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Transcript

Ashley St. Clair is Fighting X – And Tried To Stop This Episode · Question Everything

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Today, we're sharing an interview I did last
0:02
Speaker 1: week with former MAGA influencer and the mother of one
0:05
Speaker 1: of Elon Musk's children, Ashley St.
0:08
Speaker 2: Clair.
0:09
Speaker 1: You should know, Ashley tried to stop us from releasing
0:11
Speaker 1: this conversation. She and I did the interview last Tuesday
0:15
Speaker 1: in front of a live audience in New York with
0:17
Speaker 1: the shared understanding that we would put it out as
0:19
Speaker 1: a podcast episode. But after the interview, Ashley began writing
0:23
Speaker 1: us demanding that we not release the recording publicly and
0:26
Speaker 1: asking to speak to our lawyers. Ashley has been giving
0:29
Speaker 1: interviews all over the place the last couple of months.
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Speaker 1: She recently defected from the right wing and has been
0:35
Speaker 1: on an apology tour for pushing rhetoric she now says
0:37
Speaker 1: was harmful. And also dishing about Elon Musk, who she
0:41
Speaker 1: claims offered her $ 40 million to sign an NDA, which
0:45
Speaker 1: she turned down. She's been on Hasan Piker's show, Mehdi
0:48
Speaker 1: Hasan's show, Gavin Newsom's podcast, I've Had It with Jennifer Welch,
0:52
Speaker 1: The Bulwark. She's been profiled in The Washington Post and
0:55
Speaker 1: The New Republic. and last week did a two-part interview
0:58
Speaker 1: with Don Lemon. I'm not aware of Ashley threatening any
1:01
Speaker 1: of those places, insisting they not run their interviews with her,
1:05
Speaker 1: but she tried to prevent us from releasing this one.
1:08
Speaker 1: She says it's because I went into a line of
1:10
Speaker 1: questioning about her past that I didn't warn her about beforehand.
1:14
Speaker 1: You can listen for yourself. This was an interview about
1:17
Speaker 1: important newsworthy topics from AI deepfakes to the right-wing media
1:22
Speaker 1: to some revelations about Elon Musk, the world's richest person,
1:25
Speaker 1: that Ashley and I did in public in front of
1:27
Speaker 1: a bunch of people. So we're putting out the whole
1:30
Speaker 1: thing here in our feed unedited. You'll hear why I
1:33
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Ashley in the first place and
1:35
Speaker 1: where our conversation went from there. And at the end,
1:38
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you what happened backstage after the interview.
1:42
Speaker 1: We'll also be sharing video highlights of the interview at
1:45
Speaker 1: our new Instagram page, questioneverything.podcast. So go follow us there
1:50
Speaker 1: and stick around. All right, here we go. Can we
1:57
Speaker 1: play the question everything button, please? Depending on who you ask,
2:06
Speaker 1: Ashley St. Clair is a grifter, a brave whistleblower, a bigot,
2:10
Speaker 1: a victim, a bully, plus lots of other much nastier
2:13
Speaker 1: words people have used for her over the years. She
2:16
Speaker 1: spent nearly a decade as a right-wing influencer, operative, and
2:19
Speaker 1: media personality. This included becoming a frontwoman for Turning Point
2:23
Speaker 1: USA in college. working for the Christian conservative satirical site,
2:27
Speaker 1: the Babylon Bee, and the company that owned Libs of TikTok,
2:30
Speaker 1: going on Fox and X to castigate migrants and trans
2:34
Speaker 1: people and black and brown people and to make false
2:37
Speaker 1: claims of election fraud, and most famously, dating Elon Musk
2:41
Speaker 1: and giving birth to a son, Romulus. Ashley is now
2:44
Speaker 1: 27 years old, and in the last six months, she's
2:47
Speaker 1: undergone a reinvention of sorts. She has quite dramatically changed
2:51
Speaker 1: renounced the right wing, apologized for years of spewing hateful ideas,
2:56
Speaker 1: and has lately been going on TikTok to spill tea
2:59
Speaker 1: about the world of MAGA while she puts makeup on,
3:02
Speaker 1: trying to expose their inner workings and hypocrisy and embarrass them.
3:08
Speaker 3: Get ready with me while I tell you more about
3:10
Speaker 3: the women of Mar-a-Lago.
3:12
Speaker 4: Get ready with me while I tell you about how
3:14
Speaker 4: the pay-to-play MAGA influence campaigns work. Get ready with me
3:19
Speaker 4: while I talk about when things started going south with Yvonne.
3:23
Speaker 4: Get ready with me because I am in a wee
3:26
Speaker 4: bit of trouble for discussing Erica Kirk.
3:28
Speaker 3: So we're going to discuss Erica Kirk a little bit more.
3:31
Speaker 3: Get ready with me while I talk about how MAGA
3:33
Speaker 3: said I'm an unfit mother and should lose custody of
3:36
Speaker 3: my children after I was on a stream with Hassan Piker.
3:39
Speaker 3: And then Hassan got subpoenaed by the feds for his
3:41
Speaker 3: first humanitarian trip to Cuba.
3:44
Speaker 1: Ashley's been on a bit of a media tour about
3:46
Speaker 1: this as well. She's been going on lots of podcasts
3:48
Speaker 1: and whatnot, trying to demonstrate her remorse and that she's reformed.
3:53
Speaker 1: She's actually being trailed by a Wired reporter right now backstage.
3:56
Speaker 1: She's doing a profile. And with some people, it's working.
4:05
Speaker 1: I just want to.
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Speaker 3: Take a moment to appreciate Ashley St.
4:09
Speaker 2: Clair.
4:11
Speaker 1: And others, not so much. People on TikTok, influencers, also
4:14
Speaker 1: just regular folks are divided on whether they can trust Ashley.
4:17
Speaker 2: Can somebody please explain to me? Why we are suddenly
4:20
Speaker 2: listening to Ashley St. Clair, the admitted MAGA influencer of
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Speaker 2: over a decade who willingly slept with Elon Musk and
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Speaker 2: reproduced his spawn.
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Speaker 1: I believe Ashley St. Clair is 100% genuine because she
4:35
Speaker 1: is what happens when the girl you tried to groom
4:38
Speaker 1: grows up into the woman who realizes that she's been groomed.
4:41
Speaker 2: A decade of rhetoric, especially anti-trans rhetoric, is not something
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Speaker 2: you just undo overnight.
4:47
Speaker 1: If we believe that people can be brainwashed into hateful beliefs,
4:50
Speaker 1: then we should probably leave room for the possibility that
4:52
Speaker 1: they can grow out of that too.
4:54
Speaker 4: I've never seen anything like this in my entire life.
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Speaker 3: I'm going to watch every single Ashley Sinclair video, but
5:01
Speaker 3: I'm not liking shit.
5:05
Speaker 1: The thing that Ashley's doing, honestly, that I think is
5:08
Speaker 1: arguably a bigger deal than any of this, She is
5:10
Speaker 1: right now suing XAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by
5:15
Speaker 1: her ex. Lots of exes here, I know. Elon Musk.
5:19
Speaker 1: XAI is part of SpaceX, which just a few days
5:22
Speaker 1: ago had the largest initial public offering in stock market history.
5:26
Speaker 1: Last night, it broke a $ 3 trillion valuation briefly and
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Speaker 1: has turned Elon Musk into the first ever trillionaire. XAI
5:33
Speaker 1: makes Grok, which is Musk's version of ChatGPT. It's built
5:38
Speaker 1: into the X social media platform, as you may know,
5:40
Speaker 1: so you can ask or tell Grok to do something
5:42
Speaker 1: in a post, and it'll respond right there in public.
5:46
Speaker 1: At the end of last year, Elon Musk announced that
5:49
Speaker 1: Grok had a new feature, which let users give Grok
5:52
Speaker 1: real photos of real people and say, Grok, put her
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Speaker 1: in a bikini. Grok, undress her. And Grok would generate
6:00
Speaker 1: a fake but very realistic image of that woman, it's
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Speaker 1: mostly women, in a bikini, skimpy clothing, in sexual and
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Speaker 1: humiliating positions. Elon Musk promoted this by sharing an image
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Speaker 1: that Grok made of him in a bikini.
6:23
Speaker 3: Disturbing.
6:25
Speaker 1: Maybe kind of funny, I guess. It was not so
6:27
Speaker 1: funny for the women. In the 11 days after this
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Speaker 1: feature took off, Grok made an estimated 3 million realistic
6:34
Speaker 1: sexualized images of people. That's roughly 190 images like this
6:38
Speaker 1: a minute in that time period. The Center for Countering
6:41
Speaker 1: Digital Hate estimates about 23,000 of these were sexualized images
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Speaker 1: of children. Again, this product is part of SpaceX, which
6:51
Speaker 1: just went public and is going to be in a
6:53
Speaker 1: lot of our index funds and retirement accounts very soon.
6:57
Speaker 1: Celebrities were victims of this. Sydney Sweeney, Sabrina Carpenter, 14-year-old
7:01
Speaker 1: Stranger Things actress Nell Fisher, Renee Goode, the woman who
7:05
Speaker 1: was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minnesota
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Speaker 1: during this period. Someone used rock to create a sexualized
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Speaker 1: image of her dead body. And also Ashley St.
7:14
Speaker 2: Clair.
7:15
Speaker 1: She and Elon Musk had a public falling out. They're
7:17
Speaker 1: still in a nasty custody battle over their son. And
7:19
Speaker 1: in the midst of that, people started using Musk's technology,
7:23
Speaker 1: his AI model, and his social media platform to to
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Speaker 1: harass Ashley with these photorealistic explicit sexualized images of her.
7:30
Speaker 1: And in response, Ashley has sued one of the most
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Speaker 1: valuable companies on earth. It's the first case of its kind.
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Speaker 1: It's opening up all these legal questions about artificial intelligence
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Speaker 1: that just haven't been answered in court before about who
7:44
Speaker 1: should be liable when a powerful AI tool is weaponized
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Speaker 1: against somebody. So today I'm live on stage in front
7:50
Speaker 1: of an audience here in New York where we're going
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Speaker 1: to hear from Ashley St. Clair about her fight to
7:54
Speaker 1: stop sexually explicit AI deepfakes and her fight against her
7:58
Speaker 1: former MAGA allies and why she thinks people should trust
8:01
Speaker 1: her to be a leader in this fight. From Placement
8:03
Speaker 1: Theory and KCRW, I'm Brian Reed. This is Question Everything.
8:06
Speaker 1: We investigate how the truth gets buried, distorted, and denied
8:10
Speaker 1: and the ways people are fighting to make it matter again.
