Is Elon Musk the Ultimate Scam Artist? with Max Chafkin

Is Elon Musk the Ultimate Scam Artist? with Max Chafkin

Released Thursday, 10th April 2025
Good episode? Give it some love!
Is Elon Musk the Ultimate Scam Artist? with Max Chafkin

Is Elon Musk the Ultimate Scam Artist? with Max Chafkin

Is Elon Musk the Ultimate Scam Artist? with Max Chafkin

Is Elon Musk the Ultimate Scam Artist? with Max Chafkin

Thursday, 10th April 2025
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Episode Transcript

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0:55

I think people sometimes take for granted

0:58

that a scam artist doesn't necessarily

1:00

fail, right? You know, we're talking

1:02

to one of my producers earlier

1:04

and we're like, 10 years ago

1:07

today, Elon Musk said, he was

1:09

like, in 10 years, we will

1:11

be on Mars. He's like, I'll

1:13

do it, we're gonna be on

1:16

Mars. We're still here baby. You

1:18

know what I mean? Yeah. Okay,

1:20

Trump's a simple one. What did

1:22

Trump say? Never forget it. He

1:25

said, day one, we're going to

1:27

bring down the price of eggs.

1:29

They're coming down, folks. We're

1:32

going to bring it

1:34

down. Folks, we're going

1:36

to bring it. They've

1:38

done nothing. They've done

1:40

nothing. Eggs have only

1:42

gone. Upsence he came

1:44

in its power. Thanks

1:46

like you've never seen.

1:48

This is What

1:51

Now with Trevor

1:53

Noah. This episode

1:55

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3:27

Chafkin, welcome to the podcast. Thank

3:29

you for having me. You know what

3:31

I love about what you do

3:33

is, I mean you're deeply ingrained in

3:35

the world of reporting around finance

3:37

and business and tech and everything. But

3:40

I'm oftentimes amused and enthralled

3:43

by people who seem to be

3:45

in a place where they

3:47

were well ahead of something before

3:49

other people saw it. And

3:51

I wonder sometimes if it's luck

3:53

or if it's them having

3:55

like a premonition. You host a

3:57

podcast called Elon Inc. Right

4:00

and I remember the first time I

4:02

saw the podcast I was like, huh?

4:04

Like wow, is there gonna be enough

4:06

material? We had the same concern.

4:08

No, you did. I mean to

4:11

some extent. Yeah, or there were

4:13

definitely people around it who wondered

4:15

But of course, you know, it's turned

4:17

out it's worked out like he said

4:19

like Elon Musk is everywhere right now

4:22

even before he was you know involved with

4:24

Donald Trump we were making this argument

4:26

like no you don't understand he's this

4:28

he's this big cultural figure yes he's

4:30

he's a mega billionaire he has more

4:33

influence than maybe anyone on the planet

4:35

and then of course he became you

4:37

know obviously very closely into Donald Trump

4:39

became his number one campaign donor and

4:41

de facto you know senior advisor or

4:44

however you want to think of it

4:46

it does feel Yeah, like we're ahead of

4:48

something. On the other hand, I think

4:50

even people who have been following this

4:52

man for a really long time, and

4:55

I met him, I think for the

4:57

first time in like 2007, so I've

4:59

been covering him for many, many years,

5:01

even so it's been very surprising to

5:03

watch the kind of transformation over the

5:06

last couple of years, and then

5:08

what's happened over the last, you

5:10

know, four or five months. Right.

5:12

The reason, I really wanted to have

5:14

you on so that we could chat

5:16

with you today, I think it's easy

5:18

to make the conversation about Elon Musk

5:20

and for us to like hyper focus

5:23

on it because it's happening right now.

5:25

But what I think, where I think

5:27

you're uniquely positioned is because of

5:29

your expertise, I think you can help

5:31

us paint a picture that gives us

5:34

a larger idea of what we're

5:36

experiencing because you also wrote many

5:38

people argue like the definitive biography

5:41

on Peter Thiel, right? And now

5:43

I've learned a lot of people, you

5:45

say Peter Thiel, they're like what's that? Like

5:47

a lot of people, you say Peter

5:49

Thiel, and they go, what is that?

5:51

And then some people really know the

5:53

name, and some people don't, and the

5:55

people who know it sometimes will say,

5:58

oh, forget Elon Musk, Peter Thiel. is

6:00

the puppet master who's running all

6:02

of this. So I guess to

6:04

set the scene for this conversation,

6:06

when we talk about the technocrats

6:08

or the tech elites or the

6:11

tech, like, who are we actually

6:13

speaking about? So it's like Elon

6:15

Musk, Peter Thiel, who would you

6:17

count in that echelon? I would

6:19

add Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Basos, um.

6:22

And then I would throw in

6:24

some other investors. Mark Andreessen, probably

6:26

a name that is less familiar

6:28

to people, but the founder of

6:30

Netscape, who's now a major venture

6:33

capitalist, also advising Trump right now.

6:35

And then there's this kind of

6:37

like larger universe of... guys who

6:39

are connected to Teale who are

6:41

involved in politics at the moment.

6:44

David Sachs, who's like running Trump's

6:46

AI and crypto initiatives. And it's

6:48

sort of a list of venture

6:50

capitalists and so on. What actually

6:52

made this kind of helpful in

6:54

investigating it is that Teale and

6:57

his cohort you know call themselves

6:59

the paypal mafia they they actually

7:01

like they don't identify yeah as

7:03

an influence network and uh... you

7:05

on musk you started company in

7:08

the.com during the.com bubble and then

7:10

started a company that merged with

7:12

paypal effectively became like a co-founder

7:14

of paypal so he was in

7:16

that paypal mafia although he and

7:19

teal were kind of like rivals

7:21

sort of friends frenemies uh... over

7:23

over a number of years teal

7:25

invested in his companies must invest

7:27

in teals hedge fund there's a

7:29

lot of you know back scratching

7:32

or whatever going on in this

7:34

world the way i see it

7:36

you know teal was a prominent

7:38

backer of don't trump in twenty

7:40

sixteen he was kind of the

7:43

first tech guy to back Trump,

7:45

to say like, yeah, this is

7:47

the guy. He spoke at the

7:49

RNC, the Republican National Convention, he

7:51

donated a little more than a

7:54

million dollars in October of 2016.

7:56

That was after the Access Hollywood

7:58

thing. Wow. And then join. the

8:00

Trump administration or join the transition

8:02

anyway with this idea of attacking

8:04

the quote-unquote administrative state that which

8:07

is really similar to what Elon

8:09

Musk is trying to do right

8:11

now with doge yeah exactly When

8:13

I wrote that book on Thiel,

8:15

he had kind of all these

8:18

secret connections with various like right

8:20

wingers. And Thiel was operating kind

8:22

of behind the scenes and you're

8:24

looking at like, oh, did he

8:26

consort with this extremist or that

8:29

extremist? And he was sort of

8:31

playing footsie with the far right.

8:33

Musk is just supercharging it, right?

8:35

So it's just this kind of

8:37

like dramatic. acceleration of what

8:39

these tech guys have been up to for

8:41

a very long time. I'd like to go

8:43

back before you started the podcast.

8:46

Why Elon? What made you feel that

8:48

this is the guy to dig into? I mean,

8:50

so just at the most basic level,

8:52

he is, I mean, he's either

8:54

the world, depending on the day,

8:57

right? He's now far away the

8:59

world's richest person, but at various

9:01

times he's been like top two,

9:04

top three. He's one of the

9:06

wealthiest people on the planet. He

9:08

owns... Two very important companies. Tesla

9:10

Motors, he's a significant shareholder in

9:13

Tesla Motors, CEO, effectively controls company.

9:15

Tesla is the most valuable car

9:17

company. It is the leading player

9:19

in electric cars, so in certain

9:22

ways. you know, the leading player

9:24

for the future of cars. He

9:26

also owns this gigantic defense contractor,

9:28

SpaceX, which is the leading provider

9:30

of rocket launch services to satellite

9:32

players and to the US government.

9:34

And he's got a bunch of

9:36

other little companies. And then he

9:38

has this, as I said earlier,

9:40

like this cultural impact. It's not

9:42

just that Musk is rich and,

9:44

you know, controls a lot of

9:46

people's livelihoods. People are really into

9:48

him. I mean, he has a

9:50

story. that has captivated to some

9:52

extent the world, right? There's like a lot of

9:54

young people who look up to him and want

9:56

to be him, and then you layer on top

9:59

of that, of course. his pension for being

10:01

weird. He's he's he's he's he

10:03

has he has crazy beliefs. He

10:05

has this complicated very complicated involved

10:07

personal and romantic life or whatever

10:09

as a father of you know

10:11

14 children that we know of

10:13

maybe you know knows perhaps more.

10:15

And he's always been you know

10:17

right at the edge of doing

10:19

what is reasonable. people who are

10:21

coming to it fresh are like

10:23

what happened to Elon Musk and

10:25

people who have been covering Elon

10:27

Musk for a long time are

10:29

like well like let me tell

10:31

you like when he like fake

10:33

acquire like did a fake private

10:35

offer and had a huge fight

10:37

with the SEC and then you

10:39

know sort of kind of told

10:41

the SEC to suck Elon's cock

10:43

and like you can kind of

10:45

go back like he's always been

10:47

this incredibly I don't know for

10:49

like a better word like edgy

10:51

figure even as far back as

10:53

2007 when you first met him?

10:55

Yeah, and I think that's part

10:57

of why I mean there are

10:59

all sorts of reasons like why

11:01

he became successful but I think

11:03

like Donald Trump He has a

11:05

knack for Like authenticity and for

11:07

and for being willing to sort

11:10

of say things that seem transgressive

11:12

and then using that to his

11:14

advantage. Just like Trump, I mean

11:16

he rails against the media all

11:18

the time, but he got incredible

11:20

media coverage because during those years,

11:22

like if you were a reporter,

11:24

he would, you know, he talked

11:26

to everybody and he would say

11:28

crazy stuff. He would attack his

11:30

enemies. He would attack his enemies.

11:32

He would, now, now back then

11:34

his enemies weren't like George Soros.

11:36

They were just like, it was

11:38

like BYD. Or no, it was

11:40

like the cars columnist for the

11:42

Wallomist for the Wall Street Journal.

11:44

And so he was always, you

11:46

know, he's always saying provocative stuff

11:48

and I think that, you know,

11:50

contributed to his rise. Okay, but

11:52

help me understand this though. Have

11:54

we missed something in Silicon Valley

11:56

shift? Because it seems like there

11:58

was a time. Silicon Valley was

12:00

the bastion of progressivism and liberalism.

12:02

You know, it was, Elon Musk

12:04

himself, he's got like tweets ways

12:06

out there probably being like, and

12:08

that's why we have LGBTQ protections

12:10

or our workers and we believe

12:12

in this and we, Silicon Valley

12:14

seemed like that place. There was the

12:16

place where people came together and said, we

12:18

want the world to be a better place.

12:21

I remember when Uber was launching and they

12:23

were like, hey, and it was correct. It

12:25

was saying like, yeah. Now if you're a

12:27

black person or a person with disabilities, this

12:30

car will pick you up. You're not going

12:32

to now get driven past it. It felt

12:34

like this utopia crew that was

12:36

trying to make the world a better

12:38

place. And so because of that, they were often

12:41

at odds with the people there in

12:43

bed with now. You know what I

12:45

mean? They were the ones who were

12:47

like, we don't like Nazis. We don't

12:49

want to see swastickers on our websites.

12:51

We're going to ban you. And we

12:53

don't want people separate. Did we miss

12:55

something? Did Silicon Valley shift or was

12:57

this something that was always there that

12:59

is now rearing its head? I don't

13:01

know which way to look at it.

13:03

It's both. So going back to the

13:05

beginning of the industry. Silicon

13:08

Valley people talk about the military industrial

13:10

complex that that phrase like that is

13:12

Silicon Valley That's what Silicon Valley was

13:14

it was a bunch of companies that

13:16

were making technology to help the United

13:18

States when the Cold War and like

13:20

so you you know you rewind the

13:22

clock like way back and this was

13:24

like a conservative place is not a

13:26

place full of progressives it was it

13:28

was a place that it you know

13:30

a lot of ways was kind of

13:32

like you know pro-military and so

13:35

on. And I think that strain

13:37

has always been there. The kind

13:39

of conservative or even kind of

13:41

borderline reactionary strain has always been

13:43

in this part of California, but of

13:45

course there's also the counterculture and

13:48

those two things sort of swirled

13:50

together. There was a moment during

13:52

the like 2000s when like you're

13:55

saying like Silicon Valley seemed very

13:57

closely allied with the Democratic part.

14:00

and in particular Barack Obama, you know,

14:02

I listened to your podcast about

14:04

Elon from September and Trevor, you said,

14:06

I think you're kidding, like Obama

14:08

did this to us. I

14:10

think you're right,

14:13

although not exactly, I would tell a

14:15

different story, which is that Obama,

14:19

I'd say more than any politician,

14:21

maybe more than any cultural figure,

14:23

is the one who gave

14:25

us that story about Elon

14:27

Musk in particular. Oh, so like,

14:30

Obama, you know, this

14:32

vision of kind of a centrist,

14:36

forward -looking

14:39

progressivism that embraces tech in the

14:41

future, he really embraced Elon Musk,

14:43

he embraced clean technology, Tesla nearly

14:45

went bankrupt during the financial crisis,

14:47

Elon Musk got a big loan

14:49

from the Department of Energy, effectively

14:51

was saved from bankruptcy by Elon

14:53

Musk's own admission by Barack

14:55

Obama, by the Obama administration.

14:57

Can we just pause there for

14:59

a second and say, this

15:01

is probably one of the things

15:04

that I find I'm most

15:06

amused and frustrated by, is how

15:08

many times these guys' stories

15:10

are littered with them being helped

15:12

by the government that they are telling

15:14

people they need to dismantle because

15:16

it helps people. Fancy welfare. It's the

15:18

craziest thing ever. Like, literally listen

15:20

to what you me. There's more. I

15:22

mean, SpaceX, his rocket company, I

15:25

mean, basically all of its

15:27

money early on came from the

15:29

government, and SpaceX, like, their big

15:31

breakthrough was signing this contract with

15:33

NASA to provide launch services to

15:35

the International Space Station, also an

15:37

Obama -era thing, you know, when you

15:39

add up the amount of money

15:41

that they've taken from the government

15:44

over the years, it's enormous, but

15:46

it wasn't just that. I mean,

15:48

Obama put Musk kind of at

15:50

the center of like, his idea

15:52

for what the future should look

15:54

like. And I also

15:56

think Silicon Valley, these

15:59

venture. capitalist, these

16:01

guys who are thinking about the future, they

16:03

are really good at picking up the

16:05

vibes. And so like they saw that

16:07

a lot of people were excited about

16:09

Barack Obama, that he was filling up

16:11

stadiums, that young people were excited. Like

16:13

that's their game. And they said, oh,

16:15

you know, let's move there. And I

16:17

think something kind of similar happened this

16:19

summer with Donald Trump, where they sort

16:21

of sensed. that this is where the

16:23

vibe was headed. They also have data

16:25

that we can't dream of, right? Yeah,

16:27

it's true. Although I'm always skeptical of

16:29

how good the data actually is. Really?

16:31

Yeah, I mean, they're definitely people who

16:33

are driven by data, but I think

16:35

these guys make decisions pretty much the

16:37

same way the rest of us do.

16:39

Although, when they like turn back and

16:41

tell the story, they maybe use a

16:43

little more data. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So,

16:46

so yeah, and, and you know. After the election

16:48

after this last election, you know, and we

16:50

had the inauguration and like all these tech

16:52

guys had better seats than like the governor

16:54

of Florida Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a

16:56

lot of the guys who are associated with

16:58

Trump now were associated with Obama Some of

17:00

the some of the same people were at

17:02

the inauguration in you know, 2024 were the

17:04

2008 inauguration see this is so funny because

17:06

look at some of the conversations we've had

17:08

on the podcast like where Josh says as a

17:10

joke, but he says it as a real thing goes like

17:12

Trump is white Obama and he goes

17:14

like not a very controversial yeah a

17:17

very controversial comment but it's like yeah

17:19

but you see like we talk about

17:21

the overlapping voters now you've just

17:24

thrown another piece of the puzzle where

17:26

it's like oh the fact that these

17:28

are the same guys sitting in both

17:30

these administrations could not be further apart

17:33

from each other you tell me any world

17:35

you know better than anyone like think

17:37

about in African countries when they switch

17:39

a regime you will definitely not see

17:41

the same people sitting behind the new

17:43

leader. Because that's a signal that like,

17:46

no, no, no, these are my people

17:48

and these people. But like, the fact

17:50

that they've done that either tells us

17:52

that there's an overlap in the Trump

17:54

and Obamaness that they can resonate

17:57

with, or it tells us that

17:59

they're masterminds. getting into somebody but

18:01

they weren't sitting with Joe Biden.

18:03

They hated Biden and I think

18:05

why and I think to some

18:08

extent the feeling maybe was mutual

18:10

I mean Biden unlike George W.

18:12

Bush Obama and even Donald Trump

18:14

did not embrace Silicon Valley and

18:16

didn't I mean he did because

18:19

he's a politician and they have

18:21

like the most money in the

18:23

world like but you know his

18:25

his politics was the politics of

18:27

organized labor and you know American

18:29

manufacturing and like when he's an

18:32

Amtrak man he's an Amtrak man

18:34

exactly and he actually he sensed

18:36

like correctly to some extent that

18:38

there was a backlash against these

18:40

tech guys and Trump too right

18:43

like Trump was threatening to throw

18:45

Mark Zuckerberg in prison yeah like

18:47

just a few months ago was

18:49

more skeptical of the tech people,

18:51

including Elon Musk. And you know,

18:54

when Biden was promoting EVs, he

18:56

made this very concerted effort to

18:58

promote, you know, GM and Ford,

19:00

the two big American companies, they

19:02

have union labor, and that like

19:05

really offended Elon Musk. So I've

19:07

always wondered, are you familiar with

19:09

the story? Because of it, tell

19:11

it again. I've often wondered if

19:13

this is part of the reason

19:16

we have the Elon Musk we

19:18

have today. Because Biden holds a

19:20

summit at the White House, an

19:22

EV summit, and he invites all

19:24

the big car manufacturers to the

19:27

White House, but he doesn't invite

19:29

Elon Musk. And I don't care

19:31

what you say. Was it a

19:33

deliberate slight? I mean, come on,

19:35

how can it not be? And

19:37

if you look at... I don't

19:40

care what you say about politics,

19:42

right? Let's even... Let's go back

19:44

to that time. I think that

19:46

is a terrible move. Because... Say

19:48

what you want, Elon Musk has

19:51

done more to push EVs than

19:53

any other human being, right?

19:55

in terms of

19:57

like that position

19:59

that he's in. Yeah,

20:02

yeah, but certainly more than like the CEOs GM.

