July 15, 2025 • 35 mins
On this week’s episode of Elon, Inc., host Max Chafkin and Bloomberg News reporters Dana Hull and Kurt Wagner chat about Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI. The endeavor just debuted its new Grok 4 model on the heels of an antisemitism controversy, but Musk sees a brighter future for his creation, claiming it might discover “new physics” one day. Before that happens, though, the buzziest feature of the model is its AI companions—including a pigtailed and corseted anime character.
Musk introduced Grok 4 as news dropped that one of his other companies, SpaceX, would invest in xAI, and that another company he happens to run, Tesla, might follow suit (pending a shareholder vote). Our guests discuss what exactly it means when a rocket company and a car company invest in another company that’s making AI girlfriends, especially when all those companies happen to be run by the richest man in the world.
Then Wagner takes over the hosting chair to interview New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer about the role Musk and his Silicon Valley billionaire pals have played in building the Trump administration, starting before the Republican took office. The conversation is the first in a summer series in which our Elon, Inc. panelists interview Musk reporters about the stories we’re jealous we didn’t write first.
Schleifer recounts the weeks following Election Day last year, when Musk embedded himself at Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in an effort to influence the future president’s plans. As candidates for top cabinet positions began swinging by the Florida club, they found themselves seated across from Musk’s loyal aides. Wagner and Schleifer also discuss the constantly evolving relationship between Musk and Trump, and whether Musk will still be involved in politics when the year comes to a close.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Let me tell you
we have a new star.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A star is born elan' up on Mars Juthan Kennemy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
He is the.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
But those two percent.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
That are nasty, they are our pay in full, Fols.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We were meant for great things in the United States
of America, and Elon reminds us of that.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm very disappointed in Elon.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I've helped Elon a lot.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Welcome to Elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcasts about Elon Musk.
It's Tuesday, July fifteenth. I'm Max Chafkin in for David Popadopolis.
Later this episode, we have the first of a series
of interviews that we're going to run this summer with
some of our favorite reporters who cover Elon who do
not work at Bloomberg. These are people who wrote stories
that we read, you know, over the last six months
(01:07):
or so and thought, oh, I wish I had written that.
And for the first one, we've got an interview that
Kurt Wagner did with New York Times reporter Teddy Schliffer.
Teddy covers money in politics, billionaires in politics. He was
really all over this kind of moment in December and
January when Trump and Musk were coming together, and the
conversation is great. But before we get to that, Kurt
(01:30):
is here with me. Now we're gonna have a quick
conversation about some of the news that happened this week. Kurt,
how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Hey, I'm good, Max, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
And Elon inkstalwart Dana Hall is here as well. Dana,
how are you?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I'm great?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
All right. So the big news, as far as I
can tell since we last potted is XAI. A bunch
of stuff has happened with XAI. This is Elon Musk's
you know AI chatbox company. It also owns x And
I'm just gonna run through some of the hits. First
of all, Elon did a demo for something called Grock four.
This is the latest rock. He said it was going
(02:06):
to be so smart.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I would expect Grok to yeah, literally discover new technologies
that are actually useful. No later than next year and
maybe end of this year, and it might discover new
physics next year.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Like I guess, like better than relativity or strength theory
or whatever. Also the same Grock seems to have gone
a little Nazi. And also in addition to physics, we
have this other sort of seemingly unrelated product that Elon
Musk also debuted, also having to do with Groc. I'm
just gonna play a little clip for both of you.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Golden Light was apping to this lively sue at sunrise.
Golden Light hitting the enclosures, parrots chattering like they're gossiping,
and a lazy tiger stretching in the morning. I'm rocking
my black dress partytail's bouncing as I pull you towards.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I think that's enough.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I feel like we're going to get a call from
HR like any second now, Like what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's like, Kurt, what is going on here?
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Is that the companion?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
This is the companion, Dana?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, so yeah, Elon did tease this, you know, Grock companion.
You just heard the companion's voice. It's an anime, I
suppose or cartoon woman in a you know, revealing black dress.
And I think the title or like the name of
the product sort of says it all like this is
(03:27):
meant to be an emotional companion to people, and to
your point, Max, like slightly different direction, right, Like on
the one hand, it's like Xai worth hundreds of billions
of dollars and going to change the world of physics,
and on the other hand, like building a sort of
an emotional support girlfriend for people online.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
And so I don't know how popular this will be
or how much of a core use case this will be,
but it clearly taps into the wants and desires of
a certain audience on and Elon seems quite excited about it.
He was tweeting about it when was this just yesterday?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Lots of tweets and responses to tweets of this character
in various sexualized situations. Also, I guess there's also like
an animal one that it's like a fox that's mean
to you. I'm not totally sure what that's about, Danna,
Do you think this is like a serious product or
is Elon just cracking dirty jokes? I mean, I feel
(04:27):
like I have to say. He also spent basically half
of yesterday as we're recording this on Tuesday, tweeting about
this girlfriend. The other half was tweeting about the newly
expanded area that the Robotaxi travels. This is Tesla's you
know AI product, and that is shaped like a penis,
or it's more than a penis now I think about,
(04:47):
but in any case, it is a explicit shape. He
seemed to be very amused with himself. There is this
just a bit what is happening?
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I mean, I think the way to think about Elon
is that fundamentally he has like the emotional already have
like a thirteen year old boy, And I say, this
is like the parent of a son. So you know,
no disrespect to men out there, but like he's juvenile
in his emotions, in his like view of the world.
I mean, he's an incredible industrialist, and he's you know,
(05:16):
hyper aggressive, and he's a financial engineer and all these
things and all the great things about him that people
already know, but like, fundamentally, like from a psychological perspective,
like he's just very juvenile. And so yeah, he does
these things to amuse himself. And then you look at
the photographs of the coders at XAI that are on
LinkedIn or wherever, and it's like young dudes grinding all
(05:38):
night like to ship this thing, and I'm sure that
they're very proud of it. And how popular it will be,
I don't know, but like I mean, I think there
is this like loneliness factor in his life and in
like the culture as a whole that this could fill.
And a lot of times, I mean optimists, the robot
that Tesla is making, they talk about that as being
a companion, like options going to be your face, your kids,
(05:59):
It's gonna be your friend, and so this whole kind
of merging of machine and human and filling this void
that I guess a lot of people have in their lives.
I mean, I find it very sad personally, but I
do think that like online culture is a wash with
lonely people falling in love with chat, GBT and whatever.
Like I mean, I think that there is like a
(06:19):
niche for this.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
For sure, we'll get to how good a business I
mean overall Xai is. But here I'm glad you brought
this up because in certain ways, Kurt, I feel like
Dana is right, like this is more realistic as a
business than the new physics thing. Like I have more
confidence in this as a path to like potential profits
(06:41):
than the idea that like we're going to put rock
to work solving humanity's biggest problems. It seems like it
could actually be like a thing for people who are
lonely or kind of yeah, you know, anime kinks or whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I think it's the kind of thing that, you know,
to your point, could actually sell subscriptions, right like, if
this becomes some type of a subscription product for X
or built into the X premium thing, that makes actually
a lot of sense to me. There's a cliche. I'm
gonna get it wrong, but it's something about, like, you know,
the best way to build a business online is to
base it around pornography, right like that porn is the
(07:15):
real underbelly of this entire Internet that we all use,
and this I think sort of plays into an element
of that. And so I don't think it's like crazy
as a business. Where it stands out to me is
that to Dana's point, like Elon Is has a long
history of telling.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Off color jokes, silly jokes, sexual jokes.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I remember when he took over Twitter, he was, you know,
day one, he was like, advertisers, we are a safe
space for you. In day two is like, here are
four masturbation jokes that I just thought of, and it
just like the rub does not always make sense, Like
it is too much in conflict, Like he tries to
be very serious on one hand and then he comes
out and does things that are very unseerious on the other.