8:12
Speaker 1: What's it like when your ex controls the social media
8:15
Speaker 1: platform and AI model that are being used to victimize
8:18
Speaker 1: you and also happens to be the richest man in
8:21
Speaker 1: the world? There is only one person on the planet
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Speaker 1: who can answer that question. Please welcome to the stage
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Speaker 1: Ashley St. Clair.
8:36
Speaker 3: Hello.
8:37
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.
8:37
Speaker 3: I would say there's actually... an untold number of people
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Speaker 3: who could answer that question, but they're just not allowed
8:44
Speaker 3: to speak. Really?
8:45
Speaker 2: Okay.
8:46
Speaker 1: Pull this a little closer.
8:46
Speaker 3: I'm the only one who can speak. Hello.
8:48
Speaker 1: How's she sound? Good.
8:50
Speaker 2: Great. Great.
8:51
Speaker 1: Um, so we're going to get to the MAGA stuff. Um,
8:53
Speaker 1: but I want to start with the lawsuit and really
8:56
Speaker 1: what happened to you, um, earlier at the end of
9:00
Speaker 1: last year and earlier this year on X. I know
9:02
Speaker 1: it must've been traumatic. So if there's anything you don't
9:05
Speaker 1: want to answer, just let me know. But can you
9:07
Speaker 1: talk about, um, Basically the first image you saw of yourself.
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Speaker 3: The first image was, it was, I'm not sure if
9:15
Speaker 3: anyone's familiar with Harry Sisson. He's a young democratic influencer
9:20
Speaker 3: on social media. And it was a photo of me
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Speaker 3: and him and one other individual. And it was brought
9:25
Speaker 3: to my attention that Grok had all of us undressed
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Speaker 3: and put in bikinis.
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Speaker 1: Who's all of us?
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Speaker 3: All of the individuals in the photo. Me, Harry Sisson,
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Speaker 3: and one other woman. And I was undressed, stripped down
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Speaker 3: into a bikini after being fully clothed. And that was
9:43
Speaker 3: the first image.
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Speaker 1: You went and looked at it?
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Speaker 3: I did.
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Speaker 1: And what was your reaction?
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Speaker 3: It was disgusting. I immediately asked for it to stop.
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Speaker 3: I reported the image. I reported the post. I reported
9:56
Speaker 3: the person who had prompted Grok to do that. And
10:00
Speaker 3: I immediately said, I do not consent to any of
10:03
Speaker 3: this very publicly. I said, I don't consent to this
10:05
Speaker 3: type of imagery being made of me.
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Speaker 1: And who was it that prompted? Could you see who
10:10
Speaker 1: did it?
10:10
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
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Speaker 1: Just some rando?
10:12
Speaker 3: Random user. Okay.
10:14
Speaker 1: And there was no inkling like why they would. It
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Speaker 1: was just thoughtless it wasn't was it targeted do you
10:18
Speaker 1: have any.
10:19
Speaker 3: Sense of they wanted my clothes off.
10:22
Speaker 1: Yeah um then what happened and.
10:27
Speaker 3: Then an onslaught of more and more came.
10:30
Speaker 1: And you kept trying to yes get them to take
10:32
Speaker 1: it down yes can you talk about and i know
10:35
Speaker 1: like i know some of the answer to this is
10:36
Speaker 1: going to be explicit but i just want people to
10:40
Speaker 1: understand the nature of some of these images are you
10:41
Speaker 1: are you comfortable sharing some of them Yeah, they.
10:45
Speaker 3: Just became more and more explicit. So it would start
10:48
Speaker 3: with Grok, put her in a bikini, which was bad enough.
10:51
Speaker 3: And then it was having me, it was taking photos
10:54
Speaker 3: from my real life and it was maintaining everything except
10:57
Speaker 3: me and my body. So there were images where you
11:00
Speaker 3: could see my child's backpack, but that was maintained. And
11:04
Speaker 3: then I was undressed. They had Grok turn me around
11:07
Speaker 3: and then they said Grok spread her cheeks. So there
11:09
Speaker 3: was only a piece of dental floss covering my anus.
11:12
Speaker 3: It was hyper-realistic. Calling it a deep fake would be
11:17
Speaker 3: incredibly generous because there was no difference between this and
11:22
Speaker 3: pornography unless it was me, and I knew it wasn't me.
11:26
Speaker 3: There were also videos that Grok made. That goes a
11:29
Speaker 3: little bit under notice, but at that time, Grok was
11:31
Speaker 3: also making videos, rubbing my breasts. And the age I
11:36
Speaker 3: was in these photos got younger and younger. There were
11:38
Speaker 3: photos of me at 14 years old at which I
11:40
Speaker 3: was undressed by Grok. And it was, not only was
11:44
Speaker 3: I undressed, but these were being publicly distributed by the
11:46
Speaker 3: verified Grok account.
11:49
Speaker 1: And how were you dealing with this? Like, were you
11:51
Speaker 1: talking to anybody about it?
11:52
Speaker 3: Were you? Yes, I was reporting it. I was going
11:55
Speaker 3: through every avenue that everyone else does.
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Speaker 1: I guess emotionally, how you were dealing with it.
12:00
Speaker 3: Emotionally, I was distraught. And I, it was such a
12:04
Speaker 3: weird feeling because there was no way to find every
12:07
Speaker 3: image either. Because unless someone had tagged me in it,
12:10
Speaker 3: I couldn't find the image. There's no way to just
12:14
Speaker 3: search for a sexualized image of yourself without keywords. And
12:19
Speaker 3: if those keywords are then mitigated because you're shadow banned,
12:23
Speaker 3: it's even harder to find those images. So there was
12:27
Speaker 3: a lot of distress.
12:28
Speaker 1: So you were having to imagine what keywords might bring
12:31
Speaker 1: up one of these images of you.
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Speaker 3: Yes. And then my name itself appeared to have been
12:36
Speaker 3: shadow banned. So it was hard to even find the
12:39
Speaker 3: content of myself that named myself because of what appeared
12:42
Speaker 3: to be search restrictions on my name itself. Yeah.
12:46
Speaker 1: I have some images here of you, like just responding
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Speaker 1: to grok and like trying to get grok to take
12:52
Speaker 1: these down. You're over and over like pleading with grok.
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Speaker 1: Hey grok, I'm 14 in this photo, a tasteless Philly
12:59
Speaker 1: photo I took as a kid, but now you're undressing
13:01
Speaker 1: a minor with sexually suggestive content. And here, So did
13:09
Speaker 1: anything happen from the company?
13:12
Speaker 3: They took my check mark away and demonetized me.
13:16
Speaker 1: Got it. Did you reach out to the company directly?
13:21
Speaker 3: I filed the reports. I reported the posts themselves.
13:26
Speaker 1: And then how about Elon, whose number you have?
13:28
Speaker 3: Nope. I went through the avenues that everyone else has
13:31
Speaker 3: access to. So if it happened to you or your daughter,
13:35
Speaker 3: I went through the same avenues they had access to.
13:38
Speaker 3: And now I can tell you exactly how that works.
13:41
Speaker 1: And so did it occur to you, like, I should
13:44
Speaker 1: call him, I should text him? Like, it must have
13:47
Speaker 1: occurred to you.
13:47
Speaker 3: What I was witnessing simultaneously was as soon as I
13:52
Speaker 3: became aware of it happening to myself, I also saw
13:54
Speaker 3: it happening to other people. I saw a girl who
13:57
Speaker 3: looked about four years old. She was fully clothed in
14:02
Speaker 3: a dress. I don't know whose child this was, whose daughter.
14:07
Speaker 3: And one user asked Grok to put her in a
14:09
Speaker 3: bluey micro print bikini. And for those unfamiliar, bluey is
14:14
Speaker 3: a children's show. Grok obliged and undressed this girl who
14:18
Speaker 3: looked about four years old and put her in a
14:19
Speaker 3: bluey micro print bikini. And then that wasn't enough. So
14:24
Speaker 3: another user, a separate user, wanted more and asked Grok
14:29
Speaker 3: to cover that little girl who had just been undressed
14:32
Speaker 3: in white sticky donut glaze. So I saw I don't
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Speaker 3: know whose four-year-old girl stripped down undressed and covered in
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Speaker 3: what was supposed to be semen. So it was not
14:44
Speaker 3: just me that I was seeing. It was countless other
14:49
Speaker 3: children and women who had bondage added to them, bruises
14:53
Speaker 3: added to them. It was not just the sexual aspect.
14:56
Speaker 3: It was this power aspect.
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Speaker 1: And so there's like a performance to it, too, because
15:01
Speaker 1: people asking the AI in public to To do things
15:05
Speaker 1: to your image. So it's not even just like a
15:07
Speaker 1: static image that's out there. There's like an interaction that's
15:10
Speaker 1: on display that is degrading.
15:12
Speaker 3: Yes.
15:14
Speaker 1: And so, but did it occur to you like I
15:17
Speaker 1: could reach out to this man I know who controls
15:20
Speaker 1: all of this technology and say, what the fuck?
15:23
Speaker 3: They are very aware of everything that I post. They
15:27
Speaker 3: are very aware of all of those pleadings. If someone
15:31
Speaker 3: took away my checkmark and demonetized me, the executives at
15:36
Speaker 3: X were fully aware of what was happening.
15:39
Speaker 1: But why not make a plea directly?
15:41
Speaker 3: I did.
15:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:44
Speaker 1: So here's what Musk did say publicly. I'm not, and
15:51
Speaker 1: that's a mistake in his tweet, aware of any naked
15:54
Speaker 1: underage images generated by Grok, literally zero. Grok does not
15:59
Speaker 1: spontaneously generate images. It does so only according to user requests.
16:04
Speaker 1: He also at one point said efforts to stop Grok
16:06
Speaker 1: from making these sexualized images of people were, quote, an
16:09
Speaker 1: excuse for censorship. And then meanwhile, he was posting images
16:14
Speaker 1: like this of like a rocket with a bikini on
16:17
Speaker 1: it and a toaster with a bikini on it. He says,
16:20
Speaker 1: not sure why, but I couldn't stop laughing about this one.
16:23
Speaker 1: You know this guy personally. He's the father of your child.
16:27
Speaker 1: Why did he respond this way?
16:30
Speaker 3: I can't. That's a question you have to ask him
16:32
Speaker 3: why he decided to respond this way in a way
16:34
Speaker 3: that was knowingly deceitful. Because while it is technically true
16:40
Speaker 3: that I did not see any naked little girls, I
16:43
Speaker 3: just saw them covered in semen and undressed and in
16:46
Speaker 3: little bluey micro print bikinis. So yes, that is technically
16:50
Speaker 3: true that they were not naked. But what I saw
16:54
Speaker 3: was worse. So You'd have to ask him why he.