20:04

That's what I mean, the CEO of Ford

20:06

and GM. And so it was strange to me

20:08

that he did that, but I often wonder

20:10

if that was the moment, because I remember seeing

20:13

a shift after that, where Elon went from

20:15

being the guy who's like, I don't get involved

20:17

in politics, and I just think that it's

20:19

good for us to look at both sides, and

20:21

try to find ourselves in a space where

20:23

we're not exactly looking at, like what is that,

20:25

and he was that guy. Biden

20:27

doesn't invite him to the White House, this

20:30

man went full Trump. I

20:32

mean, he went, and you watch

20:34

it in Tansy. So as a casual

20:36

observer, do you think that that

20:38

was a seminal moment in the Musk

20:40

that we get today? I think

20:42

that was kind of the beginning of

20:44

this version of Musk. And of

20:46

course, there are other stories, like again,

20:48

the story that you all talked

20:50

about, about Musk's trans daughter, and Musk's

20:52

own like sort of his purse.

20:55

I think all that also applies, but

20:57

in terms of, if you're looking

20:59

for like a political act, that

21:01

was it. I mean, that was the

21:03

moment. And I do think all

21:05

of those other personal things, also COVID

21:08

restrictions, Musk got really mad about

21:10

the closure orders, it was affecting his

21:12

bottom line, played into it. I

21:15

do understand why Biden did not

21:17

invite him. The thing Biden was trying

21:19

to do was bring the rest

21:21

of the auto industry into EVs. And

21:23

in certain ways, that was what

21:25

Musk was trying to do way back

21:27

in the day. There was a

21:29

version of Elon Musk, 10

21:32

or 15 years ago, who would have

21:34

looked at that and said, oh my God,

21:36

that's great. Like I have achieved my

21:38

goal. It's not just Tesla, it's everybody. Oh,

21:40

so you felt that was like

21:42

an ideological impulse that was maybe

21:44

environmental. He really believed electric

21:46

cars are better for the planet.

21:49

If you had asked me, yeah, like

21:51

10 years ago, I mean, that

21:53

was his ideology to the extent that

21:55

he had an ideology. It was

21:57

bringing electric cars and bringing the industry

21:59

along. with him and you know at times

22:01

he had actually been kind of friendly with

22:04

people at GM because GM of course had

22:06

also done some electric cars actually released an

22:08

electric car in the 90s and then killed

22:10

it. I think Biden was trying to, I

22:13

mean, and this is the account that the Biden

22:15

people. have given an explanation to sort of defend

22:17

themselves from the argument that you're making, which is,

22:19

you know, there are definitely a lot of people

22:21

who agree with you, which is like, listen, this

22:23

was about Detroit and everything. I don't believe that.

22:25

But yeah, I'll be honest with you, I don't

22:28

believe it. I don't believe it. I think I

22:30

think Biden's people were going to put you in

22:32

your place and we're going to show you that this

22:34

industry is going to move on without

22:36

you and so we're going to bring

22:38

all these people in to go like

22:40

we've got this. And then Elon Musk,

22:42

if there's one thing I've seen from

22:44

Elon Musk and what I've heard about,

22:46

yo, let me tell you something. That

22:48

man does not take slight well. Yeah.

22:50

We're going to continue this conversation

22:52

right after this short break.

22:54

Maybe we should talk about that

22:56

a little bit more. Just like, take

22:59

a step out of the Elon of it

23:01

all. I know the world has often

23:03

been populated by, you know,

23:05

you always call them the

23:07

thin-skinned powerful men. Yeah. I don't

23:09

know that we've ever been in a

23:11

time when the men have had this

23:13

much power and their skins have been.

23:16

And this much wealth. Like

23:18

this is an unprecedented amount

23:20

of wealth to accumulate. It

23:22

just wasn't this much money

23:25

to be hoarded by one

23:27

person. Right? Yeah. There's an

23:29

unprecedented wealth and kind of

23:31

an unprecedented cultural impact and

23:34

control. I mean, Musk... I used

23:36

to talk about this with Mark Zuckerberg,

23:38

you know, Facebook, you know, it's the

23:40

biggest media company in history, you know,

23:42

but that always felt a little bit

23:45

hard because clearly Mark Zuckerberg wasn't like

23:47

going through his mentions, like trying to

23:49

suspend people who were mean to him.

23:51

At least not as far as I

23:53

could tell, whereas Musk definitely seems to

23:56

be doing that. Yeah. And so like

23:58

that feels like the combination. of like

24:00

power and control over our cultural

24:02

lives and money like yeah that

24:04

feels new yeah and how much

24:06

do you think this is fueled

24:08

by his catamine use he's kind

24:10

of known that is don't come

24:12

from me musk I'm not rich

24:14

enough to fight that but like

24:17

because people are kind of You

24:19

read all these articles and it's

24:21

always an anonymous source. He's like,

24:23

I've never seen him like this

24:25

before. This is the most angry

24:27

or erratic or, you know, the

24:29

parade when he went to the

24:31

White House and he brings his

24:33

kid. You know, like, he's doing

24:35

things that even don't seem typical

24:37

for somebody who is... been known

24:39

for being pretty eccentric and out

24:41

there. How much do you think

24:43

his rumored ketamine use is kind

24:45

of fueling this behavior? I mean

24:47

he's acknowledged his ketamine use as

24:49

a treatment for I believe depression.

24:51

I think he said he has

24:53

a prescription. I don't have any

24:55

special knowledge about his substance use.

24:57

I've actually never taken ketamine. So

25:00

it's sort of hard for me

25:02

to know exactly like is that

25:04

you know, but I do think

25:06

that he is behaving erratically and

25:08

I and for him no but

25:10

you get what I'm saying yeah

25:12

I get what you're saying he's

25:14

behaving radically for him that's a

25:16

question that's a question because he

25:18

is he's different and so it's

25:20

it is a little bit hard

25:22

to to like parse like yeah

25:24

how much of this is Elon

25:26

in a dark place and how

25:28

much is this Elon you know

25:30

how much of this is whatever

25:32

substance Elon taking and how much

25:34

of it is just like he's

25:36

a he's an unusual guy and

25:38

I'm not sure that anybody knows

25:40

the exact answer to that question.

25:43

Even Elon Musk, I have to

25:45

say though, you know, the Walter

25:47

Isaacson book that came out, what

25:49

was it, like two years ago,

25:51

there's a lot in there about

25:53

his mental well-being and admissions from

25:55

himself and from his own, from

25:57

people. very close to him who

25:59

have been concerned at various points.

26:01

So like I don't think it's

26:03

totally wrong to like to ask

26:05

because Musk talks about himself all

26:07

the time. I mean he's somebody

26:09

who who is constantly talking about

26:11

struggles with demons and darkness. Yeah

26:13

he is. To me that makes

26:15

him actually kind of relatable. I

26:17

mean that's like a lot of

26:19

us you know everybody struggles and

26:21

to some extent with demons and

26:23

darkness or whatever it's just unusual

26:26

that he wears it. So on

26:28

his sleeve even more so for

26:30

me than like the the rumor

26:32

drug use or whatever or the

26:34

actual drug use like he did

26:36

one smoke pot on a Joe

26:38

Rogan broadcast or whatever is just

26:40

the the hours he's keeping right

26:42

like he seems to be tweeting

26:44

24 7 like so it's like

26:46

this man has 14 kids yes

26:48

looking after the kids not him

26:50

no not him you know what

26:52

it does bring up for me

26:54

though we talk about unprecedented wealth

26:57

There's this idea that I've been

26:59

playing around within my head and

27:01

I... Because I'm not a clinical

27:03

psychologist, I'll never say what a

27:06

person is or isn't. But I

27:08

find it particularly interesting that Trump,

27:10

Kanye, and Elon all have very

27:12

similar trends if you watch like

27:14

how they are. So they have

27:16

moments where people go, oh no,

27:18

they're lovely. And in person, they're

27:20

charming and they're this and they're

27:22

this and then that. And then

27:24

they'll have like these like sort

27:26

of outbursts and all of them

27:28

have three a.m. tweet rants all

27:30

of them Yeah, all of them

27:32

and people like what is happening

27:34

right now almost manic. Yeah, have

27:36

you seen what kangay is saying?

27:38

Have you seen and then kanio

27:40

come and be like I'm sorry

27:42

and I'm da da da da

27:44

da We also have very seldom

27:46

been in a society where that

27:48

goes like unchecked. Do you give

27:50

them saying so let's talk about

27:52

manic, right? like my grandfathers was

27:55

bipolar Everything like that Kanye

27:57

does, my grandfather did. But my

27:59

grandfather didn't... have billions of dollars.

28:01

And I don't know what he would have done

28:03

had he had billions of dollars because broke

28:05

was the barrier that caught him every

28:07

time and then the family would be

28:10

like I come fetch your grandfather he's

28:12

at the supermarket lecturing people about blah

28:14

blah I got to go to supermarket

28:16

pick up granddad and then tomorrow he's

28:18

a sweet little peaceful. But he didn't you

28:20

know what I mean? There's a barrier

28:22

that most people in society will experience

28:25

when they have whatever it is. These men

28:27

don't have that. going, being erratic, when

28:29

the Kani is being erratic, we don't

28:31

know what erratic plus billion equals, and

28:34

I think we might be experiencing it.

28:36

Do you know what I mean? Also,

28:38

I mean, there is this like ideological

28:40

thing that we haven't talked about, which

28:43

is that these guys, and you brought

28:45

it up with Uber, but like, they have been

28:47

in various ways and Tiel played a

28:49

big part of this, but Elon has

28:51

too, have made this argument that sort

28:54

of breaking the rules, transgressing. It's not

28:56

just... it's not just acceptable it's like

28:58

a good thing it's like it's like

29:00

a thing we need more of that's

29:02

there that to some extent is their

29:05

ideology and like and so uber was

29:07

like breaking the taxi industry or breaking

29:09

the rules and it wasn't just it

29:11

wasn't just okay i think a lot of

29:14

people prior to this would agree

29:16

that like it's okay of a

29:18

small business doesn't like fill out

29:20

every single form or whatever because

29:22

they're small business but but these

29:24

guys took it further to say

29:26

no like disruption breaking things, sticking

29:28

in the eye of the establishment,

29:30

like that's how progress happens. Like

29:32

that is, to the extent that

29:34

any of these guys have really

29:36

strongly held beliefs, that is the

29:38

belief that kind of ties them

29:40

all together. Let's talk more about

29:42

Peter Thiel. Who is this shadowy figure?

29:44

I find him very scary. When I

29:46

was like, like, prepping for today, I

29:49

was like, this guy shut down gorka.

29:51

He's a scary kind of person.

29:53

But that's like who is Peter

29:55

Thiel and why do some people

29:58

consider him the alt- puppet

30:00

master for everything that's happening and not

30:02

by the way I'm not saying like

30:04

conspiracy land I'm not saying like who

30:07

is this mystery no I mean more

30:09

more in the way of like someone

30:11

going oh yeah this is how he

30:13

helped Trump and this is what he's

30:15

meant to Elon etc. Well so he

30:17

is just to start he is a

30:20

famous investor he is he was the

30:22

he started co-founded payf pal became kind

30:24

of like the big tech investor in

30:26

the 2000s and 2010s. Many of

30:29

these, many of his friends and

30:31

colleagues like Elon Musk, but

30:33

also Reed Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn,

30:35

the guys who started YouTube, they

30:38

all worked together at PayPal, they

30:40

all kind of went out in

30:42

the world and did business together.

30:45

And Thiel, in addition to all

30:47

of this, was a very conservative

30:49

person, somebody who had been essentially

30:51

one of these. like college conservatives

30:54

really like before it became so

30:56

cool. Oh, okay. So he that

30:58

and that was really like his

31:00

first his first like entrepreneurial venture

31:03

was this kind of right wing

31:05

newspaper at Stanford called the Stanford

31:07

Review and you know they would

31:09

like rail against it's basically wokeness

31:12

but they you know back then

31:14

they called it like political correctness.

31:16

Yeah, you see culture. And you know they would

31:18

sort of like do something that is

31:21

like right on the line of

31:23

being racist or sexist or homophobic

31:25

or maybe all three all at

31:27

once and then use that to

31:29

yeah to their advantage and um

31:32

and he'll kind of combine those

31:34

two things combine the combined his

31:36

you know conservative worldview with his

31:38

his business thing and he's he's

31:41

sort of bounced between the two

31:43

and tried to use his political

31:45

influence to benefit his companies, beginning

31:47

with Palantir. And this is where

31:49

some of these like puppet master

31:52

theories start, because Palantir, which is

31:54

a, it's like a data-based company

31:56

that does data mining for intelligence

31:58

agencies and corporations, and... started the

32:01

company in 2004 and it sort

32:03

of grew in tandem with his

32:05

political influence where they were able

32:07

to get government contracts and so

32:10

on as he grew and of

32:12

course Palantir scares people because databases

32:14

and data mining you know it

32:16

there are ways in which you

32:19

can kind of like surveil somebody

32:21

without actually surveilling them and like

32:23

I said he became really the

32:25

first tech guy to go all

32:27

in on Trump. And as you,

32:30

what did he like about Trump?

32:32

I'd love to know what he

32:34

connected to that, you know, because

32:37

Trump seemed, people forget this

32:39

now, but I remember when

32:41

Donald Trump was running for

32:44

president, he had no ally,

32:46

right? So Trump was the antithesis

32:48

of the Republican Party as they

32:51

saw themselves. You know, I remember,

32:53

you know, whether it was. the

32:55

people running the RNC or whether

32:57

it was people who were running

33:00

against him they were like oh

33:02

no no this guy is a

33:04

pariah he's a joke he does

33:06

not represent our values so the

33:09

establishment Republican Party was not for

33:11

Donald Trump the media was not

33:13

for Donald Trump right Fox News was

33:15

like man who's this guy in that

33:18

way the Democrats were not

33:20

for Donald Trump Silicon Valley wasn't

33:22

so I'd love to know like

33:24

what did Peter TLC in Donald

33:26

Trump where he's like no no no this

33:28

is my guy. Yeah I mean that was the

33:30

mystery that I started with like when

33:33

I got started writing about him

33:35

seriously and wrote the book was

33:37

just like how does this you know

33:39

he's like a gay immigrant tech guy

33:41

yes get behind you know he's born

33:43

in Germany I spent some of his

33:45

childhood in in modern day Namibia I

33:47

think a short time in South Africa

33:50

as well how does this guy you

33:52

know embrace this like avowed luddite member

33:54

Donald Trump like proudly didn't use email

33:56

you know and it's talking about this

33:58

vision of the country that has nothing

34:00

to do with Silicon Valley. Yes.

34:02

And I think about the miners.

34:04

Yeah, more coal miners. Yeah, we're

34:06

bringing back coal, baby. Yeah. And

34:08

I think the answer was, well,

34:10

there's like two things. One of

34:12

which is this political correctness point.

34:14

Like, Teale really does believe left

34:17

wing ideas and tolerance and diversity

34:19

were like holding back America. That

34:21

was like a significant problem with

34:23

our country and that all we

34:25

needed to do was be able

34:27

to say, you know. Stuff that's

34:29

like maybe borderline racist and get

34:31

away with it. And like that

34:33

would make things better because then

34:35

we wouldn't have to hold back

34:37

or something. And I think the

34:39

fact that Trump was doing that

34:41

and getting up there and saying

34:43

stuff that was edgy was a

34:45

big, like that was a big

34:47

part of the appeal. And the

34:49

other thing is these guys want

34:51

to destroy the old order and

34:53

build their new order and build

34:55

a technological, you know, techno future.

34:57

And Trump, maybe he wasn't super

34:59

focused. on the future, but he

35:01

was saying we need to break

35:03

a bunch of stuff. Yeah, yeah,

35:05

yeah. Which is very tech. Move

35:08

fast and break things, right? Isn't

35:10

that like kind of the ethos?

35:12

Yeah, that is, that, that slogan

35:14

is, you know, super associated with

35:16

Facebook. Mark Suckberg has used it.

35:18

And of course, Mark Zuckerberg was

35:20

basically a mentee of Peter Teel.

35:22

Heel's first big investment was an

35:24

early bet on Facebook. For like

35:26

one of the best venture capital

35:28

investments of all time. And so,

35:30

and then I think the last

35:32

thing is just these guys are

35:34

opportunists and Teal saw, it's not

35:36

that Teal thought, oh for sure

35:38

Trump is going to win. He

35:40

thought he might win and if

35:42

he does win, and I do

35:44

kind of like it. Yeah, exactly.

35:46

It's an investment. It's an early

35:48

investment. It's a high risk, high

35:50

reward investment, which is exactly the

35:52

kind of thing that these tech

35:54

guys specialize in. But with Musk,

35:56

I think was the same thing.

35:59

I don't knew for sure that

36:01

that that that. that Trump was

36:03

going to win but i think

36:05

he thought look i've already i've

36:07

already gone sort of i've already

36:09

been red-pilled or whatever i'm already

36:11

tweeting right-wing stuff every day, what

36:13

am I really going to harm

36:15

my brand by putting a couple

36:17

hundred million dollars behind Trump? Probably

36:19

not. If he loses, what have

36:21

I lost? And if he wins,

36:23

then I become the, you know,

36:25

the right-hand man of the most

36:27

powerful person in the world. And

36:29

now it's time for today's self-care

36:31

toolkit segment brought to you by

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Amazon. Whether it's delivering medication to

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your door with Amazon pharmacy or

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Medical, thanks to Amazon, healthcare just

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36:43

thing I always think about when

36:45

we talk about self-care. Home remedies.

36:47

I don't know what it was

36:50

like in your house, but in

36:52

mine, if you had a sore

36:54

throat, you weren't getting medicine right

36:56

away. You were getting a concoction.

36:58

and a prayer. Most of the

37:00

time it was warm water, maybe

37:02

with some salt, lemon, honey, ginger,

37:04

and if you were brave, garlic.

37:06

Yes, there was always the garlic.

37:08

How sick are you bring out

37:10

the garlic? Because apparently, I guess,

37:12

sicknesses and vampires have the same

37:14

weaknesses. At that time I hated

37:16

it. I was like, please just

37:18

give me something from the pharmacy.

37:20

Please but now I don't know

37:22

I don't know what changed now

37:24

I swear by it first sign

37:26

of a cold and I'm suddenly

37:28

becoming like a backyard herbalist You

37:30

know it's funny how these things

37:32

stick with you and what's wild

37:34

is how different they are like

37:36

depending on where you grew up

37:38

they completely change my friend from

37:41

India told me that he used

37:43

turmeric in warm milk as a

37:45

remedy when he was growing up

37:47

which honestly Sounds like a latte

37:49

now, but back then, it was

37:51

medicine. I've heard of people using

37:53

onions and socks or steam tents

37:55

with eucalyptus. People really do get

37:57

creative. And the thing is, it's

37:59

not an either-all. You can absolutely

38:01

believe in modern medicine and still

38:03

make your mom's mystery tea. It's all

38:05

part of taking care of yourself, knowing

38:08

what makes you feel better, even if

38:10

it's just because it reminds you of

38:12

home. Well, we hope you gave you

38:14

some ideas for your self-care routine.

38:16

Today's self-care toolkit segment was

38:19

brought to you by Amazon.

38:21

Thanks to Amazon, healthcare just

38:23

got less painful. You

38:28

know we see this played out in a

38:31

different way in developing nations

38:33

I find so because it's

38:35

a lot more blatant and There

38:37

isn't like a finesse around it. I mean

38:39

now it's become blatant in America, I would

38:42

say. But like for instance, I grew up

38:44

in a world where, you know what I'm

38:46

talking about, there would be this businessman who's

38:48

about to go to jail or their business

38:51

is about to, there always be something that's

38:53

happening. They're losing the mining license or something's

38:55

happening and they go, okay, I need to

38:57

go all in on this candidate. Otherwise my

39:00

whole world is gonna come crumbling down. and

39:02

then they would back them completely and if

39:04

the candidate won they got more mining deals

39:07

they got more oil deals they got more

39:09

everything but if they lost that

39:11

was it for you you read about

39:13

it in like old Cold War Russia

39:15

as well it was like okay who's supporting

39:17

Yeltsin or who's going after Gorbachev

39:19

it feels like that wasn't America

39:21

was the place where people like

39:24

yes there's you know there's shaking

39:26

hands between companies and businesses and

39:28

government, but that's not what this

39:30

country does. And now it seems

39:32

like... It's very naked, right? Yeah,

39:34

now it seems very directly. But

39:37

this is, okay, this is what

39:39

confuses me on, you know, we

39:41

talk about Peter Thiel and one

39:43

aspect. Elon Musk makes electric

39:45

cars. Donald Trump keeps

39:48

on smashing electric cars and

39:50

going like, people don't want

39:52

these things, they're terrible, bring

39:54

oil back, baby. Okay, what am I missing

39:57

there? Strange bedfellows. Yeah, but I want, like,

39:59

am I missing? Does Elon Musk think,

40:01

the only thing I've thought of is,

40:03

Elon Musk goes, if the electric car

40:05

industry is destroyed, the legacy brands will

40:08

die first in it, and they'll be

40:10

the first to bail out because they'll

40:12

panic. So Ford and all of them

40:14

will be like, okay, we're not making

40:17

electric cars, and then Tesla will once

40:19

again be like the only player. And

40:21

so I think he's betting that he

40:24

can weather the store more than they

40:26

can, and then he will have himopoly

40:28

in the space. And so I think

40:30

for now he supports Donald Trump trying

40:33

to like crush the industry, but I

40:35

don't know what you think because you're

40:37

in it so deeply. I think that

40:39

the story you just told is more

40:42

or less the right story. Like Tesla

40:44

has the market lead. So if Tesla

40:46

has the best margins, if Donald Trump

40:49

nixed every subsidy for electric vehicles, it'd

40:51

be very bad for Tesla, but it'd

40:53

be worse. for Tesla's competitors. It's kind

40:55

of like what you're saying. I do

40:58

think like what you were just describing

41:00

is like an oligarchy, right? Like the

41:02

these business people who are using, who

41:04

are very powerful, using their business connections

41:07

to to to influence politics and using

41:09

that to influence their bottom line. I

41:11

feel like that is what Elon Musk

41:14

right now is trying to do. And

41:16

people have described Musk and Teel and

41:18

Basos as oligarchs. and i think there's

41:20

there's something to that because the playbooks

41:23

do feel very similar i don't think

41:25

we yet know like we don't know

41:27

how this story ends and america like

41:30

we may have some oligarchs or some

41:32

would be oligarchs we still have in

41:34

a democracy and there is there's still

41:36

the possibility that this won't work that

41:39

that must will not be able to

41:41

that that yes he he he is

41:43

buying influence when he donates 300 million

41:45

dollars to Donald Trump? But like how

41:48

much influence is he actually buying? Can

41:50

Donald Trump really just write him a

41:52

check for like 10 billion dollars? And

41:55

I think the answer... I think we're

41:57

going to learn, and maybe we already

41:59

are starting to learn, that like the

42:01

answer may be no, that Trump is

42:04

not able, because of Congress and because

42:06

of all of these, you know, because

42:08

of the countervailing forces, because the fact

42:10

that many people in the United States,

42:13

including, you know, Donald Trump voters, do

42:15

not want to live in that world.

42:17

And so I think, so I just

42:20

don't think we know yet what the

42:22

payoff is. So then maybe I guess

42:24

for someone like Thiel it works out

42:26

because he seems like he's more on

42:29

the ideological side of it but Musk

42:31

seems to be more blow with the

42:33

wind but really it's all about the

42:35

money just bottom line bottom line bottom

42:38

line I think they're both they're both

42:40

about the money and but but Thiel

42:42

is more ideological okay more of an

42:45

ideology and maybe you can explain the

42:47

psychology of these guys how much more

42:49

money do they want they have so

42:51

much like because that doesn't feel like

42:54

a satisfying explanation when we're talking about

42:56

the richest man in the world and

42:58

we're talking about somebody that made a

43:01

venture capital investment that is unprecedented will

43:03

never happen again what this is the

43:05

Facebook IPO it's a great point and

43:07

it's it's actually what some of them

43:10

have said in in sort of saying

43:12

like how could this be corrupt I

43:14

don't need more money why would I

43:16

as a we see David Sachs who's

43:19

a you know close friend Atel and

43:21

Musk say this like why would a

43:23

rich person be corrupt. They don't need

43:26

to be corrupt. Brilliant. And I love

43:28

that. It's despicable. It's despicable. But it's

43:30

like brilliant. Wow. So yeah, maybe point

43:32

taken. Yeah. On the other hand, like

43:35

Elon Musk is worth, I didn't, I

43:37

didn't check before I walked in. I'm

43:39

guessing it's around $300 million. That's not

43:41

like $300 billion, that's not a giant

43:44

stack of dollar bills. That's $300 billion

43:46

dollars largely in illiquid assets. Tesla stock

43:48

stock in these private companies primarily SpaceX

43:51

These companies all do business with one

43:53

another so if one were to fall

43:55

very quickly then all then all the

43:57

others might might fall So it's not

44:00

like, like he is very rich, but

44:02

it's not like his wealth is totally

44:04

stable. And he's saying he's low-key broke,

44:06

is that what he thinks? He's definitely

44:09

not. He's definitely not sitting on a

44:11

ton of cash. He's not he's not

44:13

public basketball rich But I mean he

44:16

this is this is not to say

44:18

he's broke He can borrow money and

44:20

this is like what he did when

44:22

he bought Twitter. He basically can take

44:25

some of this some of these stock

44:27

certificates Give him to a bank the

44:29

biggest scam in the world and get money

44:31

out of it because he's not a

44:34

good investment He is he just

44:36

is not sitting on a pile

44:38

cash and so if these if

44:40

some of these stocks were to

44:42

fall dramatically he's still have enough

44:44

money to have a plane and

44:46

probably and and go after his

44:49

enemies or whatever but he just

44:51

he would not be mega rich

44:53

the way it is now and

44:55

I and so I do think

44:57

like they don't feel as secure

44:59

as as we might think we would

45:01

feel if we were in there their

45:03

shoes I'll say one thing to that

45:06

I've met a bunch of And I

45:08

think we should never take for

45:10

granted how much their drive is

45:12

governed by just being invited

45:15

back to the club. You know, it's

45:17

whoever has the biggest yacht gets the

45:19

biggest parking spot where

45:21

you get to dock your boat.

45:23

There's something that comes with it

45:26

that goes beyond like the money.

45:28

And sometimes we think of the

45:30

money because for most people

45:32

money is the thing that's governing

45:35

your life. But once it gets...

45:37

beyond that, the money is just

45:39

a number that determines where

45:42

you are positioned now in life.

45:44

So when you have half a

45:46

billion dollars, okay, I'm sure

45:48

there's like a lot of

45:50

presidents who will take your call,

45:52

when you have 300 billion dollars,

45:55

they're praying that you take

45:57

their call. Yeah, money is now

45:59

power. It's now having the ability

46:01

to what Max was saying to shape

46:04

the world now. Think about how many

46:06

times weird people go, man, I wish

46:08

they would. No, no, no. These people

46:10

don't wish they would. They just do

46:12

it. They do they would. So they

46:14

do they would. So they phone the

46:16

Department of Education, you know what I

46:18

mean? The Secretary of Education, and go,

46:20

hey, this needs to change in schools.

46:23

And that person goes, I'll look into

46:25

it. Elon in particular. And I know

46:27

it's like a loaded sentence, but I

46:29

keep feeling it like my spidey sense.

46:31

Maybe I spend too much time in

46:33

Africa. I don't know. It feels like

46:35

a lot of Elon Musk is a

46:37

scam. And I know that that is

46:39

a counterintuitive statement because people will go,

46:41

what are you talking about Trevor? Man,

46:44

he's a research man in the world.

