Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Ryan Mac

Transcript

Ryan Mac · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: We welcome Welcome back, Bob left the podcast. My guest
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: today is Ryan Mack, co author of the book Character Limit,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter? Ryan, what does the average
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: person not know about Elon Musk?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Oh Man? Where to start? Gosh, so much, especially in
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the last couple weeks days that he's been in the news,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: But I don't know. One of the things that I've
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: found very interesting is explaining to people how much power
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: he has now, especially with this position he has close
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: to the White House. But even before then, you know,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: he's you know, one of the most successful menstionneurs of
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: his time. He controls these major companies in Tesla and SpaceX,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: and in some ways he is the second most important
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: person in the White House next to Donald Trump. Now,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: so yeah, we can get into all that, but there's
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: a lot to unpack.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Well, why don't we start there, because that's what's happening
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: right this second. He is working with the Department of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Government Efficiency. You know a lot of people say, oh,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the guy cut all these people at Twitter, It's gonna
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: be great. What might we anticipate in his work there?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: It's actually kind of crazy reporting out what happened at
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Twitter and seeing almost the exact same playbook being talked
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: about with this Department of Government Efficiency. I think first
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: of all, what should be made clear is that we
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: really don't know what this DOGE is. Obviously it's a
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: reference to a meme cryptocurrency, which is the abbreviation of
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Department of Government Efficiency. But we don't know what this
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: is gonna do. They've talked about it, you know, cutting
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: two trillion dollars, you know, Elon and Vivek Ramaswami his
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: co head of this department, making decisions over hiring and firing.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: But what they've talked about, we've compared to what we
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: reported on it in Twitter. You know, for example, at Twitter,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: he cut more than at this point eighty percent of
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the staff then, you know, compared to when he what
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: he when he took over, that's thousands of jobs. You know,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: if he applies that to the federal government, that's tens
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of thousands of jobs that could be that could be removed.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: You know. He slash costs kind of ruthlessly at Twitter
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: as well, cutting things from rent payments to janitorial services,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to food services, to systems that help make the website run.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: And we could see that kind of kind of slash
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: and burn technique play out in the government to an
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: extent we've ever seen before. So, you know, we have
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: to talk very generally about what he's saying he's doing.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And of course Elon is someone that makes a lot
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of promises, but the precedent has been kind of set
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: with what he did at Twitter.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning. What is your gig? What
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: is your purview with The New York Times?
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Sure, so, I'm a I'm a reporter on our tech desk.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: We have people around the world who cover the technology industry.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: On that desk, I do what we call accountability accountability reporting,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of investigative work, a lot of
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: deeper dives into the movers and shakers of the industry.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I've covered Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg in the past. I've
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: covered Jack Dorsey, and I've covered Elon not only in
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: this job but in previous gigs. I've worked at BuzzFeed
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: News before this, at Forbes magazine as well, and my
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: rem at The Times is to, you know, find these stories,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: dig deeper into these guys, and you know, report out
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: these monumental business decisions or happenings in the industry. So,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: you know, two and a half years ago, when Elon
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: decided to buy Twitter, I was one of a couple
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: of reporters that was thrown head on into covering this
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: kind of unprecedented transaction, this transaction of one man, you know,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the world's richest man worth two hundred billion dollars at
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: the time, buying a whole company for forty four billion dollars,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: and one thing led to another. I was teamed up
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: with Kate Conger, my co author now in the book,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: and we were reporting two or three stories a day
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: to the point where we couldn't fit everything into the
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: pages of The New York Times. And you know, that's
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: where we got this book and kind of continued it
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: from there. But at the Times these days, I effectively
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: cover Elon full time. You know, there he is someone
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: that is incredibly powerful, incredibly interesting, and I'm one of
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: a couple of reporters where are dedicated to, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: following him and understanding what he's up to, whether that's
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: a Tesla or SpaceX or now in the White House.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back a step. How did you get
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the gig at the New York Times?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Gosh, I guess I have to start from the very beginning.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Go for it, Let's do it. Coming out of college, I,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: you know, in college, didn't really know what I wanted
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And where'd you go to college?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I went to Stanford, to Stanford, and like a good
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: immigrant son, you know, son of immigrants, I was on
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: the med school track and looking to become a doctor
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: and realizing that the life sciences weren't necessarily for me.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: But I was always doing the school paper in school
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: and having a lot of fun with it and realizing,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe I could pursue this as a profession.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: You know, I started doing internships while in school. I
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: worked for the half Moon Bay Review in half Moon Bay, California.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I worked at the Orange County Register, my hometown paper
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: where I grew up in Orange County. I ended up
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: working for The Times as an intern and in Bloomberg,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: and eventually, you know, you know, what the heck, I'll
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: give this a shot. And after school I went to
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Forbes worked there for five and a half years as
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: a staff writer on the magazine covering Silicon Valley. I
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: was based in San Francisco, so it made it a
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: lot easier and actually at Forbes, I started on this
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: thing called the Wealth Team, which is the team that
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: puts together these kind of Forbes ritualists, you know, the
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Forbes billionaires, the Forbes four hundred riches, Americans, And actually
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: it's a great place to start. As a cub reporter,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: you are essentially doing these calculations that ever one sees
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: of you know, so and so is worth billions of dollars.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: But behind the scenes, as reporters, you are doing the
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: nitty gritty of those calculations. You are tallying up SEC
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: documents and looking at the financial filings. You are valuing
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: things like megayachts and wine collection and art. You're talking
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: to you know, some of these people talk to us
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and like, you know, say, you know, I'm actually up
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: this year. You're missing my picasto that I just bought,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: or you know that that wine collection is too low
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: for me. Actually it should be higher because the price
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: of burgundy went up. So as a twenty two year
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: old reporter who was making peanuts thirty five thousand dollars
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: a year talking to the richest people in the world,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: it was kind of surreal for me. And actually that's
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: where I developed kind of my early network, my rolodex.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: As a reporter, you know, you're as good as your
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: sources and the people you talk to, and it was
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: kind of a start for me, kind of a because
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: you know, you're that young, you don't usually get introduced
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: into those circles. And from there I kind of built
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a platform, you know, I moved off that team. I
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: was able to generate my own story ideas, did a
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: lot of profiles of CEOs and those types. I actually
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: covered music briefly with zach O Maalley Greenberg at Forbes,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: who was a business music business guy, and kind of
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: learned from him as well. And uh yeah, moved to
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: BuzzFeed a couple of years later, kind of pivoted a
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: little bit to do more investigative type reporting, where I
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: reported quite a bit on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg and
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: won some awards there and ended up at the Times
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: three and a half years ago.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Now, so, okay, are you just working at BuzzFeed and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: The Times calls you also BuzzFeed took an ax to
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: their news department, So how did the transition happen?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Very very sad. Yeah, because BuzzFeed, if you remember that
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: kind of optimist era of digital media. Right, you have BuzzFeed,
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: you have Vox, you have all these startups popping up
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: with the promise that they could figure out, you know,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: how to put things online better than the legacy publications.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: And you know, ultimately what we learned is that they
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: were at the whims of these tech platforms. These giants,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: right and Facebook, you know, love that content initially and
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: then didn't like it so much and turn off the spigot,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: and that's what caused the collapse. But in that kind
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: of heyday, which I kind of joined towards the end of,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: you know, the venture capital fueled digital media revolution, it
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: was great. You had these amazing resources to pursue these
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: long term stories. You know, you didn't have to deal
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: with the nitty gritty day to day coverage your news cycle.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: I could kind of pull out and do a three
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: month investigation into Facebook or Google or I covered a
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: lot of Peter Tiel, for example. It was a billionaire
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: who was on the Facebook board. And I kind of
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: built my name on those stories. And BuzzFeed had the
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: resources to do that and gave the opportunity to kind
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: of mid career or early to mid career reporters like myself.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: So it was a great place to work, super collegial.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Everyone is like friends and sharing each other's work, you know,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: and just an amazing place to be a great energy. Unfortunately,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: what we learned is that that model wasn't a great business,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: you know, And when this bigot was turned off by
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: the digital platforms, there were layoffs and quite a few
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: until the point where the news division is effectively dead.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: I left before the very very end of BuzzFeed News Buzzy.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: The New York Times saw my work and liked it
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and recruited me. But yeah, that's that's kind of how
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: that played out.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. At this late date, in the wake of the election,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the New York Times the paper of record irrelevant of the truth.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: It is seen as more of a left wing publication
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: in light of the election and the election of Trump.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Has there been any wee valuation or adjustment at the
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Times in general?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to speak for the paper.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I've only been there for three and a half years.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I know that the paper has focused so much on independence,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: you know. Obviously there's a perception of bias one or
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the other. I mean, you could talk to progressives, for example,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: that I think the paper is actually conservative, but I
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: think above all it's this idea of editorial independence that
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the paper values more than most. And honestly, you know,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: that could sound like me blowing smoke up people's asses,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: but in reality, you know, there is no political bent
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: to the paper that I've experience, and you know, on
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: my desk, you know, I'm I cover technology. There's no
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: remit to go after whatever, report on certain targets, whatever.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: But you know, we for me, it's always been about
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: interrogating power. That that for me has kind of been
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: my north star, regardless of political affiliation. And you know,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: I think my career has kind of proven that that
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I have focused on the powers, the titans of industry,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: you know, the powers that be, you know, the richest
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: people in the world, the people that control these platforms,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: that control these companies that shape our daily lives. And
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: that's how I hope I continue to report, you know,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: and and you know, I think that's that's kind of okay.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Point in time. The mainstream media is a pejorative. Yeah,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: what do people not understand about The New York Times? Hm?
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Hm, you know, that's a that's a good question. I mean,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the mainstream media has it's it's so easy to criticize, right,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: And my world of looking at social media and seeing
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: people that criticize the New York Times, particularly like when
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: when I'll use Elon Musk as an example, right, who says,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: you know, you shouldn't get your your news from the
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: New York Times or the wash Journal or the Washington Post.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Everything is actually going to be on X. You know
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: you could X is the news source. You are the
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: news source because it's it's people feeding X. Well, a
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: lot of that news comes from mainstream media. You know
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: that that we're the ones reporting it that is then
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: aggregated into those tweets or or or shared in those videos.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And I think that's the kind of uh, shortsightedness. I
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: think in all this that like when when I when
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: I cover social media, for example, when people talk about
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: social media replacing newspapers or CNN or whatever, a lot
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: of what they draw from is is what we work
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: on every day. You know that information couldn't come out
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: without a reporter at the New York Times calling someone
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: up and writing up a story which then gets aggregated
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: or pulled out into a tweet or put on TikTok,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: for example. And it's that ecosystem that I think people
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: don't understand. And yeah, it's it's it's kind of sad
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: because Elon Musk and Lynda Akarino, the CEO of X
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: now it's called X because that's what they've changed the
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: name to have made this kind of antagonistic point that
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: like X is actually the replacement for the New York
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Times or for whatever fill in news source. You know.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: But the last two decades of Twitter I have shown that,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: you know, the platform has been super reliant on news
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: generators and reporters, and to alienate them seems pretty shortsighted.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: And not to understand that that ecosystem seems kind of
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: absurd to be.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you're working at the New York Times, can
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you literally follow anything you want? Or do they say
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: stay on this.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: It's a bit of give and take. You know, I'm
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: hopefully you know, if I wake up one morning, I'm
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: editor is like, you know, we should pay more attention
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: to this. I'll definitely listen. You know, It's it's not
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: completely me generating everything, but there's also a give and take.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: And if I say, like, look, we should be paying
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: attention to this more. I think this is undercovered. I
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: have that freedom, and it's a it's a nice place
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: to be in your career. I don't necessarily have a
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: beat at the company. You know, we have we have
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: reporters that cover Tesla. We have reporters that cover X. Kate,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: my co author, covers X on a full time basis.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: We have reporters that cover Google and you know, name
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: whatever company. I help those reporters, I'll supplement them. But
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: if there's a deep dive that we need to go
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: into or you know understand you know, musk relationship with
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: the White House, for example, which is something we've been
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: trying to do over the last couple weeks to months,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: you know, the deploy me on that and I'll kind
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of shift my resources and my efforts to that kind
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: of story.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So you've been covering starting and forwards, you and covering
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: the wealthy, forgetting people who inherit their wealth, people who
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: make their wealth. What similarities to all these people have.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: That's something I've always thought about, and I don't think
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: there is one unique characteristic. You know, it's actually really funny.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I've I've I have been around them. I guess I've
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: been around them more relative, more around more rich people
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: relative to the average person. But there's all types, you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: there's all types of people I can like there. For example,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: some folks do not want to talk to us about
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: their wealth at all. You know, they would they would
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: hang up the phone as soon as I called, never
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: return my emails, that kind of thing. Some people want
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: to get down to the every last detail. You know,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: you miss this. I think my holding over here in
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: these stocks and you know, I'm actually up by one
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: hundred million over here and down, and it's it's like
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: it was like such an exercise in egos in a way,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: and you start to realize that, like it's gonna sound
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: like weird, but like, you know, they're normal people like us,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: you know it. They have the same hang ups or
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: you know, same motivations in some ways, same fears. And
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: that's actually really like it took me a while to
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: understand that, Like there wasn't like one gene, for example,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: that causes you to become super wealthy. I think there's
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of luck at play, a lot of where
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: you start in life. Sure there's things like hard work
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: and that kind of thing and effort, but Yeah, there's
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: there's no one characteristic that I could ascribe to, or
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: else I would have followed that and made myself a
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: billionaire myself.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, we live in an era where money is everything,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: and people who have money are seen in comp usually
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: they made the money in one specific vertical, and people
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: who have made money there's a conception by the hoyploy
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that these people are experts in all areas. Having covered
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: these people, are they experts in all areas or are
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: they just super smart in the one area they're in
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and they're as blind as the next person in another area.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I've read your review of our books. I think
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: we're aligned on this. But one of the findings of
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: our book. Let's let's talk about Elon specifically here, right,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I mean a generational entrepreneur like that that I'm not
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: going to deny that by any means. He brought in
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: the electric car revolution. He foresaw this industry to privatize
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: space and get things into into orbit, which now he
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: has a virtual monopoly with the US government and getting
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: things into space, you know, to see that and be
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: successful in that not once but twice, because there's a
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: lot of credit at the same time, it doesn't necessarily
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: make him, you know, smart in another area. He is
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: not a epidemiologist, you know, when he was making comments
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: about COVID, for example. He is not by any means
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: an expert in social media and how to run a
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: social media platform, which I think is in some ways
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the original sin when he bought Twitter, right, it's this
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: idea that he had been so successful in these other
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: areas that, you know, how hard could it be. This
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: is a social media company. It's you know, in his view,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: servers and a website. You know, you're just plugging it
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: in and letting it go and keeping it online. How
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: hard could that be compared to you know, developing autopilot
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: or making a rocket land on a ship in the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: middle of the ocean. And I think that is the
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: original sin because what he didn't realize is social media
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: isn't a tech problem. It's actually a human problem. You are,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: it's a societal problem. It's a social problem. You're connecting
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: people online and figuring out ways for them to communicate
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: without killing each other or you know, causing huge disturbances
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: and making everyone feel at least most people feeling like
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: they're welcome to exhibit and express themselves, and yeah, so
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I mean that that kind of central understanding which powered
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: our book is one that I come back to a
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: lot that oftentimes there are people that are very successful
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: that think because they've reached such success in one area,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: they can be successful in another, and oftentimes that's not
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: the case.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, when Elong makes the offer to buy Twitter to
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: what did we were you on the Elong beat?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Hmmm? I started covering him, like really covering him in
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen at BuzzFeed. There were some issues at his factories.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: This is a period of turmoil for him, and there
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: were some kind of investigative stories, and he was a
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: subject I would return to every now and then, but
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: it wasn't by any means like my main focus. And
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: by the time he made the offer for Twitter in
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: April of twenty ti twenty two, I don't think I
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: had written a single story on him for The Times
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I had joined gosh, I think the year prior, year
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: and a half prior, I hadn't written about him for
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: The Times, but they had known my pastwork and covering him.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: There's actually a trial we can talk about that I
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: was kind of in some ways involved with with him,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: but at the times. You know, they saw my past
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: work and they're like, Okay, this is a pretty monumental event.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: That's actually take some time and understand how serious this is,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: because what you have to remember is when he actually
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: made the bid, people didn't know if he was serious.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: You know, it was he made a reference to a
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: weed joke, you know, for fifty four twenty fifty four
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: to twenty per share was his offer amounted to forty
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: four billion dollars. His offer letter was pretty thin when
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: he when he made the offer, it wasn't clear if
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: he was going to go through. And then obviously he
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: tried to pull out of it a couple weeks later later.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: But they had me spend a lot of time trying
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: to interrogate whether or not this thing was going to happen,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: and you know, what was the mindset and what was
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the thinking. So I started to dig in and work
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: closely with Kate. And when he finally did take over
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the company after all the kind of legal wrangling in
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: October twenty twenty two, it was kind of all hands
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: on deck. You know, it was two or three stories
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: a day. You know, it was, oh my gosh, he's
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: laying off people over in this part of the company,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: or he stopped paying rent over here. At one point
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: we heard the janitorial services were cut, so like I'm
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: in a toilet paper in the offices. But everything was
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: like a fire. Every day. We'd wake up when we
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: have two or three things to report on about his takeover.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And since then, it's kind of hasn't stopped. You know,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: it's led from one thing and the other into the book,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: into our coverage of him now as a political figure,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: and that kind of that roller coaster hasn't stopped.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's a legendary story before you were at the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: New York Times where a reporter Drove Tesla wrote a
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: review Elon mark Back said, hey, there's data. I checked
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the data in the car and he contradicted you're reporting.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Are you hearing from Elon? You or Kate or somebody
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: else saying you got it wrong.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Actually, I've had a couple interactions with Elon, so we
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: can start from beginning, and actually I know that anecdote,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and what I would say about that is like fighting
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: against the media has been core to Elon's beliefs since
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: he started his companies. You know, you guys, remember there
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: was a lot of doubt about his companies, particularly Tesla,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: where he in some ways relied on the media to
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: get at his message. He was very big on getting
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: on magazine covers and in stories, to the point where
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: we were talking to folks used to work with him,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: and he'd be up at three am reading like some
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: obscure Belgian blog, you know, trying to understand like every
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: piece of coverage was near and dear to him. He
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: had a Google, earned his own name. He cared so much,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: you know. And on the other hand, he battled with
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: the media anytime they got something wrong. And so that
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: story you reference actually is very telling, and it was
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: it kind of in some ways proved his belief that
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: there was this kind of media force against him and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: against his success, and he was out to kind of
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: prove them wrong, which in some ways you can see
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the line that's drawn to the Twitter acquisition. In terms
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: of my interactions with him throughout my career, I don't
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: think he's ever denied a story I've reported. My famous
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: run in with him was that when I was at
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: BuzzFeed in twenty eighteen, and do you remember when those
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: kids got caught in the cave and time of course, man,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the whole bit exactly. So for the listeners, like, you know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: cave rescuer gets involved, a British guy living in Thailand.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Elon then gets involved. It's like this crazy thing. He
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: builds a submarine to get these kids out of this
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: winding underwater cave. They don't end up using the submarine,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: but Elon gets a lot of press out of it,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: and one of the rescuers goes on CNN and says, like,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: you know, that didn't work, like he can stick that
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: sub up his butt, you know, and you know kind
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: of was like it was a complete distraction and he
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: didn't help at all. And in return, Elon calls this
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: guy a pedo guy you know, on Twitter, and it
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: was like this kind of I mean, those reactions now
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: were kind of part and parcel of who he is
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: on Twitter, but at that point in time, it was
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: kind of a insane accusation to call someone a pedophile
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: on Twitter with no basis. So in that process I
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: ended up emailing Elon asking him why he thought this
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: guy was a pedophile. Elon emails me back with this
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: kind of screed. Bear in mind I'd never really talked
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: to him. The screed of why this guy was a
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: quote child rapist who had a twelve year old bride.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Since she's trying to get me as a reporter at
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: BuzzFeed to write a story about this guy being a pedophile,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: we actually didn't did not end up doing that. We
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: reported it out a little more, and it turns out
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: that Elon was kind of making all this up and
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: trying to get a reporter to dump this out into
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: the world, and so we ended up publishing Elon's email
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: in full, to kind of show his state of mind,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: you know, to show that he was willing to destroy
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: someone's reputation and to show that this, you know, was
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: kind of a typical behavior for anyone, much less us
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: someone who runs, you know, a major company in Tesla.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Fast forward that that that cave Rescuer ends up suing Elon.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Elon tries to depose me in court to for the case.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: But you know, that was a that was a crazy
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: interaction in my career and one of the times that
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I've ever gotten to interact with them.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: So, Okay, a lot of these people can push back
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: very hard, accurately or inaccurately. I've dealt with some reporters
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: who laugh I know in my own particular cases, sometimes
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you hold your ground, but you shake when
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: these people push back. Do you ever feel any personal
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: anxiety where you say, no, I'm a reporter, I'm getting
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: it right. I work for the New York Times, Or
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes you say, well, shit, do I really have it right?
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: That? That's I think about that every day. And you know,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: as a reporter, the worst thing that can happen is
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: for you to get something wrong, especially in such a
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: key story where the people that you're reporting on have
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: unlimited resources to challenge you or to possibly sue you,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: or you know, one of the biggest scoops in my
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: career was finding out that Peter Teele was funding the
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Gawker case, the whole cloaging Gawker case that took out Gawker.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: You know, I broke that story, and you know, I
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: was a cub reporter at Forbes, a younger reporter at Forbes,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: and before we publish, you know, there was a doubt
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: in my mind that flash. You know, I was so
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: solid on the reporting, it's spent months doing it, but
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: was like, you know what if that point zero zero
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: one percent chance is right? You know what if I've
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: been duped the whole time into reporting this out what happens,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: you know, and like that that feeling never goes away.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And I think being paranoid in some ways as a
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: reporter helps you because that will lead you to make
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the next call, right, You'll be like, actually, you know
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I have sources. Maybe I'll go for six or seven,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: or maybe I'll make that extra send that extra email.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: You know, It's helped in my career that I've been
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: supported by major publications that have great resources, in Forbes,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: in the New York Times. But you know that that
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: fear stays with you. And I don't know, I could
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: be eighty years old and you know, have worked the
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: New York Times for fifty years. I'd be worried if
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: that fear wasn't part of me still, you know, because
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: you always want to have a little bit of paranoia,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I guess. And yeah, when when when it's someone like Elon,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: you gotta you gotta do everything by the book, You gotta,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: you gotta, you gotta be so solid on your reporting.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: And I've always led with that, you know, my I yeah,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: I've always relied on the reporting and the like you know,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: my source saying and everything like that, and yeah, but
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: you know, if someone tries to intimidate us at the
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: same time, like, I'm not going to back down. You know,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: if we know something is right, we're gon we're gonna
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: go with it. And it's kind of that weird balance.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's a summer of twenty twenty two. Yeah, elon
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: trying to wiggle out. We know there's gonna be a
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: case in the Delaware Court. You're in the New York Times.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: I agree with you one hundred percent. New York Times
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: has boots on the ground everywhere, whereas all these other
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: people's just opinion at the source. Do you think, hey,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: this is going to close based on the history of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the Delaware Court? And to what degree are you penetrating
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the company in terms of sources such that when the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: case goes down, you're prepared.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: You're doing everything. You You're calling the people on the deal.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: You're calling the lawyers, the bankers, the pr people, you know,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: people who you might think might be in the room.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: You know, these are very high level conversations too, So
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: when you're talking about sourcing, you're talking about C suite level.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: You know, those are the people that are having conversations,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: and what we realize is that on the Twitter side
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: of things, they had no idea what to expect from Elon.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: You know, they had some meetings about what it would.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Bear in mind as he was backing out, there were
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: still some meetings that were going on between him and
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: the company over there was a calculat there was that
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: bot argument, for example, and there were they were trying
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: to assuage him concerns about bots because the company was
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: bound by it's pretty sure your duty to make this
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: deal happen, right, which is why they sue the company.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: But you know, gosh, that was it was a crazy period.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Kate was ready to go to Delaware and and spend
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: like weeks there. I was having to read up on
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: chancery court, which I knew very little about until that,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: until that kind of moment. But that's kind of the
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: beauty of reporting, right, Like you're thrown into the deep
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: end of these weird situations you might have never been
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: in before, you might have never thought about the court
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: of chancery, and suddenly you're making calls to trial lawyers
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: who have you know, practiced there or represented other companies
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: who're trying to find comparisons to maybe legal precedents that
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I played out similar to this, where you know the
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: court has compelled someone to buy a company like that.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: What did you think did you think it? Did you
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: think it was going to happen at that time?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Absolutely? Because of the Delaware Court. It blew my mind.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: All these people. You know, I got a book up
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: my ass about Kara Swisher anyway, Oh no, no, no,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: no, no no, there's law involvement that happened to be a
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: lawyer or whatever. And if you know anything about why
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: all this stuff is in Delaware. But let's go back
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to your story. You're saying, you're yeah, will everybody talk
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: to you? And to what degree is the fact that
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: you're writing for the New York Times to your advantage
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: or disadvantage?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: It goes both ways, actually, and I've been on both
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: sides of it. When I was at BuzzFeed, I used
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: to think, you know, those reporters of the New York Times,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: they must get everything handed to them on a silver
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: platter because they're the New York Times. Who wouldn't want
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: to talk to them? And then now being on this
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: side of things, there are instances where people are like, sorry,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: you guys are too big, Like I'm worried about my reputation.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: I want this information to be out there, but like
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: in a smaller setting. And so it's kind of funny
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: seeing that play out in a way. That being said,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: when you're at the New York Times, you know, it
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: carries the gravitas that has the name, the rename recognition.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: When you call someone, they're not asking you to spell
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: out you know what do you who does that mean? BuzzFeed?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Can you spell that for me? You know, you're at
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: the New York Times, You're like, oh, okay, I get it.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: You know, you know where you're coming from. But in
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: those moments, it's it's it's kind of you kind of
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: have to be lucky, and sometimes people don't want to
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: talk to you at all. You bear in mind, you know,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: the people around the Twitter deal are especially on the
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Twitter side, are scared. Are scared shit lists. You know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: they don't want to ruin the deal. They don't want
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: to say anything to report that could scupper this, this
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: monumental deal, this payout for shareholders and whatever. But in
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: writing a book, what I found is that oftentimes after
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: the fact, if you say, you know, actually my book
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: is going to come out in a year or two
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: years time. You know, people might be open to talking
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: to you for that because it's going to be past
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: the period where it's sensitive for them. You know, this
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: is something that is for history in a way. It's
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: not just a daily story, and so we use that
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: to our advantage for the book. You know, some people
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: that that didn't talk to us for these stories in
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: the New York Times came back to us or towards
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: the very end of the process they were like, actually,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: I want to make this one thing very clear and
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: just the specific thing. But it ended up being very helpful.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: So you get all types. I'll say it. In the moment,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: it's quite hard to get people to speak immediately, but
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: if you give them a little time, if you work
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: on them a little bit, you keep reminding them there's
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: always a chance. And I've learned that kind of perseverance
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: is kind of the you know, one of my most
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: important traits as a reporter.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, I dealt with the press a lot, calling me
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: for stuff. Yeah, like being on television news like the
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: classic story of the Today Show. They provide you a
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: limo there, but not back. You're just fodder. You're just
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: hit and run. I've had a lot of people forget
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of times. You know, music is a you know,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of these papers have already fired all the
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: music people. You know. This is a lot of times
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I'll put some junior person who's ignorant on the issue.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: But if you get a reporter from an publication, a
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: lot of times they're aggressive. And most people who deal
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: with the press deal with the press and frequently what
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: is your style?
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: I tend not to be aggressive, largely because I am
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: not a beat reporter, like I don't have to file
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: tomorrow about you know, the news of the day that
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: happened at Facebook or Twitter or you know X you
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: know or Google. I have time to like build relationships,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: and any good reporter is doing that. And everyone has
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: their own style. But I've never found the kind of
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: you know, give me the information before everyone else, or
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: some people use kind of like a bullying you know,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: why why did you talk to the Washington Posts over there,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Wall Journal and not to me? Next time? I want
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: you to come to me first. I've never found that
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: works for me. Some people it works great, and it
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: makes them really dogged reporters. My style is to talk
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: to people NonStop. You know, if I think the worst
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: thing for someone to feel like is for someone to
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: feel used in a way. And I don't know, maybe
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: the social engineering is like the wrong word here, but
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: something lighter than that. But I want to make people
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: feel like they can talk to me about anything, and
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: so you know, it's not just me checking in for
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: information when I need it. You know, I'm talking to
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: them about their holidays or you know, what do you
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: have for Thanksgiving? And you know, how is your Christmas break?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: You know, how is your soccer team doing. I'm building
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: those relationships. I'm meeting people for drinks to the point
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: where when it comes to talking about something that is
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: relevant to my reporting, it feels natural for them to
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: talk to me about it. And that isn't like a
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: unique finding like that could a banker could do that
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: or a lawyer. You know, it's just a relationship building
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: and people building. And it took me a long time
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: to realize that. You know, I wasn't the biggest chatterbox
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: in college and I still am not. But like, you
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: don't ever want to make people feel like you're just
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: pumping them for information, and then you'll never sty'll never
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: see you again, and you know I and that just
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: feels weird and not human to me anyway, So I
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: guess yeah, playing the human card is actually is actually
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: pretty important to me.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the deal now. The first thing
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: that is striking in the book that comes back to
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: haunt Elon is he makes a deal with no due diligence.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Tell us about that.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: It's one of the it's one of the crazier things
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: about this whole thing. You know, these mergers or takeovers
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: take months, sometimes years to close, and that's because bankers
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: and lawyers are haggling over every small detail. They're running
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: their fine tooth combs through every legal filing and findancial
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: filing and making sure everything is up to standard. And
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: in this case, Elon wanted to bouldoze a deal through
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: in days as fast as he could. After the after
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: the after his offer letter. Remember he was on the board,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: he had bought this this chunk of the company. He
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: was on the board because Twitter brought him in to
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: be closer to them. He ended up kind of getting
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: into a fight with the CEO and offering to buy
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: the company kind of in this huff, right, and right
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: after that, he wants the deal to close immediately, so
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: much so that he tells his his bankers and his lawyers,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: you know, we don't need to I don't need to
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: look at the books here, I don't need any non
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: public information. I don't need to sign an NDA to
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: get that non public information. I just want the company,
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: and you're gonna You're going to force that deal through
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: for me, so I have that company by the end
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: of the month. And that's what he did. There was
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: no diligence. You remember when he steps on stage at
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: the TED conference in I think it was a Vancouver
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: in the day after his offer letter comes out, he
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: makes all these grand pock proclamations. You know, he says
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: he's going to get rid of the bots, He's going
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: to say free speech, and that was said without any
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: understanding of the business. So yeah, there was no there
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: was no looking under the hood effectively, and that was
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: one of the major quirks of this deal that caused
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: him a lot of problems down the line. Basically immediately
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: as soon as soon as the merger agreement assigned.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Is that evidence of how Elon works, and he's impulsive.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Let me move forward. Worry about the repercussions after.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Totally. I mean, I'll reference something he said about the
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Department of Government efficiency. He said something to the effect of,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: you know, if something we cut and it goes wrong,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: just put it back. You know, it's not like I'm
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: gonna learn about this and what this thing does. I'm
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: gonna cut it. See if something breaks, something some people suffer,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: and if it's enough pain, then I'll just put it back.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: And this kind of impulsiveness is how he's operated through
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: his whole career. It's very gut instinct, it's very primal
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: in some ways, and it served him well. You know,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: he's going to look back on his successes. Is net worth,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: you know, he's worth more than three hundred billion dollars.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: He has two major companies. He's gonna be like, what
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: this has served me so well throughout my life. You know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: why why shouldn't I do things this way? And in
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: this case, in the Twitter case obviously came back to
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: bite him because he doesn't do the due diligence. He
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: signs the merger agreement and then he starts to get
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: really cold feet and tries to find ways to back out.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: You know, he starts to name issues around bots, for example,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: and you know that's kind of the source of his pain.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Now with this deal, Okay, since you cover Elon in general,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: let's go to Tesla for a second. So we have
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the Tesla self driving. They're the first movers in that area.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: He gets rid of light ar relying solely on cameras.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: The competitors go to lightar. Okay, Meanwhile, the government is
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: investing for crashes. Is he doubling down based on his
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: personality saying fuck you? Well, do you think he really
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: evaluates a cameras are enough or is he convinced himself
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: cameras are enough?
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I think in these beliefs, he's convinced himself. I think
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: it's very key to understanding he's not just saying things right,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: he fundamentally believes them. And the thing with lightar is
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: that he believes that cars should see like humans do,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: and and and cameras will be enough, and cameras are
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: much cheaper than a light r you know that being said,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: look at the progress of where Tesla is relative to Weimo.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: For example, Wemo actually has cars on the streets that
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: are taxing people around with no drivers, and Tesla is
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: still kind of making these half promises about full self driving.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Oh actually it's not full self driving. You have to
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: be engaged with the driver. And he's kind of jerked
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: people around on the meeting of Autopilot. You know, he
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: had that Robotaxi event a couple months ago. I'm sure
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: you saw it right where he had. You know, it's
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: a staged event. You're on a literally on a movie
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: set in Burbank, driving people around these pretend cities on
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: these supposedly autonomous vehicles. And he's selling that to people
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: as if it's like the next revolution, when if you
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: walk over to Hollywood you can find a Waimo, you know,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: going up and down the street with no driver. So yeah,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think the one thing understand a boy
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Elon is that one of his superpowers, if not his
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: most super important superpower, is his ability as a salesman,
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: his ability to sell you on a mission and a vision.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: And people love that, you know, because you know, we
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: can we can debate whether or not he hits his
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: his his goals or his his projections. You know, he said,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: for example, we get to Mars by twenty twenty five.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to happen. But you know,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: you look at this robotax event and me as a report,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm very skeptical, like this is. But you
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: have people that are screaming and cheering and posting online.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: You know, they're loving the robots that are serving the
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: beers and everything, and you're like, wow, he really has
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: sold this to people. People really believe him on this stuff,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: and I don't. Uh, yeah, I don't know. It's it's
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: it's an interesting quality that he has.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: So okay. You also say that he has these advisors
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: that he trusts in the deal. They really have no
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: portfolio that have no expertise in this area whatsoever.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Aside from having large Twitter followings. You know, he's yeah,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: he's in the room with some of these venture capitalists,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: people that have had good careers in technology, have built
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: massive fortunes investing, but in terms of running a social
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: media company something to the scale of Twitter, which few
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: companies are. You know, there's Facebook, there's Instagram, Reddit, But
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: these guys don't have an understanding of this, and they
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: again view this as a technical problem as opposed to
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: a people problem. And so he's taking advice from people
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: of his same background of the same ilk you know,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: like David Sachs, Jason kalakhanis of these investors that have
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: put money into this deal. He at one point takes
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: advice from his own biographer, Walter Isaacson, and he and
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: also in that process decides to fire people that have
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: worked at the company for years studying this stuff and
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: working on it, largely because he believes they're inept or
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: they're too woke or whatever. And that's I think that Hubris.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Again we talk about these kind of gut decisions that
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: he makes, but that is what has hampered him throughout
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: the deal and throughout the takeover to the point where
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: the company is, you know, valuation wise is crashed. It's
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: advertising as crashed, the user numbers have crashed.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but even his lawyer, you know, even the people,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: you know, the the he's not using blue chip people
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: even to make the deal.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Alex Alex Spiro, who is his I'm sure you've
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: come across me as a is a big celebrity lawyer.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: He represented Megan the Stallion and Robert Kraft. He's a
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Jay Z's lawyer and actually becomes Elon's lawyer in the
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Pedal Guy case where he defends them successfully against deformation,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: ends up being one of the kind of lead lawyers
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: on this deal, and also someone who ends up like
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: somewhat leading the legal department in the early days of Twitter.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: You know, this is a trial lawyer. This isn't you know.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: He may be wildly successful, but does he have the
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: expertise to understand what it means when an FTC consent
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: decree comes in from the FTC? Does he understand what
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: happens when the EU demands information? And does he have
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: international law expertise to under like to grasp that. I
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: don't think so, you know. And Elon fired a lot
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: of the people or got or encouraged them to leave,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: folks that have kind of specialized in these areas and
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: working in it for their whole careers. And again, that's
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: just kind of one of the wilder things of this,
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: of this whole thing. There was really no transition in
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: place to understand how Twitter operated when he took over
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: the company. There were a handful of meetings, but there
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: wasn't like a transition plan. There wasn't like, Okay, these
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: these people work over here. I understand that this is
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: how the advertising business works. Let me understand that that
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: came after he took over the company and after he
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: laid off hundreds and thousands of people, and that has
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: fundamentally damaged to the company.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's since you mentioned let's stay with the FTC
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: for one second. There was the lawsuit where Elon said
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: he was going to take the company private. This is Tesla. Okay,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: the government sued him. He made an agreement that he's
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: been bitching about ever since, trying to overturn. You make
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: a point that there are certain deals with the FTC.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: The FTC keeps asking for compliance and they don't imply.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Does this basically say, if you're one of these guys,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: you have these balls, the real rules really don't apply.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: So the yeah, so the the the UH funding secured
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: stuff that that Tesla take private, that was the that
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: was the securities in the Change Commission sec But that
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: that case, I feel like he is where he draws
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: his understanding of how unaccountable he is. There is nothing
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: that can hold him accountable. And I'll explain why, which
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: is in twenty eighteen, he tweets that he has the
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: money to take Tesla private funding secured. It has at
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: four hundred and twenty dollars a share. He's going to
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: take Tesla private, take it off the public market where
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: it's not doing well because he's not hitting his numbers
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: with the Model three rollout, and he says, screw it.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't need the public market. I have
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: my private investors. You know, he didn't have that money,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: so I was going to come from Saudi Arabia wasn't coming.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: And the SEC sues him because he puts out a
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: statement that manipulates the markets and offers a false promise
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: to investors. YadA YadA. They sue him. He fights it,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: briefly settles what is what is he? What does he
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: have to pay for that? You know, he personally pays
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: a twenty million dollar fine. Testa pays a twenty million
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: dollar fine. He's no longer able to be chairman, whatever
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: that means. But what is a for What does forty
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: million dollars mean to someone who's worth one hundred billion dollars?
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: You know it it's a parking ticket for you and me.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: And his fundamental understanding of that that he could either
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: fight something or simply pay the fine is crucial to
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: how he operates now because when you get to something
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: like operating Twitter and complying to an FDC consent decree,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: He'll be like, you know, I don't care about that,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: Like what are they going to do to me? Like
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: are they going to They're not going to take the
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: company away from me. They'll levy a fine. What is
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: the fine going to be? Tens of millions dollars? Hundreds
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: of millions of dollars? You know, I'm now worth two
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars. And not only that, I'm going to
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: fight on every level using the legal system to really
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: clog this process up. Right now, he is being asked
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: to sit for a deposition by the SEC in a
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: in a related securities cases. He's simply not showing up
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: to his depositions, you know, and he's flaunting the SEC.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: He had a tweet the other day which is a
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: play on something. He's kind of childish thing he said,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: but he says, the SEC stands for you know, the
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: E stands for Elons, So you know S, you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: suck Elon's blank. You know that's what the s. You
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: know that that was his tweet the other day, And
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: you start to realize that in some ways he's he's
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: blown past the gravitational pool of accountability. You know, he
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: is so rich, he has so many resources. The government
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: is so reliant on him with that, you know, he
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't care, and that I think is a crucial understanding
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: understanding how he operates.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, to make the deal. It's not all his own money.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: He raises some Silicon Valley money, raises some Wall Street money.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Anybody who followed this closely knew that was a bad deal.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Why did they put the money in and it's been
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: proven to be a bad deal. They can't lay the
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: money off.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he raised what was publicly just goes about seven
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: billion dollars of external capital, not including the debt, which
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: we can talk about later, which is kind of a
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: millstone around the company's neck. But the external this external
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: venture capital. Some of it came from Qatar, for example.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Some of it came from Kingdom holding the Saudi Prince,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: who is effectively overseen by MBS Mohammed bin Salman, who
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: rolled over his steak from he already owned past Twitter share,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: so he just rolled over his investment about two billion
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: dollars into into Elon's deal. But a lot of these
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: were blue like leading venture Capital from the Silicon Valley.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: We're talking about Siquoy Capital, Andreas and Horowitz, you know,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: and these and these firms believe in him as an entrepreneur,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: you know, they they see him as a generational talent.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: He has done so much with SpaceX and with Tesla
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: that they're just going to take a punt on this
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Twitter deal. And even if it's a money loser, they're
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: still close to him. They've they've it's it's especially buying
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: loyalty in a way where on his next deal they
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: might come to him. And so I think about this
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: message that we reported in the book from Mark Andreesen,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: the head of Andresen Horowitz, who was offered to invest
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: I think to initially two hundred million dollars. The number
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: changed after but the emails, the messages came out. He's like,
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: you know, two hundred million. Sure, we don't even need
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: to do dilig just whatever he wants, he gets the check.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: And that's the level of influence he has over these people.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: And if you actually think about this deal, yes, it
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: individually it's a money loser for the Sequoia Capitals of
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: the world, for the and recent Horowitz of the world,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: but these same firms invested in this ai company that
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Elon spun up off of the data from Twitter Xai.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: And yes, it's funny money, but that company was recently
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: valued at fifty billion dollars in a private venture round.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: So you know, if you're looking at the plus minuses
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: here Twitter goes down, it's now about eight to nine
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: billion dollars if you believe Fidelity's valuation of the company.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: But he's been able to create xai out of zero
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: zero to fifty and so you're like, you know, maybe
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: they have a point. You know, maybe they've they've gained
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: the system enough where they understand that just being close
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: to Elon begets more wealth.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: And what about the banks that loan them the money?
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Do they think that? Yeah? Those that's where it gets.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Rough.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: You know. I have to look back on the actual
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: debt that was raised. I think it was gosh, I'm
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: off top of mad, like twelve thirteen billion dollars. It
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: amounts to a billion dollars in interest payments alone a year,
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: and those I mean, it's it's it's it's the worst
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: deal since the Financial crisis for these banks. These banks
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: are whole, They weren't able to sell on this debt,
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: and they're holding these this horrible you know, this horrible debt.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just like they're getting crushed by it.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: These are the Morgan Stanley's, the Moral Think Bank of
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: America had some of the debt Mizuno as well, and
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: for them, I think the calculus is is somewhat even similar.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: You know, maybe we take this hit, really ugly hit
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: on our books from this this Twitter deal. But let's
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: say SpaceX goes public in the next couple of years,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: we want to be on that i PO. You know,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: that's a that's a billion dollar i PO for us
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: and so and you know what happens with Neuralink and
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Boring Company. You know, they're probably doing the plus minus
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: calculation and thinking, actually, they will still come out on top,
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: even if even if Twitter is a historically bad deal.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, one of the reasons he wanted to buy what
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: was then called Twitter was because of content moderation. Okay,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: he felt it was too tight. He comes in and
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: he immediately blows out everybody involved in content moderation.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: It.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, he's he's he doesn't hide what he wants
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: to do, you know. Uh, he was mad about the
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Babylon Bee being suspended, if that that that kind of
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: right wing satirial satirical account. He was upset with Trump
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: not being on the platform, even though he technically didn't
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: like Trump. He thought it was a bad implication for
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: free speech whatever, you know, and we'll talk about what
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: he means by free speech. But yeah, well, actually, actually
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: what happened was he tried to play nice with some
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: of the content moderation folks. You remember this guy Yoel Roth.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: We ended up like severely harassing on the platform, to
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: the point where Roth had to sell his home because
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: he was being chased in real life by this online harassment.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: They were trying to get along. Elon was taking advice
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: from this guy Yoel Roth ahead of Trust and Safety.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Yoel eventually resigns, I think in the two or three
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: weeks after the deal closes, and then kind of all
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: hell breaks loose. He goes after you Wel he continues
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: to fire Trust and Safety people. But yeah, content moderation
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: for Elon was one of his big bugaboobs begaboos, and
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: like it still is to this day. You know, he's
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: he still thinks that Twitter was or the previous administration
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: was influenced by progressive woke wokeism or whatever, and that
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: everything flowed from that, and uh yeah, now you kind
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: of that's that's kind of how you can understand or
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: the content that's on Twitter now these days.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's not only the United States of America. There's
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: been the recent thing with Brazil.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, is he just.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Flying naked or is this is it at some point
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: with no content moderation team in place? Is it gonna
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: ultimately impact Twitter just as a business negatively in a
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: huge way. I Mean, we had the situation in Brazil
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and the person said, I'm standing up for everybody else
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: who will stand up?
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So a couple of things there. There is still
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: a little bit of content moderation. There's automated processes in
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: place that at at X there's still people. There's there's
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: still some humans in the building. He's gotten rid of
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of them, but there's still some around with
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: content moderation. A couple there's there's a couple things you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: have to understand, which is that advertisers have been driven
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: away by the lack of content moderation, right like it's
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: a It's caused major brands to leave or spend less money,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: because why would they want their content to be next
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: to a white nationalist who's been let back on the platform.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Why would they want it next to tweets about Nazism
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: or you know, videos of violence, which are somewhat commonplace
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: on the platform. Now, the Brazil situation is very interesting
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: to me, and it goes back to Elon's political alliances
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: around the world. Elon was friends with Jayra Bolsonaro, the
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: previous president in Brazil who was voted out essentially and
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: replaced by the leftist president. But in doing you know,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: and then there were they had their own kind of
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: January sixth moment where supporters of Bolsonaro storm government buildings
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: in Brazil, which led to these decisions by the courts
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: down in Brazil to essentially demand that Twitter ex remove
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: these voices that caused for people to question the election
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: and cause this kind of unrest. You know, we can
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: debate whether or not it's good for any government body
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: to get involved in online speech, but that was the
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: law of the land in Brazil, and Elon decided to
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: fight that in part because he was aligned with, you know,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: the old president, and he made a huge think about
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: this to the point where X was pulled out of
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: the country for a couple of weeks and then ultimately folded.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: You know, he complied with the orders and now the
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: platform is back in the country. He'd loved to make
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: if you analyze this case, he loved to make himself.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: He loves to make himself kind of the free speech
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: advocate or seen as the free speech advocate. But let's
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: compare this to what's happening in India, for example, where
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: he's very close with the Prime Minister there in Arender Modi.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: The Modi government has demanded that Twitter sensor content regularly.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: I think of something like a documentary that was put
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: up by the BBC about Modi himself. It was put
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: on YouTube and shared across platforms. You know, Twitter complied
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: with those takedown orders. There was no standing up for
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: free speech in that case by Elon and opposing that
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: that government takedown requests. He complied very easily. He's complied
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: with government takedown requests in Turkey, for example, where he's
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: aligned with Erdawan. So this kind of free speech mantra
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: that he purports is very selectively applied and really depends
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: on the market who he's aligned with. As well as
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: his own kind of personal interests.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, since we're doing a three D view on Elon. Yeah,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: just one thing, a little lose gravel here. He makes
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: all these deals with these other car companies that they
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: can use his superchargers. Then he wipes out his complete
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: supercharger team. What was going on there?
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: Your guess is as good as mine. He was He
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: often he sometimes does this where he decides like there
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: needs to be a kicking the ass for a part
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: of his company, and he'll like severely jolt it, you know.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: And again we go back to that idea of if
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: I if I break it, I can always bring him back.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: I can always reintroduce it. And actually he did that.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: He fired his whole supercharging team and they actually ended
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: up bringing a lot of them back, which he's done
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: this throughout his career. But if you're if you're GM,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: if you're Chevy, if you're even Rivian, you know you're
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: you're probably raising your eyebrows and being like, damn, we really,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: you know, do we want to reevaluate this relationship? We
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: got in bed with our main competitor and he is
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: completely erratic and we don't know why he did it.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Still like was it because he one day he woke
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: up and was like, actually, you know what, I don't
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: think I want my competitors to use my Like why
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: would I give away my secret sauce? You know, let
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: them build their own they you know, this is that's capitalism.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: I should be able to control my own chargers. But
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: this kind of erratic nature and you know, unexplained decisions
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: are part and parcel of him. Uh and it is
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: it is fascinating to watch it play out over and
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: over again as a reporter. But yeah, if i'm if
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: I'm Mary Bara a GM, I'm I'm watching this with
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: with Rai's eyebrows and wondering what's going on and just
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: always seems like a master of five alarm fire with him.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so he'sh Twitter, he starts bringing people in. If
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: you don't tell him what he wants to hear, he
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: immediately gets rid of you. So is this also a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: characteristic of his that he surrounds himself with the y
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: s people can hear a contrary opinion.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: So it's a bit more nuanced. Actually in the book
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: we go into this a little bit, but one on
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: one he can actually be receptive to criticism and as
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: long as you have the domain expertise, you have the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: numbers to back it up, the details. You know, if
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: he asks you a question, you're able to answer it.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: And I the what we talked about. He likes to
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: break things down to what he called first principles, like
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: how do things operate? And if you're able to explain
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: things to him in those first principles, he'll appreciate that.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: But what he doesn't tolerate is being criticized in a
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: group setting or being made to look like he is
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: dumb in a group setting. Essentially, we opened the book
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: with this with this instance. Actually was well, this is
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: a one on one thing, so it's kind of contradictory
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: to what I said, But of this instance of a
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: data scientist challenging him on why he tweeted out that
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi. Do you remