April 15, 2025 • 26 mins
It’s tax day in the US, and the Internal Revenue Service is reeling from more potential firings courtesy of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their “Department of Government Efficiency” or “DOGE.” But DOGE headlines seem to have abated of late. What does it mean? Has Musk turned his gaze back to his actual businesses? Has the media’s attention span run out? Are the South Africa native’s efforts to terminate tens of thousands of government employees and shutter federal agencies—potentially in violation of federal law—continuing under the radar? Plus, what is going on with Tesla shares amid all the tariff-inspired volatility? To talk DOGE, guest host Joel Weber of Bloomberg Explains is joined by Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull and Wired senior writer Makena Kelly. Then Bloomberg stocks reporter Esha Dey joins to talk Tesla ahead of next week’s earnings report.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Let me tell you
we have a new star.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A star is born Elon pumped up on Mars Juson Kennemy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
But those two percent that are nasty, they are I'll
be in four fos.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We are meant for great things in the United States
of America, and Elon reminds us of that we don't
have a fourth branch of governments called Elon Musk. Welcome
to Elon, Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday,
April fifteenth. I'm your host, Joel Webber, sitting in for
(00:53):
David Papadopolos. It's tax day in the US, when the
federal government is supposed to collect its money, and maybe
it still came. But of course DIRS has been gutted
alongside many other federal agencies thanks to Elon and DOGE.
But the news stories about DOGE seems to have been
slowing down a little bit. What exactly is Elon and
his young team up to these days, We've got lots
(01:14):
to discuss, so we'll talk about that, and then we're
gonna dig back into the roller coaster of Tesla's share
price as investors await next week's earnings call. Okay, let's
start with doche and to unpack the leaders. We're joined
by Elon Inc. Regular Dana Hole, Hi, Dana, Hey, Joel,
and a special guest and now friend of the podcast,
(01:35):
McKenna Kelly from Wired Magazine. Hello, McKenna, it's good to
be back.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay, I'm gonna start with a clip from October twenty
twenty four at Maniston's Quare Garden, where Elon is on
stage with Howard Luttnik out of Trump rally.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, I got one question for it that I'm getting
out of here.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
This is your stage. But we set up doge. Yes,
how much do you think we can rip out of
this wasted six two point five trillion dollar Harris Biden budget? Well,
I think we could do at least two trillion. Yeah, yes,
two trillion. And now here's Elon just a few days
(02:13):
ago with a new number.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I'm excited to announce that we anticipate savings in FY
twenty six from reduction of waste and broad by one
hundred and fifty billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
McKennon, we had two trillion. Now it's one hundred and
fifty billion, dramatically smaller. How realistic is even that number?
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Yeah, I mean when you look at the kinds of
areas that Dough just targeting right now, one of the
biggest cost savings I think you can argue is all
of these layoffs and riffs that have been happening across
the federal government. But at a lot of agencies, the
workforce is one of the cheapest parts of these agencies, right,
(02:52):
And so again it's like it's hard to predict, right,
if one hundred and fifty billion will actually be the number,
or if it'll be even less. It's hard to even
just trust Elon's goals here because even when we go
to like doache dot gov, where all of these savings
are supposed to be listed, a lot of these end
up being incorrect and even removed from the website. So
(03:13):
even if he claims to have met one hundred and
fifty billions, say like six months from now, I have
a hard time believing that number would even be accurate.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And Dana how Active, I know this is an ongoing
current on the show. How Active is. DOZE currently feels
like it's winded down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I think I'm going to push back on that. I
think that people think it's winded down because everyone is
focused on tariffs and what tariffs are doing to the economy.
But DOZE is still very much embedded in all of
these agencies. You know, Antonio Gracias, one of Elon's best
friends who's on the board of SpaceX, is like at
the Social Security Administration, They're doing all this stuff with
(03:52):
Social Security and immigration and putting people on these dead lists.
And I just think that just because there's not maybe
the wall to wall media coverage that there was in
dozes early these days, does not mean that DOGE is
winding down. Elon's time as a special government employee will
sunset after the one hundred and thirty day mark. But like,
(04:15):
DOGE is very much embedded in all of these agencies.
And what McKenna has written about a lot is and
what we've seen too is like, you know, it's not
just this like band of kids that like got a
lot of publicity in the early days. People are now
in CIO roles, people have access to wide swaths of information,
and so I just think it's incorrect to sort of
(04:36):
act like DOGE is sort of on the way out.
It is not like they have more access to more
databases and more agency functions than ever, and there's like,
you know, easily I don't know. I think our internal
list is over eighty people, but there are people like
at every agency accessing all kinds of data, and they're
still doing a lot of work, like hand in hand
(04:59):
with omb the Trump administration.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
I also think part of what's happening here too, and
a lot from my reporting and the reporting that you
guys have been doing at Bloomberg, is that at the beginning,
there are these stories of these teenage strike forces of
engineers descending on these agencies, and then also, I mean,
it was every single agency. And now I mean, the
way that I've been describing this to folks that I've
been speaking with recently is that we've kind of we're
(05:23):
kind of exiting the stage one of DOGE right and
entering what I've been kind of calling stage two, although
I don't have a proper definition for it yet because
I don't think we're in it all the way, but
a lot of what's happening at agencies specifically, I'm thinking
about the IRS. It's tax day. There's a lot of
very technical things happening. Groups of engineers you know at
(05:43):
the IRS, and groups of doge folks and palenteer coming
in and trying to build these like unified API layers.
That doesn't really make a great headline. And then you
have to also have to think like does your audience,
you know, even understand fully what all of this means.