46:46

He's a company. Every single time he's

46:48

had a new event. He's had a

46:50

new event. He's a new event. He's

46:52

had a new event. there is still

46:54

no full self-driving. And now people are

46:56

like, but have you seen how they

46:58

drive? That's not what I'm saying. A

47:00

lot of the stock price is tied

47:03

to what he says will be done

47:05

or is achievable. A lot of the

47:07

valuation is tied to that, but it

47:09

doesn't get done. And that's why I

47:11

noticed an overlap between him and Donald

47:13

Trump. Donald Trump, I think it was

47:15

Jeff Zucker, who asked him once, they

47:17

said, yo. Why do you keep giving

47:19

Donald Trump the apprentice? And they're like,

47:22

this hack failed businessman who's like this

47:24

goofy dude who's not even a billionaire,

47:26

acts like a billionaire. Why do you

47:28

keep? And Jeff Sucker said, can I

47:30

tell you something? He said, this man

47:32

is a one man, one man ratings,

47:34

ricking ball machine. And he said, because

47:36

he will go to press events. And

47:38

the press will say, how do you

47:41

feel about the ratings being down for

47:43

this season on the apprentice? and Trump

47:45

will turn and say this is the

47:47

biggest rated show of all time and

47:49

the journalists would go no it isn't

47:51

it's lost ratings and he's like no

47:53

No, you're wrong. This is the biggest

47:55

show. It is watched by more people

47:57

than ever before. The Apprentice is the

47:59

biggest show. And Jeff Zaka says he'd

48:02

never seen a human being who could

48:04

take reality and just butt up against

48:06

it and force. And then he would

48:08

create the reality that he now said

48:10

existed. And I feel like Musk and

48:12

Trump do a similar thing. So Musk

48:14

goes. It will work, it will work,

48:16

it will work, it doesn't work, it

48:18

doesn't work, it doesn't work, and then

48:21

a version of it does work, and

48:23

then people like, aha, and then thank

48:25

you, 50 billion. You know, and I

48:27

know it's like a loaded question, I'm

48:29

obviously asking it in a blunt way.

48:31

Yeah, I mean, is he legit? You're

48:33

saying, Trevor, you're saying the tech emperor

48:35

has no clothes. Yeah, I'm saying, is

48:37

he legit. was I think what like

48:40

a tech Silicon Valley people would describe

48:42

as like a reality distortion field and

48:44

they all I love that that's the

48:46

phrase right and it was used memorably

48:48

around Steve Jobs people use it to

48:50

describe Elon Musk the the tendency for

48:52

these tech guys to you know kind

48:54

of like bend reality to their will

48:56

or to say something and like then

48:58

the fact of saying it somehow makes

49:01

it real Now I'm not saying that

49:03

the self-driving cars obviously are not real,

49:05

and he's been promising that as you

49:07

said for a very long time And

49:09

he's and I'm not saying they'll never

49:11

be real by the way, but they're

49:13

not real now I'm just saying a

49:15

lot of like the success is based

49:17

on what people think is going to

49:20

happen when it is going to happen,

49:22

but it's not happening But now the

49:24

very thing that they got into the

49:26

position for they're failing at but then

49:28

somehow They spin it to not be

49:30

failure. Do you know what I mean

49:32

I mean I mean I think I

49:34

think I think that maybe that's something

49:36

that's an insight that like Trump and

49:39

Elon have about the world that it

49:41

works now or something on it the

49:43

way I've thought about it is more

49:45

like as a like a bullshit artist

49:47

a bullshit artist isn't necessarily scamming they're

49:49

just oh okay they're just you know

49:51

they're just spinning a story or whatever

49:53

Elon Musk is I mean he is

49:55

an amazing marketer he's taken a very

49:58

difficult electric vehicles. There were no electric

50:00

cars really at the time he started

50:02

doing it. There he didn't own any

50:04

car He didn't have any cars to

50:06

sell people He managed to convince people

50:08

to give him money. This is what

50:10

I mean though. You see what I

50:12

mean? Yeah, yeah, I mean like the

50:14

business model for Tesla was okay. We're

50:16

gonna make this very expensive car You're

50:19

gonna make us the money for it

50:21

then we will go make it and

50:23

we will use the extra money left

50:25

over to make another car. We sell

50:27

that ahead of that ahead of time

50:29

he sells products that don't

50:31

exist for his entire career,

50:34

and then hopefully most of

50:36

the time eventually delivering them.

50:38

And as long as people

50:41

believe that it's coming, that there

50:43

is gonna be this next thing,

50:45

it kind of works. And I do

50:47

feel like we're in this moment where

50:50

we're gonna learn basically

50:52

like how far that goes. I think

50:54

in another life. Elon

50:56

Musk has the ending that Elizabeth Holmes

50:58

had with the ranos. I was going to

51:01

get out my head, I was thinking this is

51:03

what they threw Elizabeth Holmes in jail for.

51:05

It's the same thing. Elon gets money

51:07

to make a car that hasn't been

51:09

made and basically says the thing is

51:11

what it isn't. Cool. Elon is the

51:13

same guy who then like convinces one

51:15

car manufacturer that he has gotten funding that

51:17

he doesn't have and then convinces

51:19

the bank that the car manufacturer

51:21

is in when they're not in. and

51:23

then gets the deal done, but both sides came

51:26

to the deal because they both had information

51:28

that wasn't in fact true. And Elizabeth Holmes

51:30

is in jail. And I'm not saying she

51:32

shouldn't be in jail, but I'm just like,

51:34

oh damn, with a bullshit artist, you just

51:36

need one person to go to Bernie Madoff

51:39

you to go, I need my money Bernie,

51:41

and then all of a sudden the whole thing

51:43

falls apart. But if no one asks you

51:45

for the money, Bernie Madoff could still be

51:47

around, as one of the most successful. Money

51:50

guys because no one would ask him to

51:52

for the actual money. Yeah. There's a fine

51:54

line between like fake it till you make

51:56

it and faking it You know when you

51:58

look at him and and you look at

52:01

all the ways he's failed to like

52:03

live up to these promises there are

52:05

ways that he has succeeded yes yeah

52:07

and like those car like and again

52:09

if it's it what's so weird and

52:11

and kind of maddening if you've followed

52:13

him for a very long time is

52:15

He has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

52:18

Like, he wanted to have a mainstream

52:20

electric car. He wanted to make electric

52:22

cars, have them everywhere, and now, and

52:24

he has it. And like, like, if

52:26

you get an Uber now, like, it's

52:28

probably gonna be a Tesla. Or many

52:30

of them are- Tesla Model 3, right?

52:32

It's like, it's like a Corolla or

52:34

something, but it's not enough, right? Maybe

52:37

the thing that that allowed him. to

52:39

get to where he is now, it's

52:41

like he can't stop it or something

52:43

and he just has to keep it.

52:45

Oh, damn. Now we're, you know, now

52:47

we're doing the cyber cab or something

52:49

and at some point, you have to

52:51

think he's going to, you know, write

52:53

a check with his mouth that he

52:55

can't cash. And that is sort of

52:58

like what every person who's skeptical of

53:00

him, every critic has been waiting for.

53:02

I mean, that's where people have lost

53:04

a lot of money bidding a lot

53:06

of money bidding. You know me. I

53:08

love electric cars. Love love love love

53:10

love electric cars. So for me, I've

53:12

always been the guy who's gone Yes,

53:14

go Elon do the thing because I

53:17

love that I love that concept. I

53:19

love the idea of Starlink. I think

53:21

too many parts of the world don't

53:23

have internet and this archaic idea of

53:25

like a cable coming to your house

53:27

and now you don't have it and

53:29

then infrastructure last mile. It's too it's

53:31

too intensive It's a fantastic idea. Yeah,

53:33

it has downsides with satellites I get

53:36

there, but there's, you know what I

53:38

mean, it's a fantastic idea. There's so

53:40

many elements of Elon where I go

53:42

great, but I think what, what, you

53:44

know, rubs me the wrong way is

53:46

like the conmanny side of it. I'll

53:48

tell you like the biggest one that

53:50

got me with Elon was him lying

53:52

about the video games. I'll tell you

53:55

why. I play a shit ton of

53:57

video games, right? And video games have

53:59

always been, for me at least, the

54:01

bastion... of like where you are because

54:03

nothing else like worked for you. We

54:05

weren't good at video games because we

54:07

were good at catching a ball. We

54:09

weren't good at video games because we

54:11

were the fastest. We weren't good at

54:13

video games because we were the fastest.

54:16

We weren't good at video games because

54:18

we were the best looking. We weren't

54:20

good. No, but that was the place.

54:22

It's like my major was at this

54:24

level because I wasn't at that level

54:26

in real life. I get it when

54:28

you're doing stock market things. All right,

54:30

yeah, I may not like it, but

54:32

you know what? I'm sure a lot

54:35

of other people do it in different

54:37

ways. But when this man came in

54:39

and stole the valor of video gaming

54:41

and proclaimed himself one of the top

54:43

10 players in the world and talked

54:45

about how he does it. Yo, I

54:47

remember watching and then I felt like

54:49

a hater because I watched it and

54:51

I said to my friend, that's impossible.

54:54

I've always like that's impossible. Unemployed and

54:56

employed. That should be the mode you

54:58

play the game in. Because if you

55:00

are unemployed, you play the game at

55:02

a different level, when you're employed, you

55:04

can't get the levels that some of

55:06

these people get, right? For me, that

55:08

was the biggest red flag, and I

55:10

don't know how to explain it. Not

55:13

all the kids. Let me tell you

55:15

something. I hear that stuff. And I

55:17

understand why. And he's a red flag

55:19

for the world for me. For me.

55:21

Elon Musk. Lying about the video games

55:23

and then acting like he didn't lie

55:25

about the video games when he finally

55:27

got busted now being like because when

55:29

he said with Joe Rogan He proudly

55:32

professed how and he used it to

55:34

to prop up his aptitude by the

55:36

way I think this is what part

55:38

of the problem I have he said

55:40

across from Joe Rogan And Joe Rogan

55:42

was like, you play a lot of

55:44

vegan, you're one of the top in

55:46

the world. And he's like, yeah, you

55:48

know, they've actually shown, studies have shown

55:50

that doctors who use, like, who play

55:53

video games, actually better, they've got more

55:55

dexterity and they're better at using. And

55:57

so yeah, I find it helps me

55:59

like solve problems and I can see

56:01

someone going like, wow, he's also one

56:03

of the best video games, which means

56:05

his brain, which means his brain, he

56:07

gets. busted one of the top game

56:09

of streamers or whatever talks to him.