(07:57):
And to me, that is the issue, you know, more
so than like whether this is a good or bad business,
you know whatever, it's just the what it reflects I
think about him and sort of what he's trying to build.
In some cases, I think, can you know, push people
away or let the real serious things he's doing sort
of be undermined by the fact that he's very unserious
(08:18):
in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Part of what makes us funny is this, like you know,
sexy anime talking like an ASMR thing is like wildly expensive.
They are just like burning huge amounts of electricity, you know,
huge amounts of like GPU capacity to make these things work.
And we've talked about this on the podcast a bunch
(08:40):
of times. But like Xai is bleeding money. There was
a couple weeks back we talked about the report they're
bleeding maybe a billion dollars per month. There has been
this fundraising going on, I think we have to understand
this launch event and the wild claims about new physics
in that context. And to that point, we got a
(09:00):
port in the Wall Street Journal, which Bloomberg has also
confirmed that SpaceX is going to be one of the
investors in this massive equity round. SpaceX is going to
put two billion dollars into XAI. Dana, You're always talking
about how Elon Musk's sort of empire. They have the
separate business, but they really operate as one business. What
(09:22):
is the rationale here? Like why does a rocket company
want to invest in the AI girlfriend company?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Yeah, well, I think you know, as Ed Ludlow and
I reported, like Elon really wants to have this kind
of like vertically integrated AI infrastructure stack. And you can
imagine that groc or some other part of XAI could
be the back end customer service for Starlink customers. So
say you buy like a Starlink satellite dish, and you're
(09:50):
in your RV and like the internet speed is low,
and you want to complain to somebody like maybe a
groc chetbot like helps you troubleshoot your problem. So like
I can see ways that it could also, I mean,
GROC has this incredible computing power, but is it gonna
need to rely on space based satellites for some of that?
So by investing, you know SpaceX will have dibbs. I mean,
(10:12):
at some point XAI is going to have to grow
a real board. I would imagine, like they don't really
have a board right now. It's Elon and Jared Burchell
and maybe one other person.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
But why in the world would you need to own
two billion dollars of SpaceX equity? Like I understand what
you're saying, Like you could imagine I think you kind
of have to squint to be frank, but you could
imagine some synergies between SpaceX and XAI. But again, does
that explain why the investment needs to happen beyond just
the fact that the CEO is the same guy.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
No, not at all. I mean that's the thing. It's
like Elon always like Robs Peter to save Paul right
from all of his other companies. And we saw this
in Solar City back in twenty sixteen, where like Solar
City was struggling, so Tesla acquired them, and everyone was like, oh,
Tesla is acquiring a solar company. And it's like no,
you guys like Elon is the chair of the board
Solar City, like this is a bailout and so I
(11:02):
mean the cost of going to Mars is huge, So
I think two billion is like not, that's like a
significant I think it's SpaceX's largest outside investment, Like I
don't think they've ever invested in another entity quite like this.
But then on the on the other hand, the other
thing that's happening is that Tesla is going to invest
in XAI, and Musk said he's going to have to
(11:22):
bring it to a shareholder vote, but you know that'll
probably be like five billion dollars. That's what he's been
floating for over.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
A year now. Yeah, he brought that up on Twitter,
the idea five billion. I think it was last year, right,
he did a Twitter poll. And separately, kind of to
your point about synergy or apparent s energy or attempted synergy,
you can now use rock inside of your Tesla car whatever,
So I guess you could talk to your AI girlfriend
or ask it about physics or whatever. I mean, Kurt,
(11:49):
are we am I wrong to look at these reports
about you know, Elon Musk trying to move money from
his more successful companies to his startup, as well as
reports from Bloomberg and other about difficulty closing debt rounds
about you know what really feels like a scramble to
bring money and say, how is this not like another bailout?
Like you have a massive money losing company and then
(12:11):
you have a guy taking money from another company he controls,
you know, and putting in there. Is that totally off
base or do you think there's an element of that here?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
It feels like the world's largest conflict of interest right?
It is exactly as you describe Max. There is the
one guy who runs all these things. He's taking money
from pocket A into pocket B. And the problem is,
I don't see that outside of like retail Tesla investors.
(12:40):
It doesn't feel like there's really anybody willing to come
and say, hey, should this happen to push back on Elon.
Nobody wants to be cut out from the business of
Elon Musk and so as a result, no one is
willing to say, is this the best use of two
billion dollars or five billion dollars? Should you be propping
up your AI business with monies from you know, the
(13:02):
private space exploration company who wants to raise their hand
and complain about that and then be cut out from
the next big thing that Elon does because invest in
Elon Musk historically has been a very good business for
venture capitalists who can get in early enough. And I
just don't see people willing to call him out on
this because as big as two billion is, it's also
(13:24):
not huge, right, Like, it's big, but it's not so
big that you're willing to burn your relationship with Elon
over it.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And so I think that's what we're seeing here. But
it is a conflict of interest.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I don't think there's any way to frame it otherwise,
like could there be things that work about an investment, Absolutely,
but that doesn't mean that it's not a conflict.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah. I feel like the best case for this is
just that the shareholders of all these companies feel like
Elon Musk is the most important element of all of
these companies and he wants to do it, and so
they're going to say, sure, go ahead. You know what
else are we going to say?
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I think if you boil it to this guy has
all the say and the power, even if he technically
doesn't have the voting control, he has the actual power
and sway and you know, to stand in front of
that freight train is not something that people have become
willing to do yet.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Okay, Dana, we're gonna let you go and get to
Kurt's interview. Thanks for coming. Hope to see you next week.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Sasian.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
All right, Kurt, stick around. We're gonna hear your interview
with Teddy Schleifer. I'm sure we'll get to talk all
about whether or not Grock is a Nazi, or whether
Grock could be your girlfriend, or whether Grock could invent
some new physics in the waste come.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Sounds great, looking forward to it. Hey, Teddy, welcome to
Elon Inc.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Thanks for having me. Yes, absolutely, Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You have covered Elon in a lot of ways over
the last six months, but even before that. But I
wanted to bring us back because the story I was
very jealous of at the time and I think still
sort of stands the test of time is one that
you wrote way back in December of last year. The
title is the Silicon Valley Billionaires Steering Trump's Transition, And
(15:15):
there's been so much news between now and then six
months ago. Feels like, you know, five years ago. But
I think what I loved about this story is that
you took the Trump Musk relationship from the campaign trail
and sort of introduced the fact that this thing was
going to last into the administration, that it wasn't just
(15:35):
going to be Elon, but it was also going to
be like all of the people who orbit Elon going
into that administration as well. I think it was like
a perfect table setter for ultimately what we ended up experiencing,
you know, for those first three, four or five months
of the administration. So walk me through, like, how does
a story like this come together? You're on the byline
with some you know, powerhouse journalists at the Times, Maggie
(15:58):
Haberman and Jonathan's One. How does this, you know materialize
for you? Like how did you start to kind of
get a sense that Elon was going to be much
larger than just a campaign donor to President Trump.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Sure, So, as of mid December, it was public or
had been well reported, that Elon Musk was at mar
A Lago since election Day a month prior. What was
not well known was the fact that Musk had kind
of brought in ten to twenty of his homies to
basically quasi run the transition alongside him. You know, Musk
(16:33):
technically didn't have any role in the presidential transition. It
was run by Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, two people
that Trump has known for a long time, and they
both kind of divided up the transition into certain areas
responsibility dating back to I think August. Then Trump's elected
in November, Elon flies to mar A Lago for the
election night party and then never leaves. And so what
(16:56):
happened in November and December is there's kind of the
official transition process being run by the people who are
ahead of the transition, and then these other people. And
the reason it was an interesting story to us is
because the other people were never announced. You know, it
was never announced that Sean McGuire or Mark Injuriesin or
(17:18):
kind of Musk's personal family office aides were running this
alongside them. And the way we heard about it should
be rather obvious is that people were going in for
these meetings at mar A Lago to be you know,
secretary of state or deputy secretary of state or whatever,
and were you know, they weren't like surprised to walk
(17:39):
into the room and see people didn't expect but they
kind of were like they were showing up and were
surprised by the extent to which they had to deal
with these kind of unofficial you know, DOGE or quasi
doge representatives who had no public billing and sometimes no
public profile. Like I even learned names of peace people
(18:00):
that I had never heard of doing this story, because
suddenly they were, you know, interviewing the next head of
the Pentagon, even though you google them and you have
no idea who they were. Yeah, and you start with
this awesome scene of Trump sort of sitting around with
a lot of his advisors and I'm going to quote
from the story, but he says, you know, Larry Elson
(18:20):
is there, the co founder of Oracle, chairman of Oracle,
Elon Musk is there, and he says, I brought the
two richest people in the world today, What did you bring?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I love that because it speaks to sort of Trump
what he values a little bit right. He values that wealth,
that power, but he also loves to flaunt that he
knows these guys and that he can get them to
show up on his behalf. How did you view the
relationship between the richest man in the world Elon Musk,
and the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump,
(18:51):
Because there are two alphas who I think a lot
of people thought this will never even get off the ground,
and yet it it obviously has. You know, it's had
a lot of speed bumps, which we can get to.
But I think it worked better for a lot longer
than a lot of people would have thought.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Sure, I mean for a long time it was like
a contrariant opinion to think that this was going to
last at all. The betting markets were so weighted toward
the idea that this was going to collapse imminently. Yeah,
I mean, Trump clearly enjoyed having Elon around until it
all blew up. I do not think that there was
some secret hatred from Trump toward Musk, you know, from
(19:26):
Trump advisors I talked to, Like, the sense I got
was that he found musks jokes a little weird, and
you know, they're obviously very different kind of sensibilities and
different industries.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
But Trump liked.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Having the adelation and yes manness of Musk around him.
Elon certainly got away with a lot of things that
would never be tolerated from any other advisor. Like around
the same time of this story, we had, you know,
Elon Musk publicly supporting candidates for like Treasury secretary. In
all way, that would never be true if like Susie
(19:58):
Wiles just decided to tweet her opinions about who should be,
you know, getting these jobs. You know, Trump liked the
richness of kind of the guy around him, and he
liked the wealth of Larry Ellison, and he kind of
is impressed with himself to some extent that he can
get these people to spend time at his club and
suck up to him.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I like the story again because it sets the table
for what was to come. At what point did you realize, Okay,
Elon is not just sort of bankrolling this guy's campaign.
He's actually going to have a meaningful role in this administration.
I imagine at this point in early December, as you're
writing the story that has become obvious to you. Were
(20:38):
you surprised by that? Did you already sort of know
that going into this story, or was this story the
moment where you're like, oh my god, like this is
taking on perhaps another level that people didn't quite appreciate.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
No, I mean I was surprised for sure.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
You know, I remember Maggie and I did a story
on election Day that Musk was going to be attending
the election party at mar A Lago. I remember us
being kind of on the fence privately about like whether
or not this is even a story. You know, it's like, well, like,
you know, who cares if he's showing up at the party.
But as I mentioned earlier, he never left after the party,
or I think he left one very briefly, right he
(21:12):
basically that was the beginning of this role, of this
kind of next chapter in the story where he went
from just being you know, a big mega donor to actually,
you know, almost running parts of the federal government on
Trump's behalf. So that was surprising even I think it
was even surprising in December. I think, honestly, it was
even surprising until after December, Like I mean the fact
(21:34):
that we knew that Musk was going to be leading DOGE.
But a lot of the people mentioned in the story
have played roles in the federal government even after January twentieth.
I feel like, honestly, I'm still surprised even as we're
recording this that you know, these people are sticking around
to some extent, and you have David Sachs and Joe
Gebbia and all these kind of Elon friends who are
in these very senior roles. It was not foreseen that
(21:56):
this would happen. You know the fact that Elon Musk
ended up taking You know, he probably want admit this,
but he basically took months off of his own companies,
basically full time to be leading this kind of nascent
effort inside the public sector.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
That was not foreseen. I don't think he was even
foreseen in December.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, I think you have a unique perspective because you
your job is to cover billionaires, right. I cover Elon
sort of through the lens often of x or was
known as Twitter. But you cover people like him at
all different industries and walks of life and things. I
get the sense from my experience he is different than
(22:36):
anybody else I've ever covered. How does he sort of
compare to you? Like, is a lot of the stuff
he does common among billionaires and maybe we just don't
always see that? Or is he truly this sort of
like unicorn guy to write about and cover.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's a good question.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
I mean, to some extent, he is doing everything that
everyone else is doing just more of it. Right, he
exemplified and exaggerates the trends we see of other people.
You know, Kurt, You've written about this a little bit,
like to the extent to which he is become like
a person of envy for other tech billionaires in the
months since, right where you have people like Zuckerberg or
(23:14):
Sam Altman, even enemies of Musk who like have seen
what he's been able to do in the public sector
and with his public profile and thought to themselves like, damn,
I should do the same thing, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I mean, so I think he's always been one of one.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Though I'm amazed even now, and it's not like I've
covered him for twenty years. I've covered him for like five,
But I'm amazed still by like the gravitational pull that
he has where you have all these like friends and
investors and you know, people who are just in his
social circle who like then this is not a chart
(23:49):
of way to put it, but like seem to have
their entire life dedicated to like serving him, Like that
would never be true of like any other like portfolio
company founder. For some of these vcs right where their
entire energy and like's per seems to be revolving around him, and.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
To some extense, it's easy to make fun of it,
but I guess it works, right, like where where you.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Suddenly get access to Xai because you are like helping
Elong with his superpack, and then Xai ends up really valuable,
and you know, these things kind of create this like gravity,
and there's a there's a circularness to revolving around Musk
that I do think is very unique where maybe people
say think of the same things about like Peter Thiel
to some extent, but like I do feel like it's
(24:31):
it's unique to Musk that every single person who even
who want who knows him like sees profit and and
access and power out of just continuing to be around him,
which then itself creates that like that power and money
is been seeking in the first place.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Well, the same names keep showing up everywhere he goes, right,
you see, like Jared Birchell and Steve Davis and you know,
certainly his lawyer Alex Spiro, and like some of that
is just like if you're his lawyer, yes you're gonna
you know, you're going to show up where he gets
into legal hot water, which appears to be everywhere with him.
But you do see to your point, like the orbit
(25:07):
moves with him. It's not as if these people you know,
stay put and he parachutes in. It's like it all
moves as a as a team. I'm wondering what he's
like to report on. He sort of famously doesn't have
PR people, or at least not a lot, you know,
it doesn't have a PR machine in the way that
a lot of other billionaires do. I have found that
(25:29):
people closest to him, you know, incredibly loyal, therefore hard
to get to. They can be aggressive or to push
back on stories like just what's what's he like to
cover compared to other billionaires in that regard? Is he
harder to get access to his world because he's so big?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Is it easier? Like what's your experience been? Sure?