And so there's a lot going on, right, but it's
not this like headline grabbing, attention grabbing teenagers storming through
(06:07):
the State Department right Instead, they're sitting at computers at hackathons.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I feel like we've gone from like feeding a USAID
into the wood chipper on a Saturday to like, let's
remake like technical infrastructure of how this agency actually operates
and like strip out all of the legacy software contracts
and make a new database that is run by like
private enterprise.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And McKennon, tell us more about your reporting on this,
because you have written about specifically at the IRS and
this API that you mentioned ANDEER Palenteer, of course, private
company that's legendary for being able to like create layers
of software that can kind of reach across databases. What
is the end goal here and what could this end
up looking like?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean it's really hard to predict what the
end goal is. But what's happening at the IRS specifically
is that doge specifically the doge lead at IRS, his
name is Sam forcos, he wants to build this unified
API layer across all of the IRS systems, basically creating
one kind of one cloud platform using Palentti your foundry
(07:14):
software right to be able to create different apps to
run LLLMS over IRS data. And he thinks he can
do this in thirty days. This is happening at other
agencies as well. A couple of weeks ago, I reported
that at the SOID Security Administration, for example, there were
doge folks who wanted to completely rebuild the SSA code base.
(07:34):
And again they think that they can do this in
like thirty days or a month, completely build it up
from the ground up and removing all of this legacy code,
whether that is assembly or coball, and get it ready
for whatever. You know, This next phase of doges and Danna.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
When you think about what that looks like and how
it's currently used in tech, like, what do you think
it could end up looking like?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well, there's just like a lot of great privacy concerns
because the federal government always had like really strict rules
about who had access to what, and the inability to
kind of cross agencies was sort of by design, right,
because the federal government took very seriously the privacy of
American citizens. But if databases can talk to each other,
there's nothing that's stopping dose from like using IRS data
(08:22):
to coordinate with like it, you know, with ICE or
the student loan program, and like that is the big
fear of a lot of civil rights experts and student groups.
And you're seeing in a lot of the lawsuits that
have been filed great concern about the lack of privacy
controls that are going into these new systems. And you know,
Musk is very focused on immigration and they you know,
(08:44):
they are talking a lot about social security and what
they're doing with social security and how so many immigrants
have Social Security numbers, and so I think that there's
just great concern about the lack of privacy controls as
these new databases are being built and like cross reference
across the government, you can argue that doing that is
(09:05):
more efficient and will help find waste and fraud. But
on the flip side, like the government now has unfettered
more and more access to everyone's information than it ever
had before.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Mc kenneth, where else has your reporting on DOGE taking
you here? We've got the IRS stuff, We've got HHS,
the Palanteer stuff is really interesting, Like what's the signal
through all of this, especially as you know, we start
to look forward to perhaps Elon maybe stepping back a
little bit at the end of his one hundred and
thirty days as a special government employee.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, to piggyback off of what Dana was saying. I mean,
that's the fear right now, is that one of the
administration's biggest goals right now is immigration and immigration reform,
if that's what you want to call disappearing people immigration reform.
But if you look at the agencies that DOGE has targeted.
You mentioned AJHS, which has a database of unac companied minors.
You look at IRS. Despite as much as what Elon
(10:04):
wants to say, immigrants in our country do pay taxes.
In a variety of ways billions and billions of dollars
every year, and then ssay as well, they end up
paying into Social Security as well. And so when you
look at the agencies that DOT has targeted, with the
priority of the administration being immigration, by building these APIs
(10:24):
and modernizing these systems, allowing them to talk would make
it a lot easier. And what sources that I've been
speaking to the fears, you know, building this gigantic migrant
surveillance system. And the scariest part of this to me
is the idea that you can do this in thirty days.
I mean, just identifying where all the databases are, what
they do, who accesses them, and for what purpose would
(10:45):
take longer than thirty days, you know, according to everyone
that I've spoken to. And so even if you want
to even beyond that thirty day limit, is there even
time to test how these were built? Are things going
to go wrong? I think you know. The big thing too,
is like who is going to get trapped in this?
We had over the weekend an immigration lawyer in Massachusetts
right who received an email saying that she needed to
(11:08):
self deport immediately. That was a mistake. There's just so
many mistakes that could happen, and when the administration is
sending so many of these folks down to the seacop
prison in Al Salvador and not really fighting to bring
them back when mistakes are made. That adds another layer
to this, all right, because maybe they don't even care
if you know, the system is one hundred percent perfect
(11:30):
and doesn't make these horrible mistakes.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Dana, that is all kind of scary. We're starting to
think about, you know, what a complete kind of surveillance
state might look like here in the US. It's also
I'm curious, you know, I mentioned how Elon could be
stepping away here At the end of a one hundred
and thirty day period, he will have this special government
(11:53):
employee status that will sort of supposedly end. Is he
actually going to leave?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So has discretion in terms of how the one hundred
and thirty days are counted. Like if if you think
if the inauguration on January twentieth was day one, then
the one hundred and thirty days brings you till roughly
the end of May. I mean, there have definitely been
signals that Elon is going to like sort of step back.
Trump has said basically at some point, Elon's going to
(12:19):
have to leave. Elon talked very publicly at that Wisconsin
rally about the sort of hit that he's taking in
terms of the backlash against Tesla and how that's impacted
his stock and the stock of everyone who owns Tesla frankly,
and so there is a sense that, like he might
pull back, but I think that he has unfettered access
to the Trump administration. And we have to remind everyone
(12:41):
he bankrolled this electoral comeback. He spent more than two
hundred and fifty million dollars to get Trump reelected. He
campaigned for Trump all across Pennsylvania. And he's not just
going to like take his ball and go back to
Tesla like he He funded this campaign for a reason.
I think he is very proud of what Doge has accomplished,
(13:02):
but frustrated that the public isn't giving him accolades like
he is. He is frustrated by the backlash his companies
are in. I mean, Tesla at least is in trouble,
like they have a stale lineup byd is eating their
starting to eat their lunch. Globally, the cyber truck is
a disaster. In terms of sales, So like at some
point he's going to have to reckon with like what
(13:22):
is his company? But I don't think he's gonna like
not be in touch with Trump. I mean, the two
of them text each other all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
The thing I would add to that too is that
he owns x Twitter. I mean, his formal role is
as a senior advisor. I think maybe you can just
do that by competing. Unfortunately as well, because it's very unclear.
You know that the administration Republican influencers everyone in this ecosystem,
this Trump administration ecosystem is on there and probably you know,
(13:49):
gets push notifications like we all do when Elon Musk tweets,
whether we turn them on or not.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Mcinnay. You know, that's an interesting idea and it does
speak to maybe what the future it looks like. But
like back just in the present, since he's still in DOGE,
how involved is he on a day to day basis
Based on what you've learned through your reporting.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like the way that he
operates with a ton of his companies, right, he has
these grand ideas or whatever, and he builds a group
of people who he knows can execute. Steve Davis seems
to be heavily involved, who you know, is now the
president of the Waring Company. He was brought in for
the Twitter acquisition and did a lot of the cost
cutting there. It seems like it's the same playbook, right,
(14:31):
and then it gives Elan a lot of time to go,
you know, do some of his company stuff. Played Diablo
four at three o'clock in the morning to test his
starlink or whatever. But yeah, I think it's still you know,
him operating as this like philosopher King more than this
everyday roll of like getting his hands dirty with firings
or you know, doing specific stuffs.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
When I thought it was super interesting that Musk and
a bunch of Doge people went on Fox News with
Brett Baher to kind of talk about their work, and
Steve Davis was sitting right next to Elon and he
was introduced by the Fox host as the COO.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Of Doge of Doge.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah, so did A McKenna's point, like it is Elon's philosophy,
but he has kind of deputized some of his most
loyal lieutenants to actually carry out the work. But Musk
is still very much in DC. I mean, he was
with Trump in Florida over the weekend at the UFC fight.
Like he is not in Fremont, he's still very much
(15:26):
in the nation's capital.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So when he's not there, let's say, after these one
hundred and thirty days or whatever, who are some of
the key people you mentioned Steve Davis, who are some
of the key people in DOGE that will be kind
of primary reporting targets as you kind of look ahead, Dana,
I'm gonna start with you.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Yeah, I think I.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Think it's super interesting to look at who's taken on
the CIO roles so. At Social Security, for instance, the
sort of interim CIO was this guy Mike Russo, but
now it's Scott Colter, who's like a young kind of
private equity VC kind of person and who is now
like in that job. And so that's that's like one
(16:04):
example of like an agency person that I would look
closely at. I think it's super interesting to see how
long Antonio Gracias, who's on the board of SpaceX, and
Joe Gebia who's on the board of Tesla, stay involved
in DOGE. They have both been very active Antonio at
Social Security and Gebia's like at oh PM looking at
the retirement system. You know, some of these people kind
(16:25):
of cycled through and have cycled back to their companies already,
Like some of the young like engineers who worked at
Tesla and SpaceX, are already sort of done with their
with their work and are now back at the companies.
But to McKenna's point, like as we enter sort of
DOGE two point zero or like the second phase, I
think it's going to be some of the less lesser
known names that will actually have the most influence. And
(16:47):
they're lesser known by design. I mean a lot of
what we know of the about these people is based
on court filings and tros and declarations from the government
in these various lawsuits. A lot of these people have
scrubbed their social media. They don't have a LinkedIn page,
like they are being very low key on purpose and
worth mentioning.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Dana, you work with Sophie Alexander and our graphics team
here at Bloomberg to sort of map out what that
universe of people really look like. That will be kind
of leading DOGE potentially forward after elon the steps aside, Yeah,
for sure, any particular names that we haven't mentioned yet
that are of interest to you.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Yeah, The people that I'm most interested in are the
DOGE people who are within that USDs system, which was
formerly of course called the US Digital Services created under
Obama to resolve the whole healthcare dot gov debacle, now
called the US Doage Services, seemingly led by a woman
named Amy Gleason, who you don't hear a lot from.
(17:46):
So I'm definitely interested in seeing what Amy's role evolves into.
Does she end up making more decisions, does she take
the reins on a lot of this. I have my doubts,
of course, but definitely the leadership there and at GSA
as well, because the General Services Administration to me has
kind of seemed with all the layoffs happening and getting
(18:08):
rid of so many folks at these agencies, it seems
like they're building like this group of technologists that they
can then just like deploy anywhere to you know, quote
unquote like fix issues or do things.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
All Right, McKenna, we're going to have you back on
the pod. Thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate you
in your time.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Great great to be here.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Oh right now we're going to talk about the other
most exciting thing in the world, which is Tesla as
a stock. And we're going to be joined by Esha Day,
a Bloomberg Stock reporter. Esha, thanks for joining us. Thank
you for having me, Dana, you're still here, of course, Escha.
What is going on with this stock right now?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
As always, it's very volatile and it's mostly going down now.
You would say that about the US stock market as
better right now and.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
For numbers like about seven and a half percent down,
And I.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Just want to set up like you know, yes, Tesla
is moving a lot like the US stock market, which
itself is moving like a memestock these days.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
But I want to tell you, like how much wilder
Tesla is.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
For example, Tesla shares are down last I checked, about
thirty eight percent this year. Sm P five hundred is
down about eight percent of over that time. The NaSTA
one hundred, which is I would say usually a little
more volatile than sm P five hundred index because it's
so technology heavy, is down about ten percent.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So you know that's a comparison.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Now since April second, when this recent tariff turmoil really started,
and by many accounts, some people would say that Tesla
is relatively insulated maybe from some of the tariffs. Yet
Tesla shares are down about eleven person since April seconds close.
Sembly five hundred is down about four point five percent
over that time, NaSTA one hundred down four persons. So
(19:54):
you know, by whichever way you look at this, Tesla
chees are doing very badly.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Okay, there's this thing called the death crow that's come
up a little bit and Tesla seems to be maybe
flirting with it. How significant is this death cross?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, it's significant for sure.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
It's a death cross is basically a chart pattern, but
it's one of the more prominent ones out there, something
that technical analysts and chart analysts kind of look at
very closely. Now, any chart pattern we would not look
at them in isolation. We usually want to see what
else is happening with the stock at the same point.
But overall, what this death cross is is it's basically
(20:34):
is giving you a sense of what the momentum of
the share price is doing.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Right.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
So, the way it's defined is when a short term
price support line of a stock or an asset falls
below the long term support line or trend line. The
way it's usually defined is by the fifty day moving
average and the two hundred day moving average, and Tesla
Shayes just cross that kind of ominous milestone yesterday. What
(21:02):
it usually means is that you know that, like the
momentum is now on the lower side.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
The last time it happened was in.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Early I would say late January early February twenty twenty four,
and right after that happened, Tesla Chez fell about twenty
five person over fifty five trading sessions.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So you know that's how it goes.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Okay, Dana, I'm gonna turn to you. What's the word
among investors and analysts? Were a week away from from
earnings here, it seems like a pretty significant earning. So
so what are we hearing as we march towards that day?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, I mean you're seeing a lot of analysts cutting
their price targets for volume because Tesla just does not
really have a robust lineup, and people want to hear like,
what is up with? Is Tesla ever going to make
a cheaper car? Is the cheaper car like really a
new car or is it just like a de content
and Model three and Model Y. I've written about this
that like Elon Musk is basically.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Bored with making cars.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
He kind of proved to the world that you could
make a high performance like car and he accomplished that,
and now he's all about AI and the robotaxi. The
company is supposed to launch some kind of soft robotaxi
service in Austin in June. So I think the earnings
call is all going to be about like the catalysts
for the future. Everyone knows it was a really bad
(22:17):
quarter in terms of sales. How testy analysts get with
Elon on the call, I think will be interesting. I'm
hoping that analysts will ask him like when are you
stepping back from doge? When are you going to actually
run the company? Like he has always been a part
time CEO, and I think you're really seeing frustration about
that spillover. Like Dan Ives, who's you know, always been
(22:38):
one of the most boolish analysts on Wall Street, sort
of talked about the brand destruction and that like Elon
has to kind of make a decision and read the room.
So yeah, it'll be as always, it'll be a very
interesting call.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Next week.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Dan just brought up Dan Ives, who, as she also mentioned,
is has been a huge test lablele. How significant was
him changing his tune a little bit.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Yeah, So, Dan Ives, I would say, is one of
the strongest bullish voices among seal side analysts on Tesla.
You know, he's very rarely criticized as a stock or
Elon Musk himself. So him coming out was really kind
of emblematic of how a.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Lot of the bullish voices.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
And I speak to investors, both retail investors and institutional
investors on Tesla all the time, and when around the
time when Dan kind of came out and said that Okay,
this is time for the company to really kind of
you know, listen to the room really and for Elon
Musk to take a step back and kind of refocus
on the company again, that was really emblematic of the
(23:40):
mood of the street. Like when I talked to investors
that they're very cautious, like there are I mean, there
is this thing about Tesla bullish investors where they're almost
always optimistic in some way, but the mood of caution,
the mood of concern is really coming out right now
and that is like becoming really intense after the squatter
deliver numbers and the results that we are expecting next week.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Okay, so there's caution, but then there's short shorts. No
one seems to be willing to short it though, right
and Dana, You've written about shorts and how devastated they've
been by this stock. So even though there's caution, like,
is anybody really willing to bet against Elon?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
You know, that's a really good question. I mean, the
sort of a group of short sellers known as Tesla
Hugh really got blown out of the water when the
Model Y became like the best selling vehicle and the
company kind of very definitely navigated the pandemic and hit
a trillion dollar valuation. I actually don't know if the
shorts have come back. I mean, some of the biggest
and loudest short sellers like David Einhorn and Jim Chanos,
(24:41):
I don't actually know if they still are actively shortening
stocks like ESHA. I haven't caught up with them recently,
have you.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
No, You're right.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
I mean, there are almost no prominent bearish voices or
short seller voices to be found in Tesla at this point.
And you know, they kind of absolutely got blown apart
during the twenty twenty two an even rally in the stock,
so I just again numbers a little bit for context.
There was a time, I would say around twenty eighteen
twenty nineteen, the short seller percentage of Tesla stock was
(25:11):
around thirty three percent of its free flow. Right now,
it's hovering around three percent for the past four or
five years. So that's where we are. Even when we
see a slight bit of uptick in the stock, we
haven't really seen anything that's you know, worth really noting.
When I talk to people on the street, there are
enough people out there who think this stock should be shorted,
(25:31):
but they're just not willing to stand in front of it,
just because it's such an immense beast of a momentum
stock right just when the stock turns, it's very hard
to tell when it might turn, and especially with Lan's
kind of political prominence and everything, the understanding is that
once the stock really turns, it's very hard to stand
in front of that momentum, and nobody wants to get
(25:52):
kind of blown part by that.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Esha Danna, thanks for joining us on Elennik.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Thank you always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Anna Maserakas is
our editor, and Rayhan Harmanci, our senior editor. The idea
for this very show also came from Rayhan, and she
deserves a special shout out since this will be our
final episode. Blake Maples handles engineering and David Purcell fact checks.
Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson. The elon Ink theme
(26:26):
is written and performed by Taka Yazozawa and Alex Sugahira.
Brendan Francis Newnan is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks to
our supporter Brad Stone. I'm Joel Weber. If you have
a minute, rate and review our show, it'll help other
listeners find us. See you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Let me tell you
we have a new star.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A star is born Elon pumped up on Mars Juson Kennemy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
But those two percent that are nasty, they are I'll
be in four fos.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We are meant for great things in the United States
of America, and Elon reminds us of that we don't
have a fourth branch of governments called Elon Musk. Welcome
to Elon, Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday,
April fifteenth. I'm your host, Joel Webber, sitting in for
(00:53):
David Papadopolos. It's tax day in the US, when the
federal government is supposed to collect its money, and maybe
it still came. But of course DIRS has been gutted
alongside many other federal agencies thanks to Elon and DOGE.
But the news stories about DOGE seems to have been
slowing down a little bit. What exactly is Elon and
his young team up to these days, We've got lots
(01:14):
to discuss, so we'll talk about that, and then we're
gonna dig back into the roller coaster of Tesla's share
price as investors await next week's earnings call. Okay, let's
start with doche and to unpack the leaders. We're joined
by Elon Inc. Regular Dana Hole, Hi, Dana, Hey, Joel,
and a special guest and now friend of the podcast,
(01:35):
McKenna Kelly from Wired Magazine. Hello, McKenna, it's good to
be back.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay, I'm gonna start with a clip from October twenty
twenty four at Maniston's Quare Garden, where Elon is on
stage with Howard Luttnik out of Trump rally.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, I got one question for it that I'm getting
out of here.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
This is your stage. But we set up doge. Yes,
how much do you think we can rip out of
this wasted six two point five trillion dollar Harris Biden budget? Well,
I think we could do at least two trillion. Yeah, yes,
two trillion. And now here's Elon just a few days
(02:13):
ago with a new number.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I'm excited to announce that we anticipate savings in FY
twenty six from reduction of waste and broad by one
hundred and fifty billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
McKennon, we had two trillion. Now it's one hundred and
fifty billion, dramatically smaller. How realistic is even that number?
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Yeah, I mean when you look at the kinds of
areas that Dough just targeting right now, one of the
biggest cost savings I think you can argue is all
of these layoffs and riffs that have been happening across
the federal government. But at a lot of agencies, the
workforce is one of the cheapest parts of these agencies, right,
(02:52):
And so again it's like it's hard to predict, right,
if one hundred and fifty billion will actually be the number,
or if it'll be even less. It's hard to even
just trust Elon's goals here because even when we go
to like doache dot gov, where all of these savings
are supposed to be listed, a lot of these end
up being incorrect and even removed from the website. So
(03:13):
even if he claims to have met one hundred and
fifty billions, say like six months from now, I have
a hard time believing that number would even be accurate.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And Dana how Active, I know this is an ongoing
current on the show. How Active is. DOZE currently feels
like it's winded down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I think I'm going to push back on that. I
think that people think it's winded down because everyone is
focused on tariffs and what tariffs are doing to the economy.
But DOZE is still very much embedded in all of
these agencies. You know, Antonio Gracias, one of Elon's best
friends who's on the board of SpaceX, is like at
the Social Security Administration, They're doing all this stuff with
(03:52):
Social Security and immigration and putting people on these dead lists.
And I just think that just because there's not maybe
the wall to wall media coverage that there was in
dozes early these days, does not mean that DOGE is
winding down. Elon's time as a special government employee will
sunset after the one hundred and thirty day mark. But like,
(04:15):
DOGE is very much embedded in all of these agencies.
And what McKenna has written about a lot is and
what we've seen too is like, you know, it's not
just this like band of kids that like got a
lot of publicity in the early days. People are now
in CIO roles, people have access to wide swaths of information,
and so I just think it's incorrect to sort of
(04:36):
act like DOGE is sort of on the way out.
It is not like they have more access to more
databases and more agency functions than ever, and there's like,
you know, easily I don't know. I think our internal
list is over eighty people, but there are people like
at every agency accessing all kinds of data, and they're
still doing a lot of work, like hand in hand
(04:59):
with omb the Trump administration.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
I also think part of what's happening here too, and
a lot from my reporting and the reporting that you
guys have been doing at Bloomberg, is that at the beginning,
there are these stories of these teenage strike forces of
engineers descending on these agencies, and then also, I mean,
it was every single agency. And now I mean, the
way that I've been describing this to folks that I've
been speaking with recently is that we've kind of we're
(05:23):
kind of exiting the stage one of DOGE right and
entering what I've been kind of calling stage two, although
I don't have a proper definition for it yet because
I don't think we're in it all the way, but
a lot of what's happening at agencies specifically, I'm thinking
about the IRS. It's tax day. There's a lot of
very technical things happening. Groups of engineers you know at
(05:43):
the IRS, and groups of doge folks and palenteer coming
in and trying to build these like unified API layers.
That doesn't really make a great headline. And then you
have to also have to think like does your audience,
you know, even understand fully what all of this means.