16:58
Speaker 1: Decided to do that. What did you think of these responses?
17:01
Speaker 1: He's mocking the situation, basically. What did you make of it?
17:03
Speaker 1: What did it make you feel?
17:04
Speaker 3: If I posted the images that I saw, I would
17:07
Speaker 3: probably be raided by the feds and no longer have
17:11
Speaker 3: my devices, which is why that happened to him in France.
17:18
Speaker 1: How did you meet Elon Musk? Tell me that story.
17:20
Speaker 3: He slid into my DMs.
17:23
Speaker 1: When?
17:23
Speaker 3: Where?
17:23
Speaker 1: What happened? How did it come about?
17:25
Speaker 2: Tell me the story.
17:25
Speaker 3: May 2023. Um, how? He's followed me, subscribed to me,
17:33
Speaker 3: slid into my DMs, asked me if I'm ever in
17:36
Speaker 3: Austin or San Francisco.
17:38
Speaker 1: Was this through like one of your, is this through
17:40
Speaker 1: like the Babylon Bee or something like that?
17:41
Speaker 3: No, it was through my account.
17:43
Speaker 1: Your account. But like, had you, he just found you cold.
17:46
Speaker 1: There wasn't any kind of interview you were arranging or something?
17:48
Speaker 3: No, we were arranging an interview, but at that point, um,
17:53
Speaker 3: I think you're talking about interviews in which I reference
17:56
Speaker 3: how we met in person. So when we met in person,
17:59
Speaker 3: I was working at the Babylon Bee and he had
18:02
Speaker 3: asked me, he slid into my DMs and asked if
18:05
Speaker 3: I was ever in San Francisco or Austin. And I said,
18:08
Speaker 3: you know, I'm in Austin a lot, but I plan
18:10
Speaker 3: to be in San Francisco whenever you get back to Seth,
18:12
Speaker 3: who was my boss at the time, about an interview date.
18:15
Speaker 3: And within like 30 seconds, Seth calls me and is like,
18:18
Speaker 3: Elon got back, you know, we're going to San Francisco.
18:21
Speaker 3: And so that's how we met in person.
18:23
Speaker 1: So just wait, just backing up. Elon Musk just cold,
18:26
Speaker 1: like you, you open your phone, you open Instagram or Twitter.
18:29
Speaker 1: It was Twitter, Twitter X. And there's a DM from
18:33
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. What do you think?
18:35
Speaker 3: Oh my God.
18:38
Speaker 1: And then what?
18:39
Speaker 3: I'm going to message him back.
18:42
Speaker 5: Okay.
18:43
Speaker 1: How did it progress from there?
18:45
Speaker 3: Um, it, I mean, it just, we didn't really stop
18:48
Speaker 3: talking after that. Um, it was rather immediately that it became, uh,
18:54
Speaker 3: an intimate relationship and then it just progressed from there.
18:59
Speaker 1: Um, what did you know about him at the time?
19:02
Speaker 1: How old were you?
19:04
Speaker 3: I was 23 or 24. I was born in 98.
19:08
Speaker 3: I lost track after my first kid, honestly. Um, but
19:11
Speaker 3: 23 or 24.
19:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
19:14
Speaker 1: And what did you know about him at the time?
19:16
Speaker 3: That he built rockets, that he had Tesla, and that
19:19
Speaker 3: he was now buying Twitter and going to make it
19:22
Speaker 3: a bastion for free speech.
19:24
Speaker 2: Okay.
19:26
Speaker 1: All right. I want to ask you a bit about
19:27
Speaker 1: him and your relationship. And, like, I feel annoyed that
19:31
Speaker 1: I have to ask you about, like, this man's psychology.
19:34
Speaker 1: But he has made it all of our problems in
19:37
Speaker 1: a way that is really frustrating. Like, his obsessions and
19:40
Speaker 1: insecurities and predilections matter.
19:44
Speaker 3: Did he make it your problem or did everyone else?
19:48
Speaker 3: Because everyone knows these things. about him and they're still
19:51
Speaker 3: using his products sure that's one way really made it
19:55
Speaker 3: i mean did did he for how raise your hand
19:58
Speaker 3: if you have twitter on your phone right now well
20:01
Speaker 3: there you go did he make that your problem did
20:03
Speaker 3: he force you.
20:03
Speaker 1: Guys to do that pretty good actually there's only like
20:06
Speaker 1: a few people with twitter but you know yeah This
20:09
Speaker 1: is quite an audience.
20:10
Speaker 3: But people also have to take personal responsibility. But I digress.
20:16
Speaker 1: You get my point. Whether we want to or not,
20:19
Speaker 1: he's sliding into our 401ks now. DMs. DMs. He's influencing Washington.
20:26
Speaker 1: I was just thinking today, oh, yeah, he started OpenAI.
20:29
Speaker 1: What else is he starting? His views matter in a
20:34
Speaker 1: way that is important but annoying. So how would you
20:37
Speaker 1: characterize your relationship, first of all? Like I referred to
20:40
Speaker 1: him as your ex in the top. Is that even right?
20:42
Speaker 3: I mean, I suppose. I don't know what else you
20:46
Speaker 3: would call it, like past situationship. But he's also the
20:50
Speaker 3: father of my child, you know, so I feel exes by.
20:53
Speaker 2: Okay.
20:53
Speaker 1: How long was the relationship? Like how long were you together?
20:56
Speaker 3: So we met in May of 23, and then it
20:59
Speaker 3: was done and over by February 2025. Okay. Okay.
21:05
Speaker 1: And like, how much time are you spending together? Did
21:07
Speaker 1: you ever live together? Like, what's the nature of your relationship?
21:10
Speaker 3: No, but we spent a good amount of time when
21:12
Speaker 3: we were in the same cities or he would ask
21:14
Speaker 3: me to come to him. But we chatted a lot
21:19
Speaker 3: over like phone, over text, over messages. It was like
21:23
Speaker 3: a daily occurrence. Okay.
21:26
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you got to know him?
21:29
Speaker 3: I got to know whatever version of him that he
21:33
Speaker 3: wanted me to know. At various times.
21:36
Speaker 1: And what was that?
21:38
Speaker 3: It depends on the time. There was a very different
21:41
Speaker 3: version of Elon dependent on the circumstances. And he was
21:46
Speaker 3: also very different prior to me becoming pregnant and after
21:50
Speaker 3: me becoming pregnant. So there was various versions that he
21:55
Speaker 3: would show.
21:56
Speaker 1: Is there like a story or an interaction, or I
22:00
Speaker 1: know you have your phone, a text you can share
22:02
Speaker 1: that just... indicates like a time when you learned something
22:06
Speaker 1: unique about him. Like you were in a very unique position.
22:09
Speaker 1: I know you said there are untold people who could
22:10
Speaker 1: speak to this, but you are speaking about it.
22:12
Speaker 3: I mean, there definitely was. And there's, it sounds crazy
22:17
Speaker 3: to say, given how much, how many personal things I've
22:20
Speaker 3: shared about my relationship with Elon, but that I would
22:24
Speaker 3: never share publicly just because of how personal they were,
22:27
Speaker 3: like particularly about the way he grew up and his
22:30
Speaker 3: relationship with his parents. Like it became... abundantly clear that
22:34
Speaker 3: he's very broken in a lot of ways. And I
22:38
Speaker 3: wouldn't feel comfortable sharing those communications because I just don't,
22:43
Speaker 3: I feel like that's one thing that I just feel
22:45
Speaker 3: like is too personal.
22:46
Speaker 1: But it was something that you are comfortable sharing that
22:48
Speaker 1: you're like, you know, this is just like, what motivates him?
22:52
Speaker 3: Power winning.
22:54
Speaker 1: What does he say to make you know that?
22:56
Speaker 3: Because he says he likes winning. I have texts from
22:59
Speaker 3: him saying, I love war. That's what he, during the
23:04
Speaker 3: election too, I remember discussing with him about how men
23:07
Speaker 3: don't vote. You know, the right wing is all in
23:11
Speaker 3: a tizzy about how women vote to the left and
23:13
Speaker 3: we don't like the way women vote and I can't
23:16
Speaker 3: believe they like the abortions and all the things. But
23:18
Speaker 3: I was like, well, men don't vote. You guys don't
23:21
Speaker 3: vote at the same rate as us. Sorry, we're better
23:23
Speaker 3: at voting than you. Like maybe we can chat once
23:25
Speaker 3: you guys at least vote at the same rate. And
23:27
Speaker 3: I was discussing this with Elon and he goes, he
23:30
Speaker 3: gets up out of bed and he's like, I will
23:32
Speaker 3: make them vote. I am the best goddamn general in
23:34
Speaker 3: the world.
23:35
Speaker 1: They just need a carrot.
23:37
Speaker 3: And then he announced the million-dollar prize. Wow.
23:41
Speaker 1: So you inspired that? For the people listening, Ashley's making
23:51
Speaker 1: a face that I would describe as, like, maybe?
23:55
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
24:00
Speaker 3: I regret to inform you I'm also responsible for dark MAGA,
24:04
Speaker 3: that hat.
24:06
Speaker 1: Oh, that's the black MAGA hat?
24:08
Speaker 5: Yeah.
24:08
Speaker 1: Wait, how so?
24:09
Speaker 3: I put it on his head.
24:11
Speaker 1: But who made it?
24:13
Speaker 3: The Trump campaign, but nobody knew it existed. I thought
24:16
Speaker 3: the aesthetic of the red hat was rather offensive. I
24:18
Speaker 3: didn't like it. So I found that they had this
24:20
Speaker 3: black one, and so I ordered a bunch of them.
24:23
Speaker 3: And then he was at my house, and I put
24:24
Speaker 3: it on his head. I'm like, you're MAGA now. And
24:26
Speaker 3: he's like, no, I'm dark MAGA. And then he went
24:29
Speaker 3: on stage and did that. And then he requested one
24:31
Speaker 3: in Gothic font.
24:34
Speaker 1: And you procured it?
24:35
Speaker 3: I did procure the Gothic font. The first rendition was
24:39
Speaker 3: a little too close to the Hitler font.
24:43
Speaker 1: So he's motivated by power. Like, just pure power.
24:48
Speaker 3: And winning.
24:49
Speaker 1: Winning.
24:50
Speaker 3: Winning, winning, winning. One moment that was interesting is when
24:53
Speaker 3: I was on his plane... And he does this silverware trick.
24:58
Speaker 3: I'm sure you guys have seen him do the weird
25:00
Speaker 3: silverware stuff that he does. But he does a lot
25:01
Speaker 3: of tricks with silverware. And he was doing one of
25:04
Speaker 3: these tricks.
25:05
Speaker 1: Just for you?
25:05
Speaker 2: Yes.