56:12

He goes like, yeah, yeah, of course

56:14

I get someone in China or whatever

56:16

to play for me. That's what everyone

56:18

does. But it shows that it's never

56:20

enough for him. But that's what I

56:22

mean. But I'm saying I can understand

56:24

somebody who steals my car. I can

56:26

understand somebody who steals my phone. But

56:28

then there's like somebody who's going to

56:31

steal the box that my phone came

56:33

in, even though the two were separate.

56:35

And I'm like. There's a thief and

56:37

then there's a kleptomaniac. You get what

56:39

I'm saying? Yeah. For me, that's that's

56:41

the red flag with Elon Musk. If

56:43

you can lie about that, and you've

56:45

lied about the big things as well,

56:47

what are the other things that we

56:50

don't know? I think you might be

56:52

honest something, honestly. We're seeing this. And

56:54

I feel like this is something that

56:56

the media was like a little bit

56:58

slow to pick up on. You know,

57:00

Musk has been saying all the myths,

57:02

there are these protests going on in

57:04

front of Tesla dealerships and so on.

57:06

And Musk is saying, oh, it's Act

57:08

Blue, it's George Soros. We don't totally

57:11

know what's driving it. And I do

57:13

think that the video game thing, both

57:15

like you're saying is this kind of

57:17

like naked deception. Yes. And one that...

57:19

was maybe particularly offensive to his, you

57:21

know, universe of fans. Yeah, to the

57:23

young man who like, and I think

57:25

like Musk is becoming this symbol partly

57:27

because of Trump and maybe partly for

57:30

other reasons having to do with his

57:32

extreme wealth and so on, and the

57:34

fact that he did this, you know,

57:36

thing that looked like a Nazi salute

57:38

to many people, like he's become a

57:40

symbol. of something very bad for a

57:42

lot of people and I do kind

57:44

of wonder maybe like maybe the video

57:46

game thing was the was the turning

57:49

point of it you're not the first

57:51

person who said like well that's gonna

57:53

be the thing that cooks him don't

57:55

go anyway because we got more what

57:57

now after this I'm

58:05

really curious because we have a

58:07

South African here. We haven't

58:09

spoken much about his South

58:11

African heritage. Even there

58:13

by the way because Peter Thiel

58:15

I'm yeah all of them have

58:17

a South African connection Namibia like

58:19

all these guys have some southern

58:21

African connection and it's particularly

58:24

apartheid South Africa and white

58:26

South Africans and Trump's mission

58:28

to help the very desolate

58:30

struggling white South Africans who

58:32

need to be taken to America because

58:34

of all the prejudice facing in South

58:36

Africa right now. What do you think about

58:39

spending his formative years. That was a

58:41

joke by the way for anyone. Some people

58:43

will be like, oh, because Jiana believes it.

58:45

Yeah, they're having a bad time. I've heard

58:47

it's really bad for them. It's actually funny.

58:50

I was, yeah, I was at a golf

58:52

club talking to them about it. And I

58:54

was like, hey, how are things? They're like,

58:56

yeah, it's really tough. Really, really tough. All

58:58

of those guys. But what do you make

59:01

of, because his father has kind of

59:03

become like a, there's all of these

59:05

characters, you've got grimes, you've got his

59:07

eccentric mother, you've got like the woman

59:10

that worked with him, that has three

59:12

children for him now, like it's not

59:14

just musk for me, because maybe I'm

59:16

into celebrity gossip, it's all the like

59:18

the parade of characters that come with

59:21

him. And I think South Africa is

59:23

the backdrop to a lot of that.

59:25

What do you make of like spending

59:27

his time there? I don't feel like

59:30

an expert in the politics of like

59:32

the modern day Africaner movement like and

59:34

I don't I'm not sure that Elon

59:36

even is like I kind of think

59:38

some of what's going on is he's

59:40

just like drinking in the far right

59:42

you know social media stream and like

59:45

there's some far right people talking

59:47

about you know white racism or

59:49

in South Africa but what you're

59:51

saying though I mean there has to be some

59:53

part of the South Africanness that is

59:55

informing and I thought about this

59:57

a lot with Teal.

1:00:00

He was born in Germany, family moved

1:00:02

to the United States, and then he

1:00:04

spent a couple years, as I said,

1:00:06

first in South Africa, and then

1:00:08

in modern day Namibia. His father worked

1:00:11

at a uranium mine. If you're working

1:00:13

at a uranium mine in Namibia, which

1:00:15

at the time was like basically a

1:00:18

colony of South Africa and apartheid state,

1:00:20

you are... like as complicit in

1:00:22

the apartheid system as you could possibly

1:00:24

be. You are making, you are producing,

1:00:27

you're not only like dealing with a

1:00:29

labor structure that is benefiting from apartheid,

1:00:31

but you're trying to produce nuclear weapons

1:00:34

so you can defend that system from

1:00:36

the world that is trying to shut

1:00:38

you down. And like all these guys who

1:00:40

had family connections in South Africa. And

1:00:42

they're all white by the way, which

1:00:45

I think it's very important. And they

1:00:47

went to American college campuses and and

1:00:49

in Teals cases the 1980 cases, the

1:00:51

1980s. Apartheid was like the cause on

1:00:53

the left. And I think what I

1:00:55

think was a political statement by the anti-apartheid

1:00:57

activists, you know, at Stanford in the

1:01:00

80s, but you process it as a

1:01:02

personal attack. Yeah, you're talking about my

1:01:04

family and like I did some reporting

1:01:07

talking to people who went to college

1:01:09

with him and where he would get

1:01:11

into these arguments. He's denied, I should

1:01:14

say. supporting apartheid or expressing

1:01:16

pro-apartheid views, but there are

1:01:18

certainly classmates of his who

1:01:20

remember him doing so. Can

1:01:22

I just interject and tell

1:01:24

you something? And this is

1:01:26

something that really plagues me. I

1:01:28

have yet to meet someone who supports

1:01:30

it apartheid. It's really weird, guys.

1:01:32

Are you being serious? I am yet

1:01:35

to meet a person. It really worries

1:01:37

me because it's almost like apartheid just

1:01:39

happened by itself. I mean, no, everything

1:01:41

you're saying, yeah. Let me tell you

1:01:44

something now. I have yet to meet a

1:01:46

person anywhere in the world who was in

1:01:48

apartheid, for instance, and who goes like,

1:01:50

yeah, no, Trevor, I didn't want those

1:01:52

blacks and white. No, I have yet,

1:01:54

every person I'll talk to. Everyone free

1:01:57

Mandela. They go like, I was totally

1:01:59

against it. Then I'm like, huh, everyone

1:02:01

was against it. Huh, so who was

1:02:03

for it? Because it seems like there

1:02:05

were a lot of people for it.

1:02:08

Seems like a lot of people didn't

1:02:10

want the thing to stop. A lot

1:02:12

of people benefited from it. It seems

1:02:14

like a lot of people. Huh, for

1:02:16

a thing that nobody wanted to end.

1:02:19

But anyway, forgive me, I just, anyway.

1:02:21

Yeah, what's weird though is, when I

1:02:23

first started talking to Elon, He made

1:02:25

apartheid part of the reason he wanted

1:02:27

to come to North America. He said,

1:02:30

I left South Africa because I was

1:02:32

so against apartheid. And he's always very

1:02:34

careful. Wait, how old was he when

1:02:36

he left? He was like 17 or

1:02:38

something. Okay. That's the story he told.

1:02:41

And of course... You know, the story

1:02:43

has shifted a little bit. I mean,

1:02:45

it is, you know, now he's very

1:02:47

concerned as, you know, as you're saying

1:02:49

about the, you know, the property rights

1:02:52

of the white farmers or whatever. Yes,

1:02:54

yes, yes. And so, so I don't

1:02:56

know like what the truth of, what

1:02:58

the truth of it is there, but

1:03:00

I do think there might have been

1:03:02

a sense of like feeling attacked and

1:03:05

then reacting, you know, in a sort

1:03:07

of these people. A lot of these

1:03:09

tech leaders who came through like South

1:03:11

Africa and like were you know in

1:03:13

and around apartheid at the time. They

1:03:16

witnessed something that is very unique to

1:03:18

countries like South Africa and that is

1:03:20

the proximity between business and government and

1:03:22

how the two work hand in hand

1:03:24

to further each other's goals, right? So

1:03:27

apartheid is not a free system. Apartite

1:03:29

is not a world where the best

1:03:31

company wins. is accelerated. No, apartheid is

1:03:33

a system where the government says, will

1:03:35

you help us to turn coal into

1:03:38

oil because we've been oil embargoed? Yes,

1:03:40

you have the business. We will give

1:03:42

you all the resources you need to

1:03:44

give us all the oil we need.

1:03:46

And then all the anti-apartheid companies, they

1:03:49

left South Africa, right? But the system

1:03:51

is set up in such a way

1:03:53

where there's like a direct, it's very

1:03:55

Very similar to like Cold War Russia,

1:03:57

you know, it's like you help the

1:04:00

government, the government helps you, you help

1:04:02

the government, the government helps you. And

1:04:04

then these people come to America where

1:04:06

that's like frowned upon. It's almost like,

1:04:08

oh, no, no, no, no, no, no,

1:04:11

church and state, things are separate here,

1:04:13

you don't do that. But I think

1:04:15

they still have this idea where they

1:04:17

go like, no, no, no, hey, government,

1:04:19

we help you, and you help us.

1:04:22

And they have the racism too. plight

1:04:24

against South Africa. Again, I'm not sure

1:04:26

this is perfect, but I saw it

1:04:28

start when he wasn't able to launch

1:04:30

Starling in South Africa, because in South

1:04:33

Africa the government says they want to

1:04:35

make sure that you have minority ownership

1:04:37

when you launch a company. And the

1:04:39

reason the government did this, and they

1:04:41

haven't done it perfectly by the way,

1:04:44

I'm never going to say it's the

1:04:46

poster child, but what they were trying

1:04:48

to do is they were going guys,

1:04:50

we've learned that money gets closed off.

1:04:52

So if we don't. have representation in

1:04:55

terms of who owns the companies, the

1:04:57

money's never going to go anywhere. And

1:04:59

when you say minority ownership, South Africa

1:05:01

is a black majority. Yes. No, no,

1:05:03

what I mean is like, sorry, now

1:05:05

what we say minority here. So I'm

1:05:08

saying like black people of color, yeah,

1:05:10

people of color. So that explains the

1:05:12

anti-DII thing he has. Exactly. So Elon,

1:05:14

I think they went, you're not going

1:05:16

to let me open this. And not

1:05:19

only did they not let him, they

1:05:21

then banned Starlink. And then now Starlink,

1:05:23

you can't use it inside, even though

1:05:25

it's a satellite thing, they don't enable

1:05:27

it in South Africa. And I think

1:05:30

Elon now again was personally, he was

1:05:32

like, oh, I'm going to find a

1:05:34

way to break the system. And one

1:05:36

thing I've heard about Elon, from everyone

1:05:38

who's worked in and around his orbit,

1:05:41

is he is supremely talented at finding

1:05:43

the right lever to pull and he

1:05:45

will pull it. It doesn't matter what

1:05:47

he's trying to do. But Elon. That's

1:05:49

the lever. I need to get people

1:05:52

working harder, that's the lever. I need

1:05:54

to get these people doing this, that's

1:05:56

the lever. To start businesses that break

1:05:58

things... and don't follow the rules. What

1:06:00

do you need? You need the people

1:06:03

who make the rules to lose some

1:06:05

of their power. What's the best way

1:06:07

to get those people to lose some

1:06:09

of their power? You find the people

1:06:11

who are the least happy, you find

1:06:14

the people who have the most hate

1:06:16

fermenting, and you encourage that, and you

1:06:18

grow it, and you nestle. And so

1:06:20

what you, essentially, I love that you

1:06:22

said it in the beginning with Peter

1:06:25

Thiel. These guys are essentially investing in

1:06:27

disruptors all around the world. They're just

1:06:29

so they're very opportunistic. They're seed funding

1:06:31

everywhere. They're using the same principles of

1:06:33

like money. They go, Christiana, tell me

1:06:36

about your movement? Huh. You believe that

1:06:38

government shouldn't exist? You know what? You

1:06:40

know what? This sounds like a good

1:06:42

company. Yeah, there is a great company.

1:06:44

You know what? It might be a

1:06:47

risky bet, but it's nothing in the

1:06:49

greater scheme of things. I'm just going

1:06:51

to throw you a bone. And I'm

1:06:53

going to throw you a bone, and

1:06:55

I'm going to throw you a bone.

1:06:57

And as we see it growing around

1:07:00

the world, you just need a few

1:07:02

unicorns for all your bets to pay

1:07:04

off. You did a few billion dollar

1:07:06

companies to make up for every like

1:07:08

hundred thousand dollars you've invested. And I

1:07:11

think that's what he's doing there. I

1:07:13

think that's what he's doing in Germany.

1:07:15

If Germany collapses and if the German

1:07:17

car economy collapses, seems like there's a

1:07:19

big winner somewhere, his name is Elon

1:07:22

Musk. Places that he doesn't care about,

1:07:24

it's because they don't in some way

1:07:26

shape or form benefit him. Do you

1:07:28

know what I mean? Yeah. I think

1:07:30

you're right. I think there's always an

1:07:33

angle with him and like all often

1:07:35

a business angle. Like I don't think

1:07:37

he's ever, I mean he does obviously

1:07:39

have some ideology, but like you said

1:07:41

about the apartheid system and this idea

1:07:44

of like... of becoming sort of a

1:07:46

client of the government or something like

1:07:48

that. Like he has been so freaking

1:07:50

good at getting the government to give

1:07:52

him money. Yeah, brilliant. And like you

1:07:55

said, finding these levers. And those levers

1:07:57

can be, they can be like reaching

1:07:59

regular people and saying like here's this

1:08:01

awesome product, but they also are. often

1:08:03

and have often been like political levers

1:08:06

in like I agree I don't fully

1:08:08

understand the dynamics of German politics and

1:08:10

what exactly he's doing with the AFD

1:08:12

which is the foreign party in Germany

1:08:14

but it definitely everything

1:08:17

I know about Elon tells me

1:08:19

there's an angle there and whether

1:08:21

it's something having to do the

1:08:23

auto industry you know he has

1:08:25

union issues in Germany or perhaps

1:08:27

you know Europeans have a space

1:08:29

agency they compete with SpaceX maybe

1:08:32

looking for more contracts there or

1:08:34

whatever but he's he's trying to

1:08:36

find an in and it's just

1:08:38

there you know there's obviously

1:08:40

there's collateral damage sometimes when

1:08:42

when you're when that's your

1:08:45

when that's your modus operandi. I know

1:08:47

we're going to have to let you go,

1:08:49

so it's a terrible question to ask

1:08:51

you because we are finding you in

1:08:53

the middle of a story. This is

1:08:56

a book that hasn't concluded, but if

1:08:58

you were to try and not necessarily

1:09:00

predict what you think will happen, but

1:09:02

maybe a more interesting one for me

1:09:05

would be, what do you predict their

1:09:07

end goal and their aim is? Because

1:09:09

you know, sort of what Cristiano was

1:09:11

saying. They have the money or they

1:09:14

have the access to the money, they

1:09:16

have the valuation, they have, you know,

1:09:18

the power, etc. But what is, is

1:09:20

there an angle? Like, does Peter Thiel

1:09:23

rest when something is achieved? Does Elon

1:09:25

Musk rest when something is achieved? Or

1:09:27

are they, as you said, like a

1:09:29

fusion reaction that is now powering

1:09:32

itself infinitely? I think

1:09:34

with Thiel, there is a more calculating

1:09:36

approach. He has not gone all

1:09:38

in with Trump. And there were a

1:09:40

lot of people. around him and in

1:09:42

the kind of right-wing silicon valley world

1:09:44

saying like what a huge mistake i

1:09:47

mean he was he was the the

1:09:49

earliest trump supporter like why is he

1:09:51

not supporting trump but i think like

1:09:53

we are living as you said in

1:09:55

that moment and where and there has

1:09:57

been you know as we're talking like

1:09:59

this kind of High of Trump's support

1:10:01

and Trump's power and that won't last

1:10:03

and and I think Tial has set

1:10:05

himself well Set himself up well in

1:10:08

case it doesn't last because he has

1:10:10

a he's a very close relationship with

1:10:12

JD Vance Who's Trump's vice president and

1:10:14

and who Tial basically helped him start

1:10:17

his political career was his his main

1:10:19

donor to to vance the senate campaign

1:10:21

so if advance uh... you know becomes

1:10:23

the republican candidate uh... in twenty twenty

1:10:26

eight as i think he's probably a

1:10:28

favor to do deal has an end

1:10:30

must i think is somebody who needs

1:10:32

this kind of endless crisis a sort

1:10:35

of endless series of I don't know

1:10:37

like games or something what he wants

1:10:39

his end game is he sells all

1:10:41

the cars he sells all the rocket

1:10:44

launches he's worth way more money he's

1:10:46

even said this you know he thinks

1:10:48

Tesla his car company should be worth

1:10:50

you know 30 trillion dollars or something

1:10:53

like if that's worth 30 trillion dollars

1:10:55

Elon is gonna be worth you know

1:10:57

like I don't know like six trillion

1:10:59

seven trillion seven trillion more probably so

1:11:02

for him it's it's just like way

1:11:04

more dominance, being able to sort of,

1:11:06

essentially run the world. Yeah, God King,

1:11:08

that's what it sounds like to me.

1:11:11

I don't think that is the most

1:11:13

likely scenario. But I do think that

1:11:15

is the, that's like what he is

1:11:17

pushing for. And I think to some

1:11:20

extent, you know, it's up to voters

1:11:22

and democracy to try to restrain him.

1:11:24

Damn. Well, here's hoping, Max, here's hoping.

1:11:26

And I say this, I hope you

1:11:29

take this in the best way possible.

1:11:31

I hope that your podcast becomes less

1:11:33

relevant as time goes. Fair enough. And

1:11:35

I hope the people who listen now

1:11:38

are now just like interested in business

1:11:40

and like, you know, and I hope

1:11:42

it has like not as much of

1:11:44

a broad appeal because right now I

1:11:47

think Elon Inc. It is like the

1:11:49

hub of everything and so, yeah man,

1:11:51

thank you for taking the time and

1:11:53

coming and sharing. a of

1:11:56

the of us. Appreciate

1:11:58

it. Thank you both

1:12:00

for having me. it.

1:12:02

Thank you both for having me. What

1:12:05

Now with Trevanoa is produced by Spotify

1:12:07

Studios produced by Spotify

1:12:09

with Day partnership with

1:12:11

Day Zero Productions. The

1:12:14

show is executive produced by

1:12:16

Trevor Noah, Sanaz Sinaziamin Jody Jody Our

1:12:19

Our producer is Jess

1:12:21

is Jess Hackel, Claire our our

1:12:23

producer. Music, mixing mastering by

1:12:26

Hannis Brown. Thank you so much

1:12:28

for listening. for Join me next Join

1:12:30

another episode for another episode of What Now.

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