And so there's a lot going on, right, but it's
not this like headline grabbing, attention grabbing teenagers storming through
(06:07):
the State Department right Instead, they're sitting at computers at hackathons.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I feel like we've gone from like feeding a USAID
into the wood chipper on a Saturday to like, let's
remake like technical infrastructure of how this agency actually operates
and like strip out all of the legacy software contracts
and make a new database that is run by like
private enterprise.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And McKennon, tell us more about your reporting on this,
because you have written about specifically at the IRS and
this API that you mentioned ANDEER Palenteer, of course, private
company that's legendary for being able to like create layers
of software that can kind of reach across databases. What
is the end goal here and what could this end
up looking like?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean it's really hard to predict what the
end goal is. But what's happening at the IRS specifically
is that doge specifically the doge lead at IRS, his
name is Sam forcos, he wants to build this unified
API layer across all of the IRS systems, basically creating
one kind of one cloud platform using Palentti your foundry
(07:14):
software right to be able to create different apps to
run LLLMS over IRS data. And he thinks he can
do this in thirty days. This is happening at other
agencies as well. A couple of weeks ago, I reported
that at the SOID Security Administration, for example, there were
doge folks who wanted to completely rebuild the SSA code base.
(07:34):
And again they think that they can do this in
like thirty days or a month, completely build it up
from the ground up and removing all of this legacy code,
whether that is assembly or coball, and get it ready
for whatever. You know, This next phase of doges and Danna.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
When you think about what that looks like and how
it's currently used in tech, like, what do you think
it could end up looking like?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well, there's just like a lot of great privacy concerns
because the federal government always had like really strict rules
about who had access to what, and the inability to
kind of cross agencies was sort of by design, right,
because the federal government took very seriously the privacy of
American citizens. But if databases can talk to each other,
there's nothing that's stopping dose from like using IRS data
(08:22):
to coordinate with like it, you know, with ICE or
the student loan program, and like that is the big
fear of a lot of civil rights experts and student groups.
And you're seeing in a lot of the lawsuits that
have been filed great concern about the lack of privacy
controls that are going into these new systems. And you know,
Musk is very focused on immigration and they you know,
(08:44):
they are talking a lot about social security and what
they're doing with social security and how so many immigrants
have Social Security numbers, and so I think that there's
just great concern about the lack of privacy controls as
these new databases are being built and like cross reference
across the government, you can argue that doing that is
(09:05):
more efficient and will help find waste and fraud. But
on the flip side, like the government now has unfettered
more and more access to everyone's information than it ever
had before.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Mc kenneth, where else has your reporting on DOGE taking
you here? We've got the IRS stuff, We've got HHS,
the Palanteer stuff is really interesting, Like what's the signal
through all of this, especially as you know, we start
to look forward to perhaps Elon maybe stepping back a
little bit at the end of his one hundred and
thirty days as a special government employee.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, to piggyback off of what Dana was saying. I mean,
that's the fear right now, is that one of the
administration's biggest goals right now is immigration and immigration reform,
if that's what you want to call disappearing people immigration reform.
But if you look at the agencies that DOGE has targeted.
You mentioned AJHS, which has a database of unac companied minors.
You look at IRS. Despite as much as what Elon
(10:04):
wants to say, immigrants in our country do pay taxes.
In a variety of ways billions and billions of dollars
every year, and then ssay as well, they end up
paying into Social Security as well. And so when you
look at the agencies that DOT has targeted, with the
priority of the administration being immigration, by building these APIs
(10:24):
and modernizing these systems, allowing them to talk would make
it a lot easier. And what sources that I've been
speaking to the fears, you know, building this gigantic migrant
surveillance system. And the scariest part of this to me
is the idea that you can do this in thirty days.
I mean, just identifying where all the databases are, what
they do, who accesses them, and for what purpose would
(10:45):
take longer than thirty days, you know, according to everyone
that I've spoken to. And so even if you want
to even beyond that thirty day limit, is there even
time to test how these were built? Are things going
to go wrong? I think you know. The big thing too,
is like who is going to get trapped in this?
We had over the weekend an immigration lawyer in Massachusetts
right who received an email saying that she needed to
(11:08):
self deport immediately. That was a mistake. There's just so
many mistakes that could happen, and when the administration is
sending so many of these folks down to the seacop
prison in Al Salvador and not really fighting to bring
them back when mistakes are made. That adds another layer
to this, all right, because maybe they don't even care
if you know, the system is one hundred percent perfect
(11:30):
and doesn't make these horrible mistakes.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Dana, that is all kind of scary. We're starting to
think about, you know, what a complete kind of surveillance
state might look like here in the US. It's also
I'm curious, you know, I mentioned how Elon could be
stepping away here At the end of a one hundred
and thirty day period, he will have this special government
(11:53):
employee status that will sort of supposedly end. Is he
actually going to leave?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So has discretion in terms of how the one hundred
and thirty days are counted. Like if if you think
if the inauguration on January twentieth was day one, then
the one hundred and thirty days brings you till roughly
the end of May. I mean, there have definitely been
signals that Elon is going to like sort of step back.
Trump has said basically at some point, Elon's going to
(12:19):
have to leave. Elon talked very publicly at that Wisconsin
rally about the sort of hit that he's taking in
terms of the backlash against Tesla and how that's impacted
his stock and the stock of everyone who owns Tesla frankly,
and so there is a sense that, like he might
pull back, but I think that he has unfettered access
to the Trump administration. And we have to remind everyone
(12:41):
he bankrolled this electoral comeback. He spent more than two
hundred and fifty million dollars to get Trump reelected. He
campaigned for Trump all across Pennsylvania. And he's not just
going to like take his ball and go back to
Tesla like he He funded this campaign for a reason.
I think he is very proud of what Doge has accomplished,
(13:02):
but frustrated that the public isn't giving him accolades like
he is. He is frustrated by the backlash his companies
are in. I mean, Tesla at least is in trouble,
like they have a stale lineup byd is eating their
starting to eat their lunch. Globally, the cyber truck is
a disaster. In terms of sales, So like at some
point he's going to have to reckon with like what
(13:22):
is his company? But I don't think he's gonna like
not be in touch with Trump. I mean, the two
of them text each other all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
The thing I would add to that too is that
he owns x Twitter. I mean, his formal role is
as a senior advisor. I think maybe you can just
do that by competing. Unfortunately as well, because it's very unclear.