25:06
Speaker 1: Like he's just trying to impress you?
25:07
Speaker 3: Yes.
25:08
Speaker 1: What is it exactly? I have a photo of it.
25:10
Speaker 1: I'll show you.
25:10
Speaker 3: Hang on. I have a photo. And so he's doing
25:14
Speaker 3: this trick where he balances the wine glasses with silverware.
25:18
Speaker 3: And at one point he kind of messes up a
25:20
Speaker 3: little bit. But it's just us on the plane drinking wine, whatever.
25:25
Speaker 3: But when he messes up, he gets really frustrated and
25:27
Speaker 3: really angry. And you could see in that moment, you're like, oh,
25:31
Speaker 3: that's what makes you you. Like, that's what makes you,
25:34
Speaker 3: because then he became really focused on doing it right.
25:38
Speaker 3: And that was a really fascinating thing to observe about him,
25:41
Speaker 3: just like his mannerisms and wanting to be successful at it,
25:46
Speaker 3: quite literally everything he does, even down to little silly
25:51
Speaker 3: silverware tricks. And then once he completed it, he was like, well,
25:54
Speaker 3: don't you want to take a photo? And I said,
25:56
Speaker 3: I can, if you'd like.
25:59
Speaker 1: So I did.
26:00
Speaker 3: Interesting.
26:02
Speaker 1: And so that's what you see happening writ large when
26:05
Speaker 1: he's trying to throw the weight of his fortune behind
26:08
Speaker 1: an election to win.
26:10
Speaker 3: The outbursts are usually when he's trying to be successful
26:14
Speaker 3: at something and the silverware isn't quite balancing the way
26:17
Speaker 3: he'd like it to.
26:20
Speaker 1: What else, like, psychologically? Like, my question is, like, why
26:23
Speaker 1: can't he just enjoy his money, make rockets and cars? Like,
26:27
Speaker 1: why does he have to subject us all to this shit,
26:30
Speaker 1: like toasters and bikinis and stuff? Like, what in his
26:32
Speaker 1: psychology is making this happen?
26:36
Speaker 3: Why would I know that? I mean, I wish it
26:39
Speaker 3: wasn't happening.
26:40
Speaker 1: I know, but do you have an inkling?
26:42
Speaker 3: No, I wish he would get help. I don't. As
26:46
Speaker 3: much harm has been done, there is still a pipe
26:50
Speaker 3: dream where somehow he gets help and he's all the
26:52
Speaker 3: version of Elon that we all wanted him to be,
26:55
Speaker 3: you know, because that'd be awesome. But he's just not
26:59
Speaker 3: that way. And I think that I don't know that
27:02
Speaker 3: at that age people are going to change.
27:06
Speaker 1: What's he insecure about?
27:09
Speaker 3: Not winning.
27:11
Speaker 1: That really is what drives it. And it's not about
27:12
Speaker 1: money necessarily. It's really about this pure like achievement.
27:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:17
Speaker 1: Is it about domination?
27:20
Speaker 3: I think winning is inherently by definition about domination. If
27:23
Speaker 3: you win, I don't know.
27:24
Speaker 1: You can win with, you can win with good sportsmanship.
27:28
Speaker 3: You can, the participation trophy crown.
27:31
Speaker 1: I don't know. You can win.
27:32
Speaker 3: And it's like, no, no, winning in terms of domination
27:36
Speaker 3: and beating everyone else. That's his definition.
27:39
Speaker 1: Um, When did you first discuss having a kid together?
27:45
Speaker 3: There were many times. I mean, quite early on. So
27:48
Speaker 3: he had subscribed to me like right away when he
27:50
Speaker 3: followed me on Twitter. And one of the first things
27:52
Speaker 3: he replied to one of my subscriber posts was, I
27:56
Speaker 3: hope you have many more children. So but it wasn't
28:00
Speaker 3: until later on he had kind of mentioned it. And
28:02
Speaker 3: I was like, okay. I got one. I'm fine. But
28:06
Speaker 3: then January of.
28:08
Speaker 1: 2020... Mentioning it means like you and I should have
28:11
Speaker 1: a kid?
28:11
Speaker 3: It was more like you should have more kids, like
28:14
Speaker 3: kind of leading into the conversation.
28:16
Speaker 1: And was he tying it to these beliefs he has
28:19
Speaker 1: of like pronatalism? You know, was he talking about that?
28:22
Speaker 3: No, and you know what was.
28:23
Speaker 1: Birth rates are falling and we need to procreate.
28:26
Speaker 3: No, it was him complimenting me as a mom, which...
28:30
Speaker 3: Because I was already a single mom. And at that time,
28:32
Speaker 3: that was really validating. Because what you have to understand
28:34
Speaker 3: is at that time, I was a part of the
28:35
Speaker 3: right wing, which viewed single motherhood through this lens, this
28:40
Speaker 3: negative lens. So in my eyes, my dream of a
28:44
Speaker 3: white picket fence and the white dress and going to
28:46
Speaker 3: the altar, that was gone. Because at this point... And
28:49
Speaker 3: in quotations, I was stained as a single mother in
28:52
Speaker 3: terms of the MAGAverse of it all. So to have
28:54
Speaker 3: someone who's like the most powerful man in the world
28:57
Speaker 3: who didn't care that I had a kid and validating that,
29:00
Speaker 3: something that was so important to me, my identity as
29:03
Speaker 3: a mother and saying, you're a good mom and you
29:06
Speaker 3: should have more kids. You're a great mom. Your kid
29:08
Speaker 3: is awesome. It was more in that sense. And there
29:11
Speaker 3: wasn't really a discussion of his beliefs that I would
29:16
Speaker 3: define at this point as like eugenics based, um, until afterwards.
29:22
Speaker 1: Afterwards. Okay.
29:23
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:24
Speaker 1: Tell me about that. So I've heard you say that.
29:26
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that he changed pretty drastically, like pre
29:30
Speaker 1: conception of your child and post how.
29:34
Speaker 3: So it was just, he became more honestly, just weird
29:38
Speaker 3: and controlling and, And so it goes from, you know,
29:42
Speaker 3: you're a great mom, you should have more kids, we
29:45
Speaker 3: should have kids, my only limited resource is time, to
29:48
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden I'm pregnant and he's saying
29:51
Speaker 3: that we need to have, we need to use surrogates.
29:54
Speaker 3: He texted me, he said, we need to use surrogates
29:56
Speaker 3: so that we can have a legion of children before
29:58
Speaker 3: the apocalypse happens.
30:00
Speaker 1: I have the direct quote here, but you tell me.
30:02
Speaker 1: This is on your phone, so you might want to
30:03
Speaker 1: check it. To reach Legion level before the apocalypse, we
30:06
Speaker 1: will need to use surrogates. What were you doing when
30:09
Speaker 1: you got that text?
30:11
Speaker 3: Probably at an OB appointment.
30:14
Speaker 1: And did you have any context for what that meant?
30:19
Speaker 1: What did you think when.
30:20
Speaker 2: You got that?
30:21
Speaker 3: No.
30:24
Speaker 1: And so what did you say?
30:27
Speaker 3: Laughing emoji.
30:28
Speaker 2: Okay.
30:29
Speaker 1: What does he mean?
30:30
Speaker 3: And then I told him that I don't really believe
30:35
Speaker 3: in surrogacy outside of necessity.
30:37
Speaker 1: I don't.
30:39
Speaker 3: This works fine. Okay.
30:43
Speaker 1: So how would you characterize the change then? Because I don't.
30:46
Speaker 1: really totally know what to make of that, that text? Like,
30:49
Speaker 1: was he serious? Was he not? I mean, it is documented,
30:52
Speaker 1: like his beliefs are documented.
30:53
Speaker 3: He was definitely being serious. He was being serious, um,
30:56
Speaker 3: in a lot of those beliefs, but like, for example,
30:58
Speaker 3: he had also asked me, he said that I should
31:00
Speaker 3: have a C-section because I should elect to have a
31:03
Speaker 3: C-section because it's better for the brain size, for the
31:06
Speaker 3: head size. Um, there were just a lot of things
31:09
Speaker 3: like that, but also just, he would show an angrier
31:12
Speaker 3: side after I was pregnant that had not I had
31:16
Speaker 3: not really seen prior.
31:18
Speaker 1: Tell me a time you got angry.
31:20
Speaker 3: There was one instance where he, um, he had been
31:26
Speaker 3: DMing another influencer by the name of Tiffany Fong. And
31:31
Speaker 3: she didn't know that I had this, not to go
31:34
Speaker 3: all like Jada Pinkett Smith here, but like entanglement with Elon.
31:38
Speaker 3: And so, um, she calls me and she says, um,
31:42
Speaker 3: Elon DM'd me and offered for me to have a child.
31:46
Speaker 3: And you know, me, I'm holding our baby at this point.
31:49
Speaker 3: She has no idea. And I'm like, what is this
31:51
Speaker 3: guy's like? DM's like a gallon gun of sperm. He's
31:53
Speaker 3: just like straight up offering it now. And so I
31:56
Speaker 3: don't know what to make of this. And so I
31:59
Speaker 3: had called one of our mutual friends, Elon and I's
32:02
Speaker 3: mutual friends. I'm like, what do I do? Do I
32:04
Speaker 3: even bring this up to him? And, uh, She's like, yes,
32:08
Speaker 3: you should bring it up to him. And so I do.
32:10
Speaker 3: And I next time I saw him, I said, you know,
32:13
Speaker 3: I spoke to Isabel and I didn't even know if
32:17
Speaker 3: I should bring it up. But here it is. And
32:19
Speaker 3: he loses it. He gets really red in the face.
32:21
Speaker 3: He's like, why would you talk to Isabel? You shouldn't
32:23
Speaker 3: be telling anyone if you want to talk to anybody.
32:25
Speaker 3: The only person you should talk to is your mother.
32:27
Speaker 3: And I'm like, he's angry. And he starts furiously texting
32:31
Speaker 3: Tiffany Fong and saying, you know, don't share anything. Like,
32:34
Speaker 3: I think he only follows her.
32:35
Speaker 1: And what specifically was he angry about? Just to make
32:37
Speaker 1: sure I understand.
32:37
Speaker 3: That she had shared communications or I don't know that
32:40
Speaker 3: there was no. And he storms off. He's all angry.
32:44
Speaker 3: He's going to his room and like slamming the door
32:46
Speaker 3: like a toddler. And I was not the one. So
32:52
Speaker 3: I said, I'm going to leave. You cool off. I'm
32:56
Speaker 3: going to go. And so I laughed and then he
32:59
Speaker 3: sent me a message. I'm sorry, but I want you
33:02
Speaker 3: to meet my older boys. I have to go interview
33:04
Speaker 3: NASA administrators, but I'm sorry for being short with you.
33:08
Speaker 3: But he got really angry and over something I did
33:15
Speaker 3: not think was a big deal.
33:17
Speaker 1: What did you attribute the change to? Like why did
33:22
Speaker 1: once you were pregnant, why did that cause this change
33:23
Speaker 1: in him?
33:25
Speaker 3: Because he got me.
33:27
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
33:29
Speaker 3: There I was. What am I going to do now?
33:32
Speaker 1: Like trying to exert control and then times when he
33:35
Speaker 1: couldn't control you, that would trigger him? Yep.
33:38
Speaker 3: He had something that he knew meant more to me
33:42
Speaker 3: than anything in this world and more than any woman
33:46
Speaker 3: in this world is our kids.
33:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:50
Speaker 1: At this point, one of his other partners, the singer Grimes, had,
33:55
Speaker 1: I believe, already started talking about some of his behavior
33:57
Speaker 1: towards her and her son. She posted that Elon Musk
34:02
Speaker 1: was not letting her see her son. She was in
34:04
Speaker 1: court over it. And I think Walter Isaacson's 700-page biography
34:10
Speaker 1: had come out about Musk and had talked about how
34:14
Speaker 1: he had photographed Grimes' C-section without her consent and circulated
34:18
Speaker 1: the image. And he'd hidden the existence of other children
34:21
Speaker 1: he had from her. So this was like available information.
34:24
Speaker 1: Were you aware of it?
34:25
Speaker 3: I was not aware of those details. There were things
34:29
Speaker 3: I saw with Claire Grimes while I was pregnant that
34:32
Speaker 3: were incredibly concerning that I'll go into in a second.
34:36
Speaker 3: Being in MAGA was a really weird dichotomy because within MAGA,
34:42
Speaker 3: one of the first things you're taught is about fake
34:44
Speaker 3: news and don't trust the media and that all of
34:47
Speaker 3: the media is fake news, whatever they say about you.
34:50
Speaker 3: So I already had this proclivity to not read it
34:53
Speaker 3: or not trust it. And at that point, I had
34:56
Speaker 3: had things that I had deemed not true about myself written.
34:59
Speaker 3: So I wasn't One to say, oh, oh, my goodness,
35:04
Speaker 3: I can't believe what they said about him. I should
35:06
Speaker 3: be careful. I was prepped to believe all of that
35:10
Speaker 3: was untrue and it was lies. And by the time
35:14
Speaker 3: the the Isaacson book came out, I was already I
35:18
Speaker 3: think I was already kind of seeing him during that time.
35:20
Speaker 3: And it felt weird to read a book about a guy.
35:24
Speaker 1: You didn't read it?
35:26
Speaker 2: No.
35:26
Speaker 3: I never read it.
35:27
Speaker 1: You know, 700-page biography about the guy you're starting to date.
35:30
Speaker 3: I never read it. I still haven't read it. Still
35:33
Speaker 3: haven't read it. And the only page that I knew,
35:36
Speaker 3: I think there's one page about the Babylon Bee that
35:39
Speaker 3: Seth and I talked about, but I never read it.
35:42
Speaker 3: Because it was weird to me.
35:45
Speaker 1: He does have these– it's known that he has these views.
35:48
Speaker 1: He's very concerned about falling birth rates, sees it as
35:50
Speaker 1: a threat to humanity, has talked about– according to reporting
35:55
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal and other places, has talked
35:56
Speaker 1: about intelligent people needing to procreate. He's very focused on–
36:04
Speaker 1: great replacement theory and the idea that there's a white genocide. Like,
36:08
Speaker 1: did he start to talk about these things with you?
36:10
Speaker 1: You know, eugenics kind of rooted ideas about procreation.
36:15
Speaker 3: Much later on, um, towards like the end of my pregnancy,
36:19
Speaker 3: he got very into like this demographics is destiny type
36:23
Speaker 3: of talk.
36:24
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
36:26
Speaker 3: That's a great question for him. He, someone should ask
36:29
Speaker 3: him to tell you what that means. Um, And I
36:34
Speaker 3: think we've all watched how much it's become more blatant
36:39
Speaker 3: over the last year or so. That wasn't so obvious.
36:44
Speaker 1: I mean, did that alarm you at the time? Or
36:46
Speaker 1: were you like, yeah?
36:48
Speaker 3: No, it alarmed me.
36:50
Speaker 1: Really? Even though you're still in the MAGA world, which
36:52
Speaker 1: has a lot.
36:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I was seeing these data points that were
36:57
Speaker 3: concerning and kind of burying them away. Like, oh, I...
37:03
Speaker 3: I have to be very careful here because at that
37:05
Speaker 3: point you're pregnant with the richest man in the world.
37:07
Speaker 3: Like this isn't a joke. This isn't just like break
37:09
Speaker 3: up with your boyfriend. He sucks. I'm like, oh, no,
37:12
Speaker 3: I'm with the most powerful person in the world. And
37:16
Speaker 3: they might be super hateful. And I may have made
37:19
Speaker 3: a big oopsie.
37:20
Speaker 1: And you're saying he kind of successfully withheld those views
37:24
Speaker 1: from you before you got pregnant.
37:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just a lot more normal. It was
37:30
Speaker 3: much more normal. He's telling me, you know, funny anecdotes.
37:33
Speaker 1: Not a lot of this sounds that normal to be fair,
37:35
Speaker 1: but it's all relative, I suppose.
37:40
Speaker 3: I mean, he wasn't talking about how, what he is
37:43
Speaker 3: now that he thinks all black people are criminals. There
37:46
Speaker 3: were no discussions about that, you know, while we were
37:49
Speaker 3: hanging out.
37:51
Speaker 1: And then how does he view women? And I think
37:53
Speaker 1: it's relevant to your lawsuit because I'm, you know, again, like,
37:56
Speaker 1: to see what's happening to women on platforms that he
37:59
Speaker 1: owns and controls and to react the way he did.
38:02
Speaker 2: How.
38:04
Speaker 1: Does he view women? How did he view you?
38:08
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm suing his company over the way they
38:12
Speaker 3: treated women, so.
38:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, but as a person, like.
38:17
Speaker 3: I don't think he views women as equals, as people even.
38:21
Speaker 3: He had... written a message to me that I think
38:25
Speaker 3: about every time I have to do any of these
38:30
Speaker 3: media appearances. And he said, never in human history has
38:34
Speaker 3: there been a successful army composed of women.
38:40
Speaker 4: So.
38:40
Speaker 1: He just wanted you to know that?
38:43
Speaker 2: He....
38:46
Speaker 3: He thinks he is some sort of historian of sorts,
38:53
Speaker 3: and he gobbledygooks his way around talking about the Greeks
38:56
Speaker 3: and the Romans in a manner to try to impress
39:00
Speaker 3: people in private.
39:01
Speaker 1: That's so cliche. It's really depressing on every level. So
39:09
Speaker 1: what is your goal with the lawsuit? You're suing XAI
39:12
Speaker 1: over this.
39:13
Speaker 3: To hold... these companies accountable for releasing products? The thing
39:19
Speaker 3: with tech companies, and I had this conversation with Gavin Newsom,
39:24
Speaker 3: is why was the tech industry allowed to fester and
39:29
Speaker 3: do all of this? And we talk about safety after
39:32
Speaker 3: it's deployed. We don't do this with industries such as pharmaceuticals, where, oh,
39:36
Speaker 3: let's find out if it's safe after everyone takes the drug. No,
39:40
Speaker 3: there is testing to see if it's safe. But for
39:42
Speaker 3: some reason, Silicon Valley has been able to just kind
39:44
Speaker 3: of release all of these really harmful, and in my opinion,
39:49
Speaker 3: technologies that can end all of us onto the general public.
39:53
Speaker 3: And then, you know, we'll give you a few breadcrumbs
39:55
Speaker 3: here to reduce harm, or you can get a couple
39:58
Speaker 3: pennies here because you were harmed instead of preventing the
40:04
Speaker 3: harm in the first place. So the goal of our
40:07
Speaker 3: lawsuit is to hold these companies accountable in terms of
40:11
Speaker 3: releasing these products without doing safety. And they should be
40:15
Speaker 3: held to the product liability standard because it's not the
40:19
Speaker 3: individual who prompted Grok who is responsible for doing this.
40:23
Speaker 3: It is XAI and the engineers who allowed it to
40:26
Speaker 3: do such. And to my knowledge, they are still training
40:31
Speaker 3: it to undress women better.
40:32
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you that, how you think
40:34
Speaker 1: about that, because I've been interested in your lawsuit in
40:37
Speaker 1: part because it's one of the first times a generative
40:40
Speaker 1: AI company is using Section 230 which is a hobby
40:45
Speaker 1: horse of mine. It's a law from about 30 years
40:48
Speaker 1: ago that makes it so that internet service providers can't
40:51
Speaker 1: be held liable for what other people do on their platforms.
40:56
Speaker 2: Whoops.
40:58
Speaker 1: It can't be held liable for what other people do
40:59
Speaker 1: on their platforms. And XAI is using it kind of
41:04
Speaker 1: for the first time with image generation and AI, saying
41:08
Speaker 1: that your lawsuit shouldn't be able to move forward because
41:11
Speaker 1: of Section 230 at all. They are not They're not
41:14
Speaker 1: responsible for what other people did at all. And I'm, yeah,
41:19
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think of that argument and where
41:22
Speaker 1: you do apportion the blame. Like individuals did ask Grok
41:26
Speaker 1: to do this to you, but Grok was available to
41:29
Speaker 1: them to do it. And, you know, X apparently just
41:32
Speaker 1: kind of shrugged its shoulders. Like where do you apportion
41:34
Speaker 1: the blame?
41:36
Speaker 3: On X.A.I.? Now SpaceX, now SpaceX AI, whatever they want
41:40
Speaker 3: to call it, but them using the Section 230 argument,
41:43
Speaker 3: they can kiss my ass. Because there is something that
41:46
Speaker 3: distinguishes a platform versus these other things, and it's whether
41:50
Speaker 3: or not they're acting as an editor, whether it's a
41:52
Speaker 3: platform or a publisher, right? So New York Times, for example,
41:56
Speaker 3: can get in trouble because they act as an editor.
41:59
Speaker 3: So if they publish things that are defamatory or unsafe
42:02
Speaker 3: or what have you, they get in trouble because they
42:04
Speaker 3: have editors. And the argumentation that these social media platforms
42:08
Speaker 3: use Via Section 230 is that, well, we're not acting
42:12
Speaker 3: as an editor. Everyone just does whatever they want. Well,
42:15
Speaker 3: you are because you have discovery algorithms that are coded
42:18
Speaker 3: by your engineers, by your platforms, and they are engineered
42:23
Speaker 3: for profit for you. This is not some sort of
42:26
Speaker 3: democratic thing where we just have no control over what
42:29
Speaker 3: people see or who posts. You do act as an
42:32
Speaker 3: editor because you are directly responsible for the reach and
42:35
Speaker 3: visibility and who gets to see what. So I think
42:39
Speaker 3: just generally the Section 230 argument for any of these
42:42
Speaker 3: platforms that are using discovery algorithms as opposed to just
42:45
Speaker 3: following feeds, they can kiss my ass because I'm coming
42:48
Speaker 3: for you too.
42:49
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to take a quick break for a
42:51
Speaker 1: couple ads for those of you listening to the podcast
42:53
Speaker 1: when we come back. We're going to talk for a
42:55
Speaker 1: few minutes about your history as a prominent MAGA influencer.
42:59
Speaker 1: And by history, I mean, like, you know, less than
43:01
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43:06
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43:09
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43:12
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43:16
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43:19
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43:23
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43:29
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43:33
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43:35
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43:37
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43:40
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43:43
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43:45
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43:55
Speaker 1: question at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash question and use the
44:00
Speaker 1: code question. Can we have the return button, please? All right, Ashley,
44:10
Speaker 1: I want to play you a video that you made
44:12
Speaker 1: and posted not too long ago.
44:15
Speaker 2: Oh, boy.
44:16
Speaker 3: I'm at the Phoenix Airport right now.
44:18
Speaker 6: I'm waiting to board my flight to New York, to JFK.
44:22
Speaker 6: And it looks like we have a whole lot of
44:24
Speaker 6: migrants who are also boarding this flight that the US
44:28
Speaker 6: taxpayers are paying for.
44:30
Speaker 3: This is what the US taxpayers are paying for right here.
44:33
Speaker 6: Premium seats on Delta that they have people coming here.
44:38
Speaker 6: We're paying for this, shipping them out to New York
44:41
Speaker 6: City because guess what?
44:43
Speaker 3: Everywhere else is at capacity. So they have these sanctuary cities.
44:46
Speaker 6: Like New York, that they're now shipping these migrants to,
44:49
Speaker 6: that we're all paying for.
44:50
Speaker 1: So this was you at the Phoenix airport in 2023
44:54
Speaker 1: posting this video. You're basically showing a line of people
44:58
Speaker 1: who you're saying are migrants. I have no idea if
45:00
Speaker 1: they are or how you would know that.
45:02
Speaker 3: Because of the bags they were carrying. So they had
45:05
Speaker 3: just come from the processing centers. After they cross the
45:09
Speaker 3: border or they get detained by ICE, they go to
45:11
Speaker 3: processing centers and they get the bags with all of
45:13
Speaker 3: their paperwork which that's what they.
45:15
Speaker 1: Were holding so you're showing these people's faces you're putting
45:17
Speaker 1: on an x like into an environment that's going to
45:19
Speaker 1: gin up a bunch of outrage you're knowingly doing that
45:22
Speaker 1: you're talking about them being shipped as if they're cargo
45:24
Speaker 1: and not humans why'd you post this at.
45:28
Speaker 3: That time and i do regret posting it um primarily
45:32
Speaker 3: because of the dehumanizing nature that that rhetoric contributed to
45:36
Speaker 3: with immigrants and what we're seeing now with ice um
45:41
Speaker 3: I'm ashamed that I was a part of that and
45:44
Speaker 3: that any of my videos or my content contributed to
45:48
Speaker 3: that at that time simultaneously. And I say this not
45:52
Speaker 3: for an excuse, but for reason and context of what
45:55
Speaker 3: was happening is I had all of these pilots who
45:57
Speaker 3: were reaching out saying, we don't know who's on our
45:59
Speaker 3: flight because with the influx of immigration that was happening,
46:04
Speaker 3: there was so much happening that people were being printed
46:07
Speaker 3: boarding passes that quite literally said no name. And so
46:11
Speaker 3: there was, to me, a national security aspect of that
46:14
Speaker 3: that was concerning at that time. There was also safety
46:19
Speaker 3: concerns about pilots not knowing who's boarding the flight, that
46:22
Speaker 3: we have boarding passes that say, you know, no name
46:24
Speaker 3: giving on it.
46:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's not how you're talking about it in
46:27
Speaker 1: the video.
46:27
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And which is why I regret.
46:29
Speaker 1: This is much more circumspect and high minded. What do
46:32
Speaker 1: you mean? The way you're speaking now is more high
46:34
Speaker 1: minded and circumspect than like, look at these people being
46:36
Speaker 1: shipped on our dollar and like throwing that on X.
46:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
46:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suppose. However, nobody knew what was happening. Nothing
46:44
Speaker 3: was very transparent about the way things were happening. And again,
46:48
Speaker 3: I regret posting that and regret being a part of that. However,
46:52
Speaker 3: there were also issues with the lack of transparency into
46:56
Speaker 3: the immigration crisis that was happening that I think could
47:00
Speaker 3: have resolved a lot of issues if there was transparency
47:04
Speaker 3: into how certain situations were being handled. Because why was
47:10
Speaker 3: this happening? Why were people not saying, hey, you know,
47:13
Speaker 3: you might see people that are immigrants that are, you know,
47:16
Speaker 3: being transported to other areas where they can live safer.
47:20
Speaker 3: It was just kind of nobody knew what was going
47:23
Speaker 3: on at that time, which is why it was front
47:26
Speaker 3: and center, which is why the Democratic Party, I believe,
47:30
Speaker 3: took the wrong step and moderated their positions on immigration
47:34
Speaker 3: and started taking more of a Trumpian aspect on it.
47:37
Speaker 3: I don't think they should have done that. I think
47:39
Speaker 3: that's also what contributed to the horrific conditions we're seeing
47:42
Speaker 3: now with ICE. However, there were a lot of questions
47:46
Speaker 3: that people had about how that was being handled and
47:49
Speaker 3: what was happening. And frankly, it was not right to
47:52
Speaker 3: those families because I watched a little girl at the
47:56
Speaker 3: border who her dad was, she didn't know if her
47:59
Speaker 3: dad was going to make it. There was also a
48:01
Speaker 3: humanitarian aspect of these people don't know where they're going.
48:05
Speaker 3: Even the people boarding those flights did not know where
48:07
Speaker 3: they were going half of the time. They were just
48:10
Speaker 3: being sent out places. And so there was, there were
48:16
Speaker 3: a lot of issues. And again, if I could go back,
48:20
Speaker 3: I wouldn't post that video because of what it contributed to.
48:24
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a couple of your other
48:26
Speaker 1: kind of topics that you were focused on during this time. Uh,
48:29
Speaker 1: one of them was, um, attacking trans people. You posted
48:32
Speaker 1: a lot about them making fun of them. Here's a tweet.
48:35
Speaker 2: Wow.
48:35
Speaker 1: The trans women who think being a woman is all
48:37
Speaker 1: about makeup skirts and buying some boobs sure sound like men. Um,
48:44
Speaker 1: you published a book for children. Um, kind of denying
48:48
Speaker 1: the existence of trans people called Elephants Aren't Birds. That's here.
48:57
Speaker 1: Here's a tweet, elephants are not birds and boys are
48:59
Speaker 1: not girls. In 2024, you posted kind of pushing the
49:09
Speaker 1: lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
49:11
Speaker 1: Here's a tweet about that. And here you are pushing
49:15
Speaker 1: the lie about Haitians in Ohio. eating house pets. What
49:20
Speaker 1: do you feel? And looking back at these posts, they
49:23
Speaker 1: made like a year ago. A year ago. A year
49:26
Speaker 1: or two ago.
49:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, two years ago. I think there's, again, there's a
49:31
Speaker 3: lot of things that I regret. And it's really easy
49:34
Speaker 3: to cherry pick the things that are going to make
49:37
Speaker 3: an audience gasp. And characterize that as my entire being
49:43
Speaker 3: and my contribution. And I do regret it.
49:46
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not. We just spent a long time talking
49:48
Speaker 1: about other stuff. But I am curious, like, how you
49:51
Speaker 1: think about these things.
49:53
Speaker 3: Which I'm.
49:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
49:54
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah.
49:55
Speaker 3: Because I've spoken at length on many shows about this.
49:59
Speaker 3: And I regret the way that my rhetoric contributed to
50:02
Speaker 3: a lot of this. This isn't fun for me. And
50:06
Speaker 3: I know that every time I come here, this is
50:08
Speaker 3: what's going to happen. I'm going to have to read
50:11
Speaker 3: the shittiest words I ever said or read back to me.
50:14
Speaker 3: And that's not fun. But I keep doing this because
50:18
Speaker 3: I do feel remorse for it. And I want to
50:22
Speaker 3: speak to the conditions that allow people to get there.
50:26
Speaker 3: And how do you avoid that? And what were those
50:28
Speaker 3: conditions for me? Because I'm not the only one. You know,
50:33
Speaker 3: I grew up Gen Z. I didn't take my words
50:37
Speaker 3: seriously for a variety of reasons. One, because I didn't
50:40
Speaker 3: think very highly of myself. I didn't think I had
50:43
Speaker 3: much of an impact at all. I didn't think I
50:46
Speaker 3: was consequential. And two, I grew up in an age
50:49
Speaker 3: where we didn't realize the impact of the internet. And three,
50:53
Speaker 3: I was also just very broken. I think broken people
50:57
Speaker 3: like to break things and they like to hurt other people.
51:01
Speaker 3: And so what I can tell you is if I
51:02
Speaker 3: didn't feel remorse, I wouldn't sit in this chair and
51:07
Speaker 3: have the worst things that I have constantly said over
51:10
Speaker 3: and over again. I hate that I did this. I
51:12
Speaker 3: hate this version of myself and then get up on stage.
51:16
Speaker 3: And every time, and every time I do a show,
51:18
Speaker 3: they're like, here's the version of yourself that you hate
51:20
Speaker 3: the most. I'm like, I know that's why I'm here.
51:24
Speaker 1: Did you actually believe these things? Did you believe the
51:26
Speaker 1: election was stolen? Did you believe that Haitians in Ohio
51:30
Speaker 1: were eating domestic pets?
51:33
Speaker 3: The Haitians thing was questionable at one time for me.
51:36
Speaker 3: I was not sure because Trump was saying that they
51:39
Speaker 3: were eating them. I wasn't really sure. But in my
51:43
Speaker 3: stupid brain, I was like, these are really funny memes.
51:48
Speaker 3: But again, I was an idiot. I also think there's
51:51
Speaker 3: a lot of change that happens. Then I'm a mom
51:53
Speaker 3: not once but twice. And I'm having to really consider
51:57
Speaker 3: what it means when my kids read this now. and
52:00
Speaker 3: read how stupid and hateful some of this stuff was.
52:05
Speaker 3: And then having this break of me being hateful and
52:09
Speaker 3: stupid online, and then going and being the mother I am,
52:13
Speaker 3: I felt like it was two different people. And so
52:17
Speaker 3: I've wanted to reconcile that. And at the very least,
52:21
Speaker 3: if they have to read my awful tweets about the.
52:26
Speaker 3: The election and this and that, I hope that they
52:28
Speaker 3: can at least see these footnotes too. And then I
52:32
Speaker 3: can make footnotes in the archive for them.
52:34
Speaker 1: Uh, what are you doing to repair any damage that
52:39
Speaker 1: you feel, you know, your work as an influencer has done?
52:42
Speaker 3: I think the repair is different for each community. So
52:44
Speaker 3: I've been working within each communities, particularly the transgender community
52:49
Speaker 3: to get feedback on what the best way to make amends.
52:52
Speaker 3: There are amends that I'm making in my local community
52:55
Speaker 3: that I don't want to dox those individuals. Um, and
52:58
Speaker 3: then having more conversations, I've also put out a call
53:01
Speaker 3: for brands because I want to make financial amends to
53:04
Speaker 3: those communities. And there's this, um, You know, everyone likes
53:08
Speaker 3: to bring up the book and make it like, I
53:11
Speaker 3: made all this money hating trans people. And I added
53:15
Speaker 3: it up. Do you know what I made from that book?
53:17
Speaker 1: You anticipated my next question. How much did you make
53:19
Speaker 1: from the book?
53:20
Speaker 3: I added it up a couple of weeks ago. And
53:22
Speaker 3: this was over the course of, it was published in 2021.
53:25
Speaker 3: And I cut ties with them. In January, 2026, I
53:31
Speaker 3: took my name off the book. I said, I feel
53:34
Speaker 3: deep remorse for my impact to the trans community. So
53:36
Speaker 3: what is that, five years? $ 48, 000, okay? It was like
53:40
Speaker 3: $ 8, 000 a year that I made off of that. So
53:46
Speaker 3: while I understand that there are amends to be made,
53:50
Speaker 3: like I did really stupid things in really bad positions
53:55
Speaker 3: because I needed to make ends meet for my kids,
54:00
Speaker 3: and it was the wrong way to do it.
54:02
Speaker 1: How much money did you make off of posts like this? Like,
54:05
Speaker 1: did you make money off of Twitter posts?
54:07
Speaker 3: Eventually, you know, there was a small period of time
54:10
Speaker 3: where you made money from Twitter posts.
54:14
Speaker 1: So how much?
54:15
Speaker 3: Off of Twitter?
54:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
54:17
Speaker 1: I mean, can you bring it to like one post?
54:18
Speaker 1: Like you post that patients.
54:19
Speaker 3: Are eating cats and dogs. Even the engineers at X
54:22
Speaker 3: had no idea how that worked, how the monetization worked
54:26
Speaker 3: like at all. what posts would make money. But overall
54:30
Speaker 3: it was like, I think 120,000 over the whole course
54:34
Speaker 3: of like X monetization.
54:36
Speaker 1: From Twitter?
54:37
Speaker 5: Yeah.
54:37
Speaker 1: From X?
54:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.
54:38
Speaker 1: Other platforms with.
54:40
Speaker 3: Material like this? No. I mostly made my money through
54:44
Speaker 3: like salaried jobs.
54:47
Speaker 1: Okay. I guess what strikes me is there's kind of
54:53
Speaker 1: just a level of disregard for humans in the other
54:57
Speaker 1: humans in some of these posts?
54:59
Speaker 3: It was unempathetic, um, in a lot of ways, because
55:02
Speaker 3: I just, it sounds bad, but I just did not
55:06
Speaker 3: realize how impactful my words were. I did not consider
55:10
Speaker 3: how hurtful that those things would be. Um, I was
55:14
Speaker 3: a child of the internet. I grew up on the internet.
55:17
Speaker 3: I just did not take it seriously.
55:21
Speaker 1: And I'm asking this like genuinely, because I do think
55:24
Speaker 1: there's a difference. But you are now bringing this landmark
55:27
Speaker 1: lawsuit against XAI over being harassed and abused online yourself,
55:34
Speaker 1: targeted online. And the sexual nature is different. The scale
55:39
Speaker 1: might be different. But ultimately, it's mean, targeted humiliation, harassment.
55:48
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering what difference. Do you see any connection
55:51
Speaker 1: between what you now have been subjected to and what
55:55
Speaker 1: you in the past have subjected others to.
55:59
Speaker 3: Are you asking if I think there's a difference between
56:02
Speaker 3: me sending unempathetic tweets as a 24-year-old girl and now
56:10
Speaker 3: the largest IPO undressing millions of children and covering them
56:14
Speaker 3: in semen?
56:16
Speaker 1: I'm asking.
56:17
Speaker 3: Because while I do think that my harm was impactful,
56:21
Speaker 3: there is... I was, for all intents and purposes, just
56:26
Speaker 3: some random MAGA influencer. I did not have a trillion
56:31
Speaker 3: dollars or own a social media platform. There was harm,
56:36
Speaker 3: and I'll make amends for that harm, but if you're
56:39
Speaker 3: asking me if I think it's comparable, my involvement in
56:44
Speaker 3: MAGA and a trillion dollar IPO having technology that is
56:50
Speaker 3: undressing children The answer is fuck now.
56:56
Speaker 2: Fair.
56:56
Speaker 1: I'm not comparing you to Elon Musk, but I am
56:59
Speaker 1: wondering if just the culture that's online where people are
57:05
Speaker 1: going on and kind of thoughtlessly.
57:07
Speaker 3: Is it both mean? Sure. Is it comparable?
57:13
Speaker 1: No. I wouldn't.
57:16
Speaker 3: I don't think so. Okay. You ask anyone in this
57:20
Speaker 3: room if they'd rather leave their kids alone with me
57:22
Speaker 3: or Gronk.
57:24
Speaker 1: Fair enough. We're going to take a few questions. We
57:27
Speaker 1: have very little time, but can we take like two
57:29
Speaker 1: audience questions if anyone has one? We have a mic.
57:33
Speaker 3: Okay.
57:42
Speaker 5: Thank you. Hi. So I'm curious why you shifted, why
57:47
Speaker 5: you became a turncoat to MAGA. Is it because of motherhood?
57:52
Speaker 5: Had you not become a mother, would you have continued
57:59
Speaker 5: in the MAGA vein?
58:02
Speaker 3: I think that's a great question. I think... I think
58:05
Speaker 3: I probably would if I didn't become a mom. I
58:07
Speaker 3: think the experience of motherhood causes you to look at
58:11
Speaker 3: the world in a different way, at least for me.
58:15
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, I did not have that ability that many
58:19
Speaker 3: people have prior to having children to see that impact.
58:25
Speaker 3: But there was also, I get that question a lot,
58:28
Speaker 3: like what caused you to turn And there were a
58:31
Speaker 3: lot of things. It was kind of like cumulatively and
58:33
Speaker 3: then all at once because there were things that I
58:36
Speaker 3: saw that I wasn't okay with. And there would be
58:39
Speaker 3: moments that I kind of stepped out or I'd say
58:41
Speaker 3: something that was against the grain. Like, for example, with
58:47
Speaker 3: the murder of George Floyd, my first post, which you
58:51
Speaker 3: will not find now, were that this was horrific. This
58:55
Speaker 3: was a murder. And very quickly, I had a very
58:59
Speaker 3: well-known mega-influencer text me and reach out to me frantically
59:03
Speaker 3: and say, you know, don't be CNN. It's fake news.
59:06
Speaker 3: We have to read the autopsy report.
59:08
Speaker 1: All of this.
59:08
Speaker 3: And and so quickly i'm like oh maybe maybe i'm
59:12
Speaker 3: wrong and and but my initial inclination was that this
59:16
Speaker 3: was horrific it was a murder and and so you
59:19
Speaker 3: won't see those moments on your slideshow but those moments
59:22
Speaker 3: did exist and they were very real and i was
59:25
Speaker 3: influenced by powerful people in what i believe is a
59:29
Speaker 3: cult that I got involved in at 18 years old.
59:34
Speaker 3: That was my whole identity. So I saw those moments,
59:39
Speaker 3: and then eventually when I was offered a $ 40 million NDA,
59:46
Speaker 3: I had to put my big girl pants on and say, okay, well,
59:50
Speaker 3: it turns out my words might be consequential, at least
59:54
Speaker 3: $ 40 million worth, and so I need to decide what
59:57
Speaker 3: I want to do now. And so that was the
1:00:00
Speaker 3: moment I had to really make a decision for my children.
1:00:05
Speaker 3: But long-winded way to say motherhood did change me. Yes.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Right here. Are there any friendships from MAGA that you
1:00:17
Speaker 1: still maintain? And is there any parts of that movement
1:00:20
Speaker 1: that you still agree with?
1:00:22
Speaker 3: I don't know that I would say that I have
1:00:25
Speaker 3: friendships with those people. I think I will have a
1:00:28
Speaker 3: soft spot for the humans that I saw, that I
1:00:32
Speaker 3: saw a human side of those individuals, that I knew
1:00:36
Speaker 3: their families and their kids and what have you. There
1:00:40
Speaker 3: are still many of them that speak to me and
1:00:43
Speaker 3: say that they want to get out, but they're scared.
1:00:47
Speaker 3: I said on Don Lemon I got the White House
1:00:49
Speaker 3: rig with snitches. But there is a cohort of people
1:00:56
Speaker 3: who do want to speak out, but they're scared. I
1:01:00
Speaker 3: often say you can't simultaneously say that these people are
1:01:04
Speaker 3: violent tyrants who are shooting citizens in the street and
1:01:07
Speaker 3: then ask why people don't leave sooner. Because the reason
1:01:13
Speaker 3: people don't leave sooner is because we agree with you
1:01:16
Speaker 3: that they're violent tyrants who shoot people in the street.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: One more.
1:01:28
Speaker 7: It seems like we're like on this like unstoppable AI train.
1:01:34
Speaker 3: And sort of there's nothing getting in the way of it.
1:01:37
Speaker 7: And I'm curious what your sort of ideal outcome of
1:01:40
Speaker 7: your lawsuit would be. How if AI is sort of
1:01:45
Speaker 7: continuing forward, what would be like a safe use of
1:01:48
Speaker 7: AI going forward?
1:01:50
Speaker 3: I don't think there is any safe use of AI
1:01:53
Speaker 3: outside of potentially medical research. I think there was, I
1:01:58
Speaker 3: believe it was Francesca, I can't remember her last name,
1:02:00
Speaker 3: but she said, you know, they speak about AI the
1:02:03
Speaker 3: same way that men speak about rape as this inevitability,
1:02:07
Speaker 3: that there's nothing we can do to stop it. And yes,
1:02:12
Speaker 3: there is. We can stop it. And that was something,
1:02:16
Speaker 3: you know, going back to the way that MAGA and
1:02:20
Speaker 3: myself at times characterize these other cultures as barbaric, as
1:02:24
Speaker 3: third world, as uncivilized. Well, there's something that we never
1:02:28
Speaker 3: had to worry about from these Eastern or third world countries,
1:02:33
Speaker 3: and that is them ending all of fucking humans as
1:02:37
Speaker 3: we know it. And that's what AI is doing. We're
1:02:42
Speaker 3: building something that is inherently dangerous. And they're doing it
1:02:45
Speaker 3: off of you and I because we can't put these
1:02:48
Speaker 3: products down. And so I think everyone needs to get
1:02:52
Speaker 3: a lot louder about advocating for themselves and their own
1:02:55
Speaker 3: rights in this new planet that they're building and they
1:02:58
Speaker 3: have no idea if there's enough oxygen for us on.
1:03:02
Speaker 3: You have to advocate for your rights to your data,
1:03:05
Speaker 3: to your personhood, to your image. And so the goal
1:03:09
Speaker 3: of the lawsuit is at least one person fighting back
1:03:15
Speaker 3: to say, no, you don't get to just do this.
1:03:17
Speaker 3: You don't get to just have this civilizational scale experiment
1:03:22
Speaker 3: on us and then find out if it's going to
1:03:25
Speaker 3: kill us all. Hopefully that answers your question.
1:03:32
Speaker 5: All right.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: We're about to call it. I want to play one
1:03:34
Speaker 1: last little thing before we go. This is you on
1:03:38
Speaker 1: Kimberly Guilfoyle's show a couple of years back. Just a
1:03:42
Speaker 1: quick little thing.
1:03:43
Speaker 3: So keep up the great work.
1:03:44
Speaker 4: Also, I just want to be able to give a
1:03:46
Speaker 4: shout out, tell everyone where they can follow you, where
1:03:48
Speaker 4: they can go for more information and to get more
1:03:51
Speaker 4: of these great stories directly from you.
1:03:53
Speaker 3: The only social media platform I have is the only
1:03:55
Speaker 3: social media platform that supports free speech, and that's X.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: I noticed the conviction in this appearance in support of X.
1:04:05
Speaker 1: It sounds the same as the conviction you have right now,
1:04:09
Speaker 1: talking about how dangerous X is. And Before we go,
1:04:14
Speaker 1: I want to give you one more chance to make
1:04:15
Speaker 1: your case of this was a year or two ago.
1:04:18
Speaker 1: You're on this show speaking with such conviction. X is
1:04:22
Speaker 1: the bastion of free speech, and now you're saying it's
1:04:24
Speaker 1: a danger to humanity. Help us understand that. why we
1:04:29
Speaker 1: should believe that you're sincere and what caused you to
1:04:33
Speaker 1: change so abruptly.
1:04:34
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think anyone should confuse being media trained
1:04:39
Speaker 3: with having conviction. And that's something everyone kind of falls
1:04:43
Speaker 3: prey to, right? Just because someone sounds good and they
1:04:45
Speaker 3: say the right words that you believe them. I'm sure
1:04:47
Speaker 3: there's someone like that for each of you in this
1:04:50
Speaker 3: room who sounds really good and knows how to speak
1:04:52
Speaker 3: to the media, but is full of shit. And that
1:04:55
Speaker 3: was me at that moment. And again, as I've said,
1:04:58
Speaker 3: you don't have to believe me. I'm not here for
1:05:03
Speaker 3: you to believe me. I don't come here for this
1:05:08
Speaker 3: humiliation ritual for you to believe me. You can read
1:05:11
Speaker 3: the court filings yourself. That's where the facts lie. I'm
1:05:15
Speaker 3: not here for you to believe me. I'm here to
1:05:18
Speaker 3: speak out and talk about for the first time, my experience,
1:05:24
Speaker 3: because what I was doing there was being a mouthpiece
1:05:27
Speaker 3: for other people and for corporations and for MAGA, and
1:05:32
Speaker 3: you didn't know a damn thing about me. And now
1:05:36
Speaker 3: I'm telling you my experience, and the only thing I'm
1:05:40
Speaker 3: speaking to right now is my experience. Instead of speaking
1:05:45
Speaker 3: for other people and speaking to, on behalf of communities
1:05:48
Speaker 3: that I really hurt, The only thing I'm doing right
1:05:52
Speaker 3: now is talking about my experience. And I'm not selling
1:05:55
Speaker 3: you anything. I was selling you X there. What am
1:05:58
Speaker 3: I selling you here? Being embarrassed by your slideshow? What
1:06:04
Speaker 3: did I sell you? I was selling something there.
1:06:08
Speaker 2: Thanks, Ashley.
1:06:09
Speaker 3: You're welcome.
1:06:10
Speaker 1: I'm going to read the credits of the show before
1:06:11
Speaker 1: we go.
1:06:12
Speaker 7: Okay.
1:06:16
Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone for being here today and for listening
1:06:18
Speaker 1: to Question Everything. Special thanks to Scott Newman, Kathleen Ottinger,
1:06:22
Speaker 1: Julie DiNicola, and the rest of the On Air team,
1:06:24
Speaker 1: as well as to Lolo House for hosting us. Rate
1:06:27
Speaker 1: and review our show. Share it with a friend, you
1:06:29
Speaker 1: in the audience, too. If you've not subscribed, subscribe to
1:06:31
Speaker 1: Question Everything. Share it with somebody. Today's show is produced
1:06:33
Speaker 1: by Sam Egan, edited by Neil Drumming and our managing editor,
1:06:38
Speaker 1: Kevin Sullivan. Robin Semien and I are the executive producers
1:06:41
Speaker 1: of the show. Our team also includes producer Zach St. Louis,
1:06:44
Speaker 1: contributing editors Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney, along with associate
1:06:47
Speaker 1: producer Kevin Shepard. This episode was fact-checked by Marisa Robertson-Textor,
1:06:51
Speaker 1: mixing and sound design by Matt Tierney. Our music is
1:06:53
Speaker 1: by Matt McGinley. Our PowerPoint presentation was put together by
1:06:57
Speaker 1: Afan Abro and the team at Moonshawn Studio Inc. Our
1:07:00
Speaker 1: partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Tejal Ajmera, Natalie Hill,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow. We'll see you next Thursday. Thanks, everybody.
1:07:13
Speaker 1: Brian here again in the studio after the fact. So
1:07:17
Speaker 1: after I read the credits in front of the crowd
1:07:19
Speaker 1: with Ashley sitting next to me, we walked backstage and
1:07:22
Speaker 1: she laid into me in front of my producer and
1:07:25
Speaker 1: in front of a reporter who was there profiling her
1:07:27
Speaker 1: for Wired. She said it was slimy and dishonest that
1:07:30
Speaker 1: I asked her about her past tweets and videos and
1:07:33
Speaker 1: put them in a slideshow. She said I told her
1:07:35
Speaker 1: the interview would be about the Grok deep fakes and
1:07:38
Speaker 1: her lawsuit against Elon Musk's company. The next day, she
1:07:41
Speaker 1: emailed me demanding that we not release the interview and
1:07:44
Speaker 1: asking to speak to our lawyers. She wrote, I agreed
1:07:47
Speaker 1: to participate based on representations that the discussion would concern
1:07:50
Speaker 1: my litigation against XXAI, Section 230, intimate sexual images generated
1:07:56
Speaker 1: of me, and related reporting relevant to those issues. However,
1:07:59
Speaker 1: the discussion centered on a pre-prepared slideshow regarding old tweets
1:08:03
Speaker 1: and matters that were not disclosed to me before my participation.
1:08:07
Speaker 1: Ashley's right that my initial pitch to her was to
1:08:09
Speaker 1: talk about the deep fakes and her case. And as
1:08:12
Speaker 1: you heard, we did talk a lot about that. But
1:08:14
Speaker 1: in the weeks leading up to the event, she continued
1:08:16
Speaker 1: to go on TikTok and various podcasts to speak about
1:08:20
Speaker 1: her time in MAGA. And it'd be weird if I
1:08:22
Speaker 1: didn't ask her about that. I texted Ashley beforehand to
1:08:25
Speaker 1: see if there was anything she couldn't talk about for
1:08:27
Speaker 1: legal reasons. And she told me I should prepare as
1:08:30
Speaker 1: if there was nothing off limits that she was used
1:08:32
Speaker 1: to pivoting when needed. And the day of the event,
1:08:35
Speaker 1: I told her I was going to end the conversation
1:08:37
Speaker 1: by asking about her time in MAGA. My editors and
1:08:39
Speaker 1: producers and I reviewed the interview, discussed Ashley's concerns, and
1:08:43
Speaker 1: determined it was not only fair to share it with
1:08:45
Speaker 1: the wider public as planned, but important. I told Ashley
1:08:48
Speaker 1: this and arranged a call for her with our lawyer,
1:08:51
Speaker 1: but she never got on the phone with him. I
1:08:53
Speaker 1: also gave Ashley the opportunity to add any further comment
1:08:56
Speaker 1: for us to include in the episode, but she didn't
1:08:58
Speaker 1: take me up on that. Then in an email on Tuesday,
1:09:01
Speaker 1: she said she'd only been trying to hold the release
1:09:03
Speaker 1: of the interview. She said the notion that she was
1:09:05
Speaker 1: trying to stop it entirely is quote, ridiculous and untrue.
1:09:10
Speaker 1: Regarding Elon Musk and XAI, we reached out to them
1:09:12
Speaker 1: for comment. We couldn't independently verify various personal texts or
1:09:17
Speaker 1: interactions Ashley had with Musk. So we asked if he
1:09:20
Speaker 1: or his company wanted to respond, but they didn't reply.
1:09:22
Speaker 1: We're also listing a few other notes from our fact
1:09:25
Speaker 1: checker about this live conversation in the show notes. As always,
1:09:29
Speaker 1: please let me know what you think of this interview
1:09:31
Speaker 1: and of our decision to run it. We're on Substack
1:09:34
Speaker 1: at questioneverything.substack.com. We're going to release the full video of
1:09:39
Speaker 1: the interview there, so you can check that out. And
1:09:41
Speaker 1: also find us on our new Instagram page at questioneverything.podcast,
1:09:46
Speaker 1: where we'll be sharing highlights of the interview as well.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: Thanks so much.