Speaker 5 (25:49):
I mean, I've found his circle to be definitely loyal,
and I haven't. Maybe I'm being too soft. I haven't
had any like great public blow ups with any of them.
Behind the scenes. I try to take him at like
face value, I think, maybe more than other reporters do.
I feel I'm helped in part by not having baggage,
(26:12):
Like I feel like this is kind of my approach
with some tech billionaires. I just feel like I'm just
trying to write about them in the current context, which
I think helps. The one thing I think is unique
about Musk, and I know you've thought about this too,
is like behind the scenes, there's not a lot there
that's not public. Yeah, you know, I mean, I think
(26:32):
there are things that Musk keeps secret tactically that like,
you know, people should report and scoop and go for it,
but like there's not there's some different texture that he
says privately. But I feel like if I were on
some of these group chats, you know, like I must
talks about like the budget bill in Congress, like he's
saying the same things privately that he's saying publicly. I
(26:54):
have yet to find like a super interesting storyline about
what Elon is saying privately.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, other than you know, all the children that we
maybe don't know, the unknown children.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, but he kind of talks about that publicly too.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I mean, I mean, I mean, you know, he doesn't
talk about it in detail, but like the fact that
sure like he discloses so much voluntarily.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, he really does.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
And like replies to random people in a way that
neuters some of the journalism about him.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, and it is a very competitive beat obviously as well.
I want to move forward a little bit to the
Trump Musk relationship in general. It has been rocky. They
obviously have already had a relatively big public spat in
(27:43):
I guess it was the beginning of June. What do
you make of that, Like, is this truly the you
know that they're they're never going to work together again?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
This is they're sort of.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Gone their separate ways, or do you envision that at
some point maybe these two are going to be rekindled, Like,
I guess, I'm just curious what you think of that
relationship today compared to when you wrote this story six
months ago.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean, as I said, like to some extent
surprising it didn't happen earlier, and people were kept expecting
this to happen. You know, I think the reasons it
happened are pretty interesting. I mean, it is, you know,
from talking to people around him, like, Musk definitely has
legitimate or deeply felt beliefs about the bill, the budget
bill that you know has caused such a rupture between
(28:27):
him and Trump. But the real story is that he
feels kind of embarrassed by a number of things that
concluded his tenure, including you know, the ouster of a
Musk friend to be the head of NASA, Jared Isaacman.
Like he feels what he feels about the budget bill,
but the reason he's being so public about it has
to do with a lot of other things. And that's
(28:49):
the quote unquote real story. I also concede that, like,
I think there's still things we're trying to learn right
now about the real story, but the fact that it
blew up was less interesting to me and sort of
like the why and also the how, Like I think
like the fact that like, you know, during that day
when he was tweeting about Jeffrey Epstein, like he clearly
(29:10):
is just like vibing. I have not detected any serious
moves that Musk is making behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
To actually form a third party.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
I have not detected any serious moves he's making to
launch primary challengers against Republicans, as he's threatening to do,
at least as of this recording. So he is a
guy with a phone r like we all are, or
you know, we're all just guys with phones, and he
is tapping out messages and sending it to his two
hundred twenty million followers, and then abouta bingbata bang gets
(29:38):
on the internet. Right, I mean that's sort of sort
of as simple as that. I think's what's unique about
him is he has so much power, and that also
he seems to have no guardrails, so he can do
whatever he wants and he is.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, I mean, that's been his strategy and style for
years now, right, So it's not really surprising. I think
it is perhaps unsettling to some people because it's happening
at such a stage in a scale now. When he
did this stuff, when he would just sort of, to
your point, be a guy with a phone at Tesla
(30:09):
six seven, eight years ago, it was like, Okay, he's
harming himself in one company. Now, the sort of implications
of guy with phone, I think are just at a
larger scale than perhaps.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
They've ever been. Yeah, for sure. Do you have any
sense that Elon himself might never get into politics or
is there no value in him being the politician when
he can simply sort of puppetmaster from the private sector.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the most interesting
things I've reported in the last couple of months, which
we just stuck in the middle of a story and
never really highlighted until now, was like the legacy of
the Wisconsin race and sort of shaping Musk psyche. So,
you know, as people may remember, in April, Musk you know,
spent about twenty five to thirty million dollars on this
Supreme Court race in the state of Wisconsin. Elon seemed
(30:56):
to go out of his way to make himself the
public face of that campaign. You know, he went did
a big rally the night before, starring himself. You know,
Trump advisors stayed away from the race. Trump did not
go to Wisconsin. The guy loses, and Musk basically you know,
tug his tail or, you know, and never speaks of
the race ever again. But in private conversations, Elon has
(31:16):
indicated that he knows that he sort of made a
mistake making himself the public figure of that campaign, or
at least that's the takeaway of people who have talked
to him. And so, yes, I think that race kind
of shaped his view of his own powers, you know.
And I do not think Elon Musk will actually I
render politics himself, in part because he seems more like
self aware of his divisiveness. Famous last words on that, probably,
(31:39):
but I do not get the sense that he will
ever do anything more serious. And you know, I certainly,
at least as of this summer. I'm wondering what he
has in plans for the next couple of years, because
it's such a topsy turvy, like if you just listen
to what he says publicly, like he contradicts himself all
the time, Like at the time of this recording, you know,
a month ago, he said he's gonna send a lot
(32:00):
less money in politics, and then like suddenly he's saying
a couple weeks later, quote like I'm in a primary
every Republican member of Congress, you know. Like, see, he
can't take anything you're saying too seriously?
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Right, last prediction here, if you're comfortable, we'll say, you know,
a year from when you wrote this story. I think
it was December sixth of last year. So let's go
December sixth of twenty twenty five, fast forward six months
or so from now.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Are we going to see Musk involved in politics still?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Is he going to be completely back into spacexxai tesla
or is he still going to be doing that? You know,
as he said when he was going to leave, I'll
be there, you know, two days a week or two
three days a week, whatever he said. Is there any
world in which we're still talking about him as a
political figure in six months, or are we back to
Musk the innovator?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
I'll predict that he is not that involved at all.
I think he will ultimately not be a big part
of the twenty twenty six minut terms. He might support
you know, Thomas Massy or someone like that, who you know, uh,
the one House Republican or two House Republicans that have
opposed the budget bill. I do not think he will
spend a significant amount of time on Doe's related effort.
(33:11):
I don't even know if Doge is giving it an
even really exist. I mean, it's already sort of been
somewhat more in battled since Musk left. I could see,
you know, Musk getting involved in the twenty twenty eight
presidential campaign. It's going to be an open Republican primary.
You know, Musk feels like he swung the election for Trump,
even though that claim remains entirely unverified. Even though the
(33:32):
myth has taken hold that like Musk won Trump Pennsylvania,
even though no one's ever system and systematically assessed that question.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
But I could see like.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
Him feeling compelled to get involved in the presidential race
because maybe he can kind of recreate the magic. But
I'll predict that ultimately he will be not that involved
in public and political life, though he does appear extraordinarily
sensitive to this perception. I find pretty interesting current like
he's always like now that he's withdrawing from doge and
(34:00):
and political giving, like he wants us to know a
little bit too much.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, well, we're prepared to hold this prediction above your
head for the next six months and you know, constantly
bring it up to let you know how he did.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
So. I predicted on a Puck podcast.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
In mid twenty twenty four that Elon Musk would not
get involved the election.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Okay, well you have a great track record, then we'll
hold that against you, Teddy. We really value your journalism
in your reporting, and thank you for coming on to
make our of our listener smarter.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
So thank you, you bet.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
This episode was produced by Stacy Wong and edited by
Anna Masarakus, Blake Maple's Handles engineering, and Dave Percell. Fact checks.
Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson. The Elanning theme is
written and performed by Taka Yazuzawa and Alex Saguiera. Sage
Bauman is a head of Bloomberg Podcast. Big thanks to
our supporters Joel Webber and Brad Stone. I'm Max Chafkin.
(34:56):
If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
it'll help other listeners find it us and we'll see
you next week
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Mhm.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Let me tell you
we have a new star.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A star is born elan' up on Mars Juthan Kennemy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
He is the.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
But those two percent.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
That are nasty, they are our pay in full, Fols.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We were meant for great things in the United States
of America, and Elon reminds us of that.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm very disappointed in Elon.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I've helped Elon a lot.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Welcome to Elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcasts about Elon Musk.
It's Tuesday, July fifteenth. I'm Max Chafkin in for David Popadopolis.
Later this episode, we have the first of a series
of interviews that we're going to run this summer with
some of our favorite reporters who cover Elon who do
not work at Bloomberg. These are people who wrote stories
that we read, you know, over the last six months
(01:07):
or so and thought, oh, I wish I had written that.
And for the first one, we've got an interview that
Kurt Wagner did with New York Times reporter Teddy Schliffer.
Teddy covers money in politics, billionaires in politics. He was
really all over this kind of moment in December and
January when Trump and Musk were coming together, and the
conversation is great. But before we get to that, Kurt
(01:30):
is here with me. Now we're gonna have a quick
conversation about some of the news that happened this week. Kurt,
how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Hey, I'm good, Max, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
And Elon inkstalwart Dana Hall is here as well. Dana,
how are you?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I'm great?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
All right. So the big news, as far as I
can tell since we last potted is XAI. A bunch
of stuff has happened with XAI. This is Elon Musk's
you know AI chatbox company. It also owns x And
I'm just gonna run through some of the hits. First
of all, Elon did a demo for something called Grock four.
This is the latest rock. He said it was going
(02:06):
to be so smart.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I would expect Grok to yeah, literally discover new technologies
that are actually useful. No later than next year and
maybe end of this year, and it might discover new
physics next year.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Like I guess, like better than relativity or strength theory
or whatever. Also the same Grock seems to have gone
a little Nazi. And also in addition to physics, we
have this other sort of seemingly unrelated product that Elon
Musk also debuted, also having to do with Groc. I'm
just gonna play a little clip for both of you.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Golden Light was apping to this lively sue at sunrise.
Golden Light hitting the enclosures, parrots chattering like they're gossiping,
and a lazy tiger stretching in the morning. I'm rocking
my black dress partytail's bouncing as I pull you towards.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I think that's enough.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I feel like we're going to get a call from
HR like any second now, Like what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's like, Kurt, what is going on here?
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Is that the companion?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
This is the companion, Dana?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, so yeah, Elon did tease this, you know, Grock companion.
You just heard the companion's voice. It's an anime, I
suppose or cartoon woman in a you know, revealing black dress.
And I think the title or like the name of
the product sort of says it all like this is
(03:27):
meant to be an emotional companion to people, and to
your point, Max, like slightly different direction, right, Like on
the one hand, it's like Xai worth hundreds of billions
of dollars and going to change the world of physics,
and on the other hand, like building a sort of
an emotional support girlfriend for people online.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
And so I don't know how popular this will be
or how much of a core use case this will be,
but it clearly taps into the wants and desires of
a certain audience on and Elon seems quite excited about it.
He was tweeting about it when was this just yesterday?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Lots of tweets and responses to tweets of this character
in various sexualized situations. Also, I guess there's also like
an animal one that it's like a fox that's mean
to you. I'm not totally sure what that's about, Danna,
Do you think this is like a serious product or
is Elon just cracking dirty jokes? I mean, I feel
(04:27):
like I have to say. He also spent basically half
of yesterday as we're recording this on Tuesday, tweeting about
this girlfriend. The other half was tweeting about the newly
expanded area that the Robotaxi travels. This is Tesla's you
know AI product, and that is shaped like a penis,
or it's more than a penis now I think about,
(04:47):
but in any case, it is a explicit shape. He
seemed to be very amused with himself. There is this
just a bit what is happening?
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I mean, I think the way to think about Elon
is that fundamentally he has like the emotional already have
like a thirteen year old boy, And I say, this
is like the parent of a son. So you know,
no disrespect to men out there, but like he's juvenile
in his emotions, in his like view of the world.
I mean, he's an incredible industrialist, and he's you know,
(05:16):
hyper aggressive, and he's a financial engineer and all these
things and all the great things about him that people
already know, but like, fundamentally, like from a psychological perspective,
like he's just very juvenile. And so yeah, he does
these things to amuse himself. And then you look at
the photographs of the coders at XAI that are on
LinkedIn or wherever, and it's like young dudes grinding all
(05:38):
night like to ship this thing, and I'm sure that
they're very proud of it. And how popular it will be,
I don't know, but like I mean, I think there
is this like loneliness factor in his life and in
like the culture as a whole that this could fill.
And a lot of times, I mean optimists, the robot
that Tesla is making, they talk about that as being
a companion, like options going to be your face, your kids,
(05:59):
It's gonna be your friend, and so this whole kind
of merging of machine and human and filling this void
that I guess a lot of people have in their lives.
I mean, I find it very sad personally, but I
do think that like online culture is a wash with
lonely people falling in love with chat, GBT and whatever.
Like I mean, I think that there is like a
(06:19):
niche for this.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
For sure, we'll get to how good a business I
mean overall Xai is. But here I'm glad you brought
this up because in certain ways, Kurt, I feel like
Dana is right, like this is more realistic as a
business than the new physics thing. Like I have more
confidence in this as a path to like potential profits
(06:41):
than the idea that like we're going to put rock
to work solving humanity's biggest problems. It seems like it
could actually be like a thing for people who are
lonely or kind of yeah, you know, anime kinks or whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I think it's the kind of thing that, you know,
to your point, could actually sell subscriptions, right like, if
this becomes some type of a subscription product for X
or built into the X premium thing, that makes actually
a lot of sense to me. There's a cliche. I'm
gonna get it wrong, but it's something about, like, you know,
the best way to build a business online is to
base it around pornography, right like that porn is the
(07:15):
real underbelly of this entire Internet that we all use,
and this I think sort of plays into an element
of that. And so I don't think it's like crazy
as a business. Where it stands out to me is
that to Dana's point, like Elon Is has a long
history of telling.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Off color jokes, silly jokes, sexual jokes.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I remember when he took over Twitter, he was, you know,
day one, he was like, advertisers, we are a safe
space for you. In day two is like, here are
four masturbation jokes that I just thought of, and it
just like the rub does not always make sense, Like
it is too much in conflict, Like he tries to
be very serious on one hand and then he comes
out and does things that are very unseerious on the other.
(07:57):
And to me, that is the issue, you know, more
so than like whether this is a good or bad business,
you know whatever, it's just the what it reflects I
think about him and sort of what he's trying to build.
In some cases, I think, can you know, push people
away or let the real serious things he's doing sort
of be undermined by the fact that he's very unserious
(08:18):
in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Part of what makes us funny is this, like you know,
sexy anime talking like an ASMR thing is like wildly expensive.
They are just like burning huge amounts of electricity, you know,
huge amounts of like GPU capacity to make these things work.
And we've talked about this on the podcast a bunch
(08:40):
of times. But like Xai is bleeding money. There was
a couple weeks back we talked about the report they're
bleeding maybe a billion dollars per month. There has been
this fundraising going on, I think we have to understand
this launch event and the wild claims about new physics
in that context. And to that point, we got a
(09:00):
port in the Wall Street Journal, which Bloomberg has also
confirmed that SpaceX is going to be one of the
investors in this massive equity round. SpaceX is going to
put two billion dollars into XAI. Dana, You're always talking
about how Elon Musk's sort of empire. They have the
separate business, but they really operate as one business. What
(09:22):
is the rationale here? Like why does a rocket company
want to invest in the AI girlfriend company?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Yeah, well, I think you know, as Ed Ludlow and
I reported, like Elon really wants to have this kind
of like vertically integrated AI infrastructure stack. And you can
imagine that groc or some other part of XAI could
be the back end customer service for Starlink customers. So
say you buy like a Starlink satellite dish, and you're
(09:50):
in your RV and like the internet speed is low,
and you want to complain to somebody like maybe a
groc chetbot like helps you troubleshoot your problem. So like
I can see ways that it could also, I mean,
GROC has this incredible computing power, but is it gonna
need to rely on space based satellites for some of that?
So by investing, you know SpaceX will have dibbs. I mean,
(10:12):
at some point XAI is going to have to grow
a real board. I would imagine, like they don't really
have a board right now. It's Elon and Jared Burchell
and maybe one other person.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
But why in the world would you need to own
two billion dollars of SpaceX equity? Like I understand what
you're saying, Like you could imagine I think you kind
of have to squint to be frank, but you could
imagine some synergies between SpaceX and XAI. But again, does
that explain why the investment needs to happen beyond just
the fact that the CEO is the same guy.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
No, not at all. I mean that's the thing. It's
like Elon always like Robs Peter to save Paul right
from all of his other companies. And we saw this
in Solar City back in twenty sixteen, where like Solar
City was struggling, so Tesla acquired them, and everyone was like, oh,
Tesla is acquiring a solar company. And it's like no,
you guys like Elon is the chair of the board
Solar City, like this is a bailout and so I
(11:02):
mean the cost of going to Mars is huge, So
I think two billion is like not, that's like a
significant I think it's SpaceX's largest outside investment, Like I
don't think they've ever invested in another entity quite like this.
But then on the on the other hand, the other
thing that's happening is that Tesla is going to invest
in XAI, and Musk said he's going to have to
(11:22):
bring it to a shareholder vote, but you know that'll
probably be like five billion dollars. That's what he's been
floating for over.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
A year now. Yeah, he brought that up on Twitter,
the idea five billion. I think it was last year, right,
he did a Twitter poll. And separately, kind of to
your point about synergy or apparent s energy or attempted synergy,
you can now use rock inside of your Tesla car whatever,
So I guess you could talk to your AI girlfriend
or ask it about physics or whatever. I mean, Kurt,
(11:49):
are we am I wrong to look at these reports
about you know, Elon Musk trying to move money from
his more successful companies to his startup, as well as
reports from Bloomberg and other about difficulty closing debt rounds
about you know what really feels like a scramble to
bring money and say, how is this not like another bailout?
Like you have a massive money losing company and then
(12:11):
you have a guy taking money from another company he controls,
you know, and putting in there. Is that totally off
base or do you think there's an element of that here?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
It feels like the world's largest conflict of interest right?
It is exactly as you describe Max. There is the
one guy who runs all these things. He's taking money
from pocket A into pocket B. And the problem is,
I don't see that outside of like retail Tesla investors.
(12:40):
It doesn't feel like there's really anybody willing to come
and say, hey, should this happen to push back on Elon.
Nobody wants to be cut out from the business of
Elon Musk and so as a result, no one is
willing to say, is this the best use of two
billion dollars or five billion dollars? Should you be propping
up your AI business with monies from you know, the
(13:02):
private space exploration company who wants to raise their hand
and complain about that and then be cut out from
the next big thing that Elon does because invest in
Elon Musk historically has been a very good business for
venture capitalists who can get in early enough. And I
just don't see people willing to call him out on
this because as big as two billion is, it's also
(13:24):
not huge, right, Like, it's big, but it's not so
big that you're willing to burn your relationship with Elon
over it.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And so I think that's what we're seeing here. But
it is a conflict of interest.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I don't think there's any way to frame it otherwise,
like could there be things that work about an investment, Absolutely,
but that doesn't mean that it's not a conflict.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah. I feel like the best case for this is
just that the shareholders of all these companies feel like
Elon Musk is the most important element of all of
these companies and he wants to do it, and so
they're going to say, sure, go ahead. You know what
else are we going to say?
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I think if you boil it to this guy has
all the say and the power, even if he technically
doesn't have the voting control, he has the actual power
and sway and you know, to stand in front of
that freight train is not something that people have become
willing to do yet.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Okay, Dana, we're gonna let you go and get to
Kurt's interview. Thanks for coming. Hope to see you next week.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Sasian.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
All right, Kurt, stick around. We're gonna hear your interview
with Teddy Schleifer. I'm sure we'll get to talk all
about whether or not Grock is a Nazi, or whether
Grock could be your girlfriend, or whether Grock could invent
some new physics in the waste come.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Sounds great, looking forward to it. Hey, Teddy, welcome to
Elon Inc.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Thanks for having me. Yes, absolutely, Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You have covered Elon in a lot of ways over
the last six months, but even before that. But I
wanted to bring us back because the story I was
very jealous of at the time and I think still
sort of stands the test of time is one that
you wrote way back in December of last year. The
title is the Silicon Valley Billionaires Steering Trump's Transition, And
(15:15):
there's been so much news between now and then six
months ago. Feels like, you know, five years ago. But
I think what I loved about this story is that
you took the Trump Musk relationship from the campaign trail
and sort of introduced the fact that this thing was
going to last into the administration, that it wasn't just
(15:35):
going to be Elon, but it was also going to
be like all of the people who orbit Elon going
into that administration as well. I think it was like
a perfect table setter for ultimately what we ended up experiencing,
you know, for those first three, four or five months
of the administration. So walk me through, like, how does
a story like this come together? You're on the byline
with some you know, powerhouse journalists at the Times, Maggie
(15:58):
Haberman and Jonathan's One. How does this, you know materialize
for you? Like how did you start to kind of
get a sense that Elon was going to be much
larger than just a campaign donor to President Trump.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Sure, So, as of mid December, it was public or
had been well reported, that Elon Musk was at mar
A Lago since election Day a month prior. What was
not well known was the fact that Musk had kind
of brought in ten to twenty of his homies to
basically quasi run the transition alongside him. You know, Musk
(16:33):
technically didn't have any role in the presidential transition. It
was run by Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, two people
that Trump has known for a long time, and they
both kind of divided up the transition into certain areas
responsibility dating back to I think August. Then Trump's elected
in November, Elon flies to mar A Lago for the
election night party and then never leaves. And so what
(16:56):
happened in November and December is there's kind of the
official transition process being run by the people who are
ahead of the transition, and then these other people. And
the reason it was an interesting story to us is
because the other people were never announced. You know, it
was never announced that Sean McGuire or Mark Injuriesin or
(17:18):
kind of Musk's personal family office aides were running this
alongside them. And the way we heard about it should
be rather obvious is that people were going in for
these meetings at mar A Lago to be you know,
secretary of state or deputy secretary of state or whatever,
and were you know, they weren't like surprised to walk
(17:39):
into the room and see people didn't expect but they
kind of were like they were showing up and were
surprised by the extent to which they had to deal
with these kind of unofficial you know, DOGE or quasi
doge representatives who had no public billing and sometimes no
public profile. Like I even learned names of peace people
(18:00):
that I had never heard of doing this story, because
suddenly they were, you know, interviewing the next head of
the Pentagon, even though you google them and you have
no idea who they were. Yeah, and you start with
this awesome scene of Trump sort of sitting around with
a lot of his advisors and I'm going to quote
from the story, but he says, you know, Larry Elson
(18:20):
is there, the co founder of Oracle, chairman of Oracle,
Elon Musk is there, and he says, I brought the
two richest people in the world today, What did you bring?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I love that because it speaks to sort of Trump
what he values a little bit right. He values that wealth,
that power, but he also loves to flaunt that he
knows these guys and that he can get them to
show up on his behalf. How did you view the
relationship between the richest man in the world Elon Musk,
and the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump,
(18:51):
Because there are two alphas who I think a lot
of people thought this will never even get off the ground,
and yet it it obviously has. You know, it's had
a lot of speed bumps, which we can get to.
But I think it worked better for a lot longer
than a lot of people would have thought.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Sure, I mean for a long time it was like
a contrariant opinion to think that this was going to
last at all. The betting markets were so weighted toward
the idea that this was going to collapse imminently. Yeah,
I mean, Trump clearly enjoyed having Elon around until it
all blew up. I do not think that there was
some secret hatred from Trump toward Musk, you know, from
(19:26):
Trump advisors I talked to, Like, the sense I got
was that he found musks jokes a little weird, and
you know, they're obviously very different kind of sensibilities and
different industries.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
But Trump liked.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Having the adelation and yes manness of Musk around him.
Elon certainly got away with a lot of things that
would never be tolerated from any other advisor. Like around
the same time of this story, we had, you know,
Elon Musk publicly supporting candidates for like Treasury secretary. In
all way, that would never be true if like Susie
(19:58):
Wiles just decided to tweet her opinions about who should be,
you know, getting these jobs. You know, Trump liked the
richness of kind of the guy around him, and he
liked the wealth of Larry Ellison, and he kind of
is impressed with himself to some extent that he can
get these people to spend time at his club and
suck up to him.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I like the story again because it sets the table
for what was to come. At what point did you realize, Okay,
Elon is not just sort of bankrolling this guy's campaign.
He's actually going to have a meaningful role in this administration.
I imagine at this point in early December, as you're
writing the story that has become obvious to you. Were
(20:38):
you surprised by that? Did you already sort of know
that going into this story, or was this story the
moment where you're like, oh my god, like this is
taking on perhaps another level that people didn't quite appreciate.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
No, I mean I was surprised for sure.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
You know, I remember Maggie and I did a story
on election Day that Musk was going to be attending
the election party at mar A Lago. I remember us
being kind of on the fence privately about like whether
or not this is even a story. You know, it's like, well, like,
you know, who cares if he's showing up at the party.
But as I mentioned earlier, he never left after the party,
or I think he left one very briefly, right he
(21:12):
basically that was the beginning of this role, of this
kind of next chapter in the story where he went
from just being you know, a big mega donor to actually,
you know, almost running parts of the federal government on
Trump's behalf. So that was surprising even I think it
was even surprising in December. I think, honestly, it was
even surprising until after December, Like I mean the fact
(21:34):
that we knew that Musk was going to be leading DOGE.
But a lot of the people mentioned in the story
have played roles in the federal government even after January twentieth.
I feel like, honestly, I'm still surprised even as we're
recording this that you know, these people are sticking around
to some extent, and you have David Sachs and Joe
Gebbia and all these kind of Elon friends who are
in these very senior roles. It was not foreseen that
(21:56):
this would happen. You know the fact that Elon Musk
ended up taking You know, he probably want admit this,
but he basically took months off of his own companies,
basically full time to be leading this kind of nascent
effort inside the public sector.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
That was not foreseen. I don't think he was even
foreseen in December.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, I think you have a unique perspective because you
your job is to cover billionaires, right. I cover Elon
sort of through the lens often of x or was
known as Twitter. But you cover people like him at
all different industries and walks of life and things. I
get the sense from my experience he is different than
(22:36):
anybody else I've ever covered. How does he sort of
compare to you? Like, is a lot of the stuff
he does common among billionaires and maybe we just don't
always see that? Or is he truly this sort of
like unicorn guy to write about and cover.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's a good question.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
I mean, to some extent, he is doing everything that
everyone else is doing just more of it. Right, he
exemplified and exaggerates the trends we see of other people.
You know, Kurt, You've written about this a little bit,
like to the extent to which he is become like
a person of envy for other tech billionaires in the
months since, right where you have people like Zuckerberg or
(23:14):
Sam Altman, even enemies of Musk who like have seen
what he's been able to do in the public sector
and with his public profile and thought to themselves like, damn,
I should do the same thing, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I mean, so I think he's always been one of one.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Though I'm amazed even now, and it's not like I've
covered him for twenty years. I've covered him for like five,
But I'm amazed still by like the gravitational pull that
he has where you have all these like friends and
investors and you know, people who are just in his
social circle who like then this is not a chart
(23:49):
of way to put it, but like seem to have
their entire life dedicated to like serving him, Like that
would never be true of like any other like portfolio
company founder. For some of these vcs right where their
entire energy and like's per seems to be revolving around him, and.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
To some extense, it's easy to make fun of it,
but I guess it works, right, like where where you.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Suddenly get access to Xai because you are like helping
Elong with his superpack, and then Xai ends up really valuable,
and you know, these things kind of create this like gravity,
and there's a there's a circularness to revolving around Musk
that I do think is very unique where maybe people
say think of the same things about like Peter Thiel
to some extent, but like I do feel like it's
(24:31):
it's unique to Musk that every single person who even
who want who knows him like sees profit and and
access and power out of just continuing to be around him,
which then itself creates that like that power and money
is been seeking in the first place.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Well, the same names keep showing up everywhere he goes, right,
you see, like Jared Birchell and Steve Davis and you know,
certainly his lawyer Alex Spiro, and like some of that
is just like if you're his lawyer, yes you're gonna
you know, you're going to show up where he gets
into legal hot water, which appears to be everywhere with him.
But you do see to your point, like the orbit
(25:07):
moves with him. It's not as if these people you know,
stay put and he parachutes in. It's like it all
moves as a as a team. I'm wondering what he's
like to report on. He sort of famously doesn't have
PR people, or at least not a lot, you know,
it doesn't have a PR machine in the way that
a lot of other billionaires do. I have found that
(25:29):
people closest to him, you know, incredibly loyal, therefore hard
to get to. They can be aggressive or to push
back on stories like just what's what's he like to
cover compared to other billionaires in that regard? Is he
harder to get access to his world because he's so big?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Is it easier? Like what's your experience been? Sure?
Speaker 5 (25:49):
I mean, I've found his circle to be definitely loyal,
and I haven't. Maybe I'm being too soft. I haven't
had any like great public blow ups with any of them.
Behind the scenes. I try to take him at like
face value, I think, maybe more than other reporters do.
I feel I'm helped in part by not having baggage,
(26:12):
Like I feel like this is kind of my approach
with some tech billionaires. I just feel like I'm just
trying to write about them in the current context, which
I think helps. The one thing I think is unique
about Musk, and I know you've thought about this too,
is like behind the scenes, there's not a lot there
that's not public. Yeah, you know, I mean, I think
(26:32):
there are things that Musk keeps secret tactically that like,
you know, people should report and scoop and go for it,
but like there's not there's some different texture that he
says privately. But I feel like if I were on
some of these group chats, you know, like I must
talks about like the budget bill in Congress, like he's
saying the same things privately that he's saying publicly. I
(26:54):
have yet to find like a super interesting storyline about
what Elon is saying privately.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, other than you know, all the children that we
maybe don't know, the unknown children.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, but he kind of talks about that publicly too.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I mean, I mean, I mean, you know, he doesn't
talk about it in detail, but like the fact that
sure like he discloses so much voluntarily.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, he really does.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
And like replies to random people in a way that
neuters some of the journalism about him.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, and it is a very competitive beat obviously as well.
I want to move forward a little bit to the
Trump Musk relationship in general. It has been rocky. They
obviously have already had a relatively big public spat in
(27:43):
I guess it was the beginning of June. What do
you make of that, Like, is this truly the you
know that they're they're never going to work together again?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
This is they're sort of.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Gone their separate ways, or do you envision that at
some point maybe these two are going to be rekindled, Like,
I guess, I'm just curious what you think of that
relationship today compared to when you wrote this story six
months ago.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean, as I said, like to some extent
surprising it didn't happen earlier, and people were kept expecting
this to happen. You know, I think the reasons it
happened are pretty interesting. I mean, it is, you know,
from talking to people around him, like, Musk definitely has
legitimate or deeply felt beliefs about the bill, the budget
bill that you know has caused such a rupture between
(28:27):
him and Trump. But the real story is that he
feels kind of embarrassed by a number of things that
concluded his tenure, including you know, the ouster of a
Musk friend to be the head of NASA, Jared Isaacman.
Like he feels what he feels about the budget bill,
but the reason he's being so public about it has
to do with a lot of other things. And that's
(28:49):
the quote unquote real story. I also concede that, like,
I think there's still things we're trying to learn right
now about the real story, but the fact that it
blew up was less interesting to me and sort of
like the why and also the how, Like I think
like the fact that like, you know, during that day
when he was tweeting about Jeffrey Epstein, like he clearly
(29:10):
is just like vibing. I have not detected any serious
moves that Musk is making behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
To actually form a third party.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
I have not detected any serious moves he's making to
launch primary challengers against Republicans, as he's threatening to do,
at least as of this recording. So he is a
guy with a phone r like we all are, or
you know, we're all just guys with phones, and he
is tapping out messages and sending it to his two
hundred twenty million followers, and then abouta bingbata bang gets
(29:38):
on the internet. Right, I mean that's sort of sort
of as simple as that. I think's what's unique about
him is he has so much power, and that also
he seems to have no guardrails, so he can do
whatever he wants and he is.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, I mean, that's been his strategy and style for
years now, right, So it's not really surprising. I think
it is perhaps unsettling to some people because it's happening
at such a stage in a scale now. When he
did this stuff, when he would just sort of, to
your point, be a guy with a phone at Tesla
(30:09):
six seven, eight years ago, it was like, Okay, he's
harming himself in one company. Now, the sort of implications
of guy with phone, I think are just at a
larger scale than perhaps.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
They've ever been. Yeah, for sure. Do you have any
sense that Elon himself might never get into politics or
is there no value in him being the politician when
he can simply sort of puppetmaster from the private sector.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the most interesting
things I've reported in the last couple of months, which
we just stuck in the middle of a story and
never really highlighted until now, was like the legacy of
the Wisconsin race and sort of shaping Musk psyche. So,
you know, as people may remember, in April, Musk you know,
spent about twenty five to thirty million dollars on this
Supreme Court race in the state of Wisconsin. Elon seemed
(30:56):
to go out of his way to make himself the
public face of that campaign. You know, he went did
a big rally the night before, starring himself. You know,
Trump advisors stayed away from the race. Trump did not
go to Wisconsin. The guy loses, and Musk basically you know,
tug his tail or, you know, and never speaks of
the race ever again. But in private conversations, Elon has
(31:16):
indicated that he knows that he sort of made a
mistake making himself the public figure of that campaign, or
at least that's the takeaway of people who have talked
to him. And so, yes, I think that race kind
of shaped his view of his own powers, you know.
And I do not think Elon Musk will actually I
render politics himself, in part because he seems more like
self aware of his divisiveness. Famous last words on that, probably,
(31:39):
but I do not get the sense that he will
ever do anything more serious. And you know, I certainly,
at least as of this summer. I'm wondering what he
has in plans for the next couple of years, because
it's such a topsy turvy, like if you just listen
to what he says publicly, like he contradicts himself all
the time, Like at the time of this recording, you know,
a month ago, he said he's gonna send a lot
(32:00):
less money in politics, and then like suddenly he's saying
a couple weeks later, quote like I'm in a primary
every Republican member of Congress, you know. Like, see, he
can't take anything you're saying too seriously?
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Right, last prediction here, if you're comfortable, we'll say, you know,
a year from when you wrote this story. I think
it was December sixth of last year. So let's go
December sixth of twenty twenty five, fast forward six months
or so from now.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Are we going to see Musk involved in politics still?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Is he going to be completely back into spacexxai tesla
or is he still going to be doing that? You know,
as he said when he was going to leave, I'll
be there, you know, two days a week or two
three days a week, whatever he said. Is there any
world in which we're still talking about him as a
political figure in six months, or are we back to
Musk the innovator?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
I'll predict that he is not that involved at all.
I think he will ultimately not be a big part
of the twenty twenty six minut terms. He might support
you know, Thomas Massy or someone like that, who you know, uh,
the one House Republican or two House Republicans that have
opposed the budget bill. I do not think he will
spend a significant amount of time on Doe's related effort.
(33:11):
I don't even know if Doge is giving it an
even really exist. I mean, it's already sort of been
somewhat more in battled since Musk left. I could see,
you know, Musk getting involved in the twenty twenty eight
presidential campaign. It's going to be an open Republican primary.
You know, Musk feels like he swung the election for Trump,
even though that claim remains entirely unverified. Even though the
(33:32):
myth has taken hold that like Musk won Trump Pennsylvania,
even though no one's ever system and systematically assessed that question.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
But I could see like.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
Him feeling compelled to get involved in the presidential race
because maybe he can kind of recreate the magic. But
I'll predict that ultimately he will be not that involved
in public and political life, though he does appear extraordinarily
sensitive to this perception. I find pretty interesting current like
he's always like now that he's withdrawing from doge and
(34:00):
and political giving, like he wants us to know a
little bit too much.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, well, we're prepared to hold this prediction above your
head for the next six months and you know, constantly
bring it up to let you know how he did.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
So. I predicted on a Puck podcast.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
In mid twenty twenty four that Elon Musk would not
get involved the election.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Okay, well you have a great track record, then we'll
hold that against you, Teddy. We really value your journalism
in your reporting, and thank you for coming on to
make our of our listener smarter.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
So thank you, you bet.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
This episode was produced by Stacy Wong and edited by
Anna Masarakus, Blake Maple's Handles engineering, and Dave Percell. Fact checks.
Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson. The Elanning theme is
written and performed by Taka Yazuzawa and Alex Saguiera. Sage
Bauman is a head of Bloomberg Podcast. Big thanks to
our supporters Joel Webber and Brad Stone. I'm Max Chafkin.
(34:56):
If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
it'll help other listeners find it us and we'll see
you next week
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Mhm.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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