You know that the administration Republican influencers everyone in this ecosystem,
this Trump administration ecosystem is on there and probably you know,
(13:49):
gets push notifications like we all do when Elon Musk tweets,
whether we turn them on or not.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Mcinnay. You know, that's an interesting idea and it does
speak to maybe what the future it looks like. But
like back just in the present, since he's still in DOGE,
how involved is he on a day to day basis
Based on what you've learned through your reporting.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like the way that he
operates with a ton of his companies, right, he has
these grand ideas or whatever, and he builds a group
of people who he knows can execute. Steve Davis seems
to be heavily involved, who you know, is now the
president of the Waring Company. He was brought in for
the Twitter acquisition and did a lot of the cost
cutting there. It seems like it's the same playbook, right,
(14:31):
and then it gives Elan a lot of time to go,
you know, do some of his company stuff. Played Diablo
four at three o'clock in the morning to test his
starlink or whatever. But yeah, I think it's still you know,
him operating as this like philosopher King more than this
everyday roll of like getting his hands dirty with firings
or you know, doing specific stuffs.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
When I thought it was super interesting that Musk and
a bunch of Doge people went on Fox News with
Brett Baher to kind of talk about their work, and
Steve Davis was sitting right next to Elon and he
was introduced by the Fox host as the COO.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Of Doge of Doge.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah, so did A McKenna's point, like it is Elon's philosophy,
but he has kind of deputized some of his most
loyal lieutenants to actually carry out the work. But Musk
is still very much in DC. I mean, he was
with Trump in Florida over the weekend at the UFC fight.
Like he is not in Fremont, he's still very much
(15:26):
in the nation's capital.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So when he's not there, let's say, after these one
hundred and thirty days or whatever, who are some of
the key people you mentioned Steve Davis, who are some
of the key people in DOGE that will be kind
of primary reporting targets as you kind of look ahead, Dana,
I'm gonna start with you.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Yeah, I think I.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Think it's super interesting to look at who's taken on
the CIO roles so. At Social Security, for instance, the
sort of interim CIO was this guy Mike Russo, but
now it's Scott Colter, who's like a young kind of
private equity VC kind of person and who is now
like in that job. And so that's that's like one
(16:04):
example of like an agency person that I would look
closely at. I think it's super interesting to see how
long Antonio Gracias, who's on the board of SpaceX, and
Joe Gebia who's on the board of Tesla, stay involved
in DOGE. They have both been very active Antonio at
Social Security and Gebia's like at oh PM looking at
the retirement system. You know, some of these people kind
(16:25):
of cycled through and have cycled back to their companies already,
Like some of the young like engineers who worked at
Tesla and SpaceX, are already sort of done with their
with their work and are now back at the companies.
But to McKenna's point, like as we enter sort of
DOGE two point zero or like the second phase, I
think it's going to be some of the less lesser
known names that will actually have the most influence. And
(16:47):
they're lesser known by design. I mean a lot of
what we know of the about these people is based
on court filings and tros and declarations from the government
in these various lawsuits. A lot of these people have
scrubbed their social media. They don't have a LinkedIn page,
like they are being very low key on purpose and
worth mentioning.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Dana, you work with Sophie Alexander and our graphics team
here at Bloomberg to sort of map out what that
universe of people really look like. That will be kind
of leading DOGE potentially forward after elon the steps aside, Yeah,
for sure, any particular names that we haven't mentioned yet
that are of interest to you.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Yeah, The people that I'm most interested in are the
DOGE people who are within that USDs system, which was
formerly of course called the US Digital Services created under
Obama to resolve the whole healthcare dot gov debacle, now
called the US Doage Services, seemingly led by a woman
named Amy Gleason, who you don't hear a lot from.
(17:46):
So I'm definitely interested in seeing what Amy's role evolves into.
Does she end up making more decisions, does she take
the reins on a lot of this. I have my doubts,
of course, but definitely the leadership there and at GSA
as well, because the General Services Administration to me has
kind of seemed with all the layoffs happening and getting
(18:08):
rid of so many folks at these agencies, it seems
like they're building like this group of technologists that they
can then just like deploy anywhere to you know, quote
unquote like fix issues or do things.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
All Right, McKenna, we're going to have you back on
the pod. Thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate you
in your time.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Great great to be here.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Oh right now we're going to talk about the other
most exciting thing in the world, which is Tesla as
a stock. And we're going to be joined by Esha Day,
a Bloomberg Stock reporter. Esha, thanks for joining us. Thank
you for having me, Dana, you're still here, of course, Escha.
What is going on with this stock right now?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
As always, it's very volatile and it's mostly going down now.
You would say that about the US stock market as
better right now and.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
For numbers like about seven and a half percent down,
And I.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Just want to set up like you know, yes, Tesla
is moving a lot like the US stock market, which
itself is moving like a memestock these days.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
But I want to tell you, like how much wilder
Tesla is.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
For example, Tesla shares are down last I checked, about
thirty eight percent this year. Sm P five hundred is
down about eight percent of over that time. The NaSTA
one hundred, which is I would say usually a little
more volatile than sm P five hundred index because it's
so technology heavy, is down about ten percent.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So you know that's a comparison.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Now since April second, when this recent tariff turmoil really started,
and by many accounts, some people would say that Tesla
is relatively insulated maybe from some of the tariffs. Yet
Tesla shares are down about eleven person since April seconds close.
Sembly five hundred is down about four point five percent
over that time, NaSTA one hundred down four persons. So
(19:54):
you know, by whichever way you look at this, Tesla
chees are doing very badly.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Okay, there's this thing called the death crow that's come
up a little bit and Tesla seems to be maybe
flirting with it. How significant is this death cross?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, it's significant for sure.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
It's a death cross is basically a chart pattern, but
it's one of the more prominent ones out there, something
that technical analysts and chart analysts kind of look at
very closely. Now, any chart pattern we would not look
at them in isolation. We usually want to see what
else is happening with the stock at the same point.
But overall, what this death cross is is it's basically
(20:34):
is giving you a sense of what the momentum of
the share price is doing.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Right.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
So, the way it's defined is when a short term
price support line of a stock or an asset falls
below the long term support line or trend line. The
way it's usually defined is by the fifty day moving
average and the two hundred day moving average, and Tesla
Shayes just cross that kind of ominous milestone yesterday. What
(21:02):
it usually means is that you know that, like the
momentum is now on the lower side.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
The last time it happened was in.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Early I would say late January early February twenty twenty four,
and right after that happened, Tesla Chez fell about twenty
five person over fifty five trading sessions.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So you know that's how it goes.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Okay, Dana, I'm gonna turn to you. What's the word
among investors and analysts? Were a week away from from
earnings here, it seems like a pretty significant earning. So
so what are we hearing as we march towards that day?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, I mean you're seeing a lot of analysts cutting
their price targets for volume because Tesla just does not
really have a robust lineup, and people want to hear like,
what is up with? Is Tesla ever going to make
a cheaper car? Is the cheaper car like really a
new car or is it just like a de content
and Model three and Model Y. I've written about this
that like Elon Musk is basically.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Bored with making cars.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
He kind of proved to the world that you could
make a high performance like car and he accomplished that,
and now he's all about AI and the robotaxi. The
company is supposed to launch some kind of soft robotaxi
service in Austin in June. So I think the earnings
call is all going to be about like the catalysts
for the future. Everyone knows it was a really bad
(22:17):
quarter in terms of sales. How testy analysts get with
Elon on the call, I think will be interesting. I'm
hoping that analysts will ask him like when are you
stepping back from doge? When are you going to actually
run the company? Like he has always been a part
time CEO, and I think you're really seeing frustration about
that spillover. Like Dan Ives, who's you know, always been
(22:38):
one of the most boolish analysts on Wall Street, sort
of talked about the brand destruction and that like Elon
has to kind of make a decision and read the room.
So yeah, it'll be as always, it'll be a very
interesting call.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Next week.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Dan just brought up Dan Ives, who, as she also mentioned,
is has been a huge test lablele. How significant was
him changing his tune a little bit.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Yeah, So, Dan Ives, I would say, is one of
the strongest bullish voices among seal side analysts on Tesla.
You know, he's very rarely criticized as a stock or
Elon Musk himself. So him coming out was really kind
of emblematic of how a.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Lot of the bullish voices.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
And I speak to investors, both retail investors and institutional
investors on Tesla all the time, and when around the
time when Dan kind of came out and said that Okay,
this is time for the company to really kind of
you know, listen to the room really and for Elon
Musk to take a step back and kind of refocus
on the company again, that was really emblematic of the
(23:40):
mood of the street. Like when I talked to investors
that they're very cautious, like there are I mean, there
is this thing about Tesla bullish investors where they're almost
always optimistic in some way, but the mood of caution,
the mood of concern is really coming out right now
and that is like becoming really intense after the squatter
deliver numbers and the results that we are expecting next week.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Okay, so there's caution, but then there's short shorts. No
one seems to be willing to short it though, right
and Dana, You've written about shorts and how devastated they've
been by this stock. So even though there's caution, like,
is anybody really willing to bet against Elon?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
You know, that's a really good question. I mean, the
sort of a group of short sellers known as Tesla
Hugh really got blown out of the water when the
Model Y became like the best selling vehicle and the
company kind of very definitely navigated the pandemic and hit
a trillion dollar valuation. I actually don't know if the
shorts have come back. I mean, some of the biggest
and loudest short sellers like David Einhorn and Jim Chanos,
(24:41):
I don't actually know if they still are actively shortening
stocks like ESHA. I haven't caught up with them recently,
have you.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
No, You're right.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
I mean, there are almost no prominent bearish voices or
short seller voices to be found in Tesla at this point.
And you know, they kind of absolutely got blown apart
during the twenty twenty two an even rally in the stock,
so I just again numbers a little bit for context.
There was a time, I would say around twenty eighteen
twenty nineteen, the short seller percentage of Tesla stock was
(25:11):
around thirty three percent of its free flow. Right now,
it's hovering around three percent for the past four or
five years. So that's where we are. Even when we
see a slight bit of uptick in the stock, we
haven't really seen anything that's you know, worth really noting.
When I talk to people on the street, there are
enough people out there who think this stock should be shorted,
(25:31):
but they're just not willing to stand in front of it,
just because it's such an immense beast of a momentum
stock right just when the stock turns, it's very hard
to tell when it might turn, and especially with Lan's
kind of political prominence and everything, the understanding is that
once the stock really turns, it's very hard to stand
in front of that momentum, and nobody wants to get
(25:52):
kind of blown part by that.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Esha Danna, thanks for joining us on Elennik.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Thank you always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Anna Maserakas is
our editor, and Rayhan Harmanci, our senior editor. The idea
for this very show also came from Rayhan, and she
deserves a special shout out since this will be our
final episode. Blake Maples handles engineering and David Purcell fact checks.
Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson. The elon Ink theme
(26:26):
is written and performed by Taka Yazozawa and Alex Sugahira.
Brendan Francis Newnan is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks to
our supporter Brad Stone. I'm Joel Weber. If you have
a minute, rate and review our show, it'll help other
listeners find us. See you next week.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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