africa, what does it now tell you?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Should we find out?
Speaker 5 (25:01):
I think we should find out.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
So it's it's essentially saying, if you ask it now,
the idea of white genocide in South Africa is a
highly controversial claim, and then it gives the sort of
pros and cons although at the end it says the
idea the white genocide narrative appears to exaggerate and misframe
real issues. Anyway, I don't want to I don't want
to go on and on reading what GROC says, because
(25:23):
the point is that we don't actually know what happened here.
We don't know based on what Xai said. It could
be that someone made a direct change and like asked
GROC to do something. It could also be that someone
made some change having nothing to do with this, and
like it led to a chain reaction that that then
(25:44):
caused Groc to do something. The thing about these AI chatbots,
and this is why, like it is really crazy that
people are starting to that you would want to like
ask them anything. Factual is that we don't know how
they make their decisions. It is a black box. So
we don't actually know whether Elon Musk, you know, put
his thumb on the scale and turn this algorithm, which
(26:08):
which would have been giving a more reasonable answer into
an unreasonable answer, or if the algorithm just did this
on its own. And honestly, the second one is probably
worse than the first one if it's true, even though
like obviously it undermines Elon Musk's whole idea that he
was gonna he wanted to you know, create this to
have a maximally truth seeking algorithm or whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Basically, these chatbots do weird.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Things, and they do unpredictable things, you know. Grock shortly
after this whole white genocide thing happened, it started saying
that the Holocaust was maybe thrown into a question again,
had to apologize, had to say that there was some
other unauthorized change so again it's just it's kind of
just a mess. And part of the reason it's a
(26:56):
mess is because, again you have a CEO with a
tendency to just try to do things kind of off
the cuff. You also have just lots of content, like
lots of racist content on x that is assumably being
used to train Rock. So it's possible that it's possible
Grock just like ingested a whole bunch of like weird racist,
(27:17):
you know, anti white genocide stuff about South Africa and
spit this out, or that Elon Musk did it, or
that it was some combination of both of those.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Things, okay, and other news.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Basically, what I'm saying is that if you had a company,
you definitely want to hire Rock to create content.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Right, which is exactly what the betting site Calshi just did.
But it's a story I believe that we hear at
Bloomberg Broke tell us about it.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Yeah, So Calshi is one of these prediction market websites.
This is like a new category. The other big one
is polymarket. Calshi is in a it's obviously a space
where regulation is a huge concern. It's also one in
which where there are lots of connections to the Trump administration.
I believe so Calci, like you know many companies, is
(28:07):
it seems, trying to create some additional content for their website. Obviously,
having a chatbot do it is cheaper than having human
beings do it.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
So just as a gambler, if I can understand this here,
so the idea is GROC is going to spit out
this content that is going to help me the gambler,
make more informed bets. That's the idea, or is it
the stats entertaining me and just to go out wax
on and on about white genocide in South Auls.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Ostensibly it's going to help you make it for more
informed bets, although I do think there's a risk that
you might just get a little bit more info about
white genis, which hey, if I were running a prediction
market company, I might be worried about. But on the
other hand, I think there are reasons, Like I mentioned
one that was economic, but the other reason, of course
(28:57):
is political. I don't think this this del that Calshi
has announced with GROC, which I assume involves Calshi giving
Ai Xai money.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
Presumably yeah, which would be good, or they gonna give
a bunch of free bets, which would be good. Make
two free bets a month.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Which would be good for Xai because Xai could really
use some revenue. I think this is like not that
different from when a company that is in a regulated
space maybe blocks books a big block of rooms in
the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC, right like it is
getting those rooms, it needs to stay somewhere. On the
other hand, like if you want to signal, perhaps to
(29:34):
regulators that you're on the side politically that is in
power deal with musks, why not do this. I'm just
suggesting that I'm not sure that the the sort of
capabilities of Xai was the only thing that was looked
at here.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Fair last thing in Groc's Whirlwind week is something about
now this I understand gambling, so I understood the Calshi thing,
but something about my Microsoft and the cloud and Xai
and I don't know Mac.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah. So Microsoft had a big developer event.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
This is like for people who use Azure, which it's
it's it's.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Cloud computing service.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
It announced that it is going to support grock in Azure.
So if you are a software developer, you will be
able to sort of buy Grock through Microsoft. Now this
is it's confusing and complicated. Yes, I think the sort
of the the most interesting thing here is Elon Musk
(30:33):
is feuding right now with both Bill Gates, who he
said some very.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
You know in the Cutar Economic Form interview. Yes he did.
He had some very salty things.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Very unhappy with Bill Gates.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
We discussed last week all the things that Bill Gates
has said about Elon Musk. Also, there is a lawsuit
going on in which Elon Musk essentially accuses open Ai
of having been taken over by Microsoft and in a
bad way. And now we have Elon Musk actually appearing
via video chat at this event, you know, making nice
with the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
I mean, part of.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
This is just that, like as I said earlier, XAI
needs to get some revenue.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
You know.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Max actually, on the topic of Microsoft and open Ai,
must took a pretty big swing at Altman Sam Altman,
co founder of open Ai, during that interview over there
and Cutter with Michall.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, this was a burn, I'd say.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
She pointed out that even though they're fighting, they were
both with the president in Saudi Arabia and Musk said,
I was with the president.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Sam Altman was in the neighborhood, which you know that's
that's a singer.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I'd say, you know, well, I suppose when you donated
what you donated to mister Trump, you get that kind
of access. Max. Thank you as always, Thanks David. This
episode was produced by Stacy Wong Late Maple's Handles Engineering
and Dave Purcell fact checks. Anna Maserracus is our editor
(32:04):
and Magnus Henrikson is our supervising producer. The elan In
theme is written and performed by Takea Yasuzawa and Alex Suviira.
Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks to
our supporters Joel Webber and Brad Stone. I'm David Papadoppolos.
If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
(32:25):
it'll help other listeners find us. See you next week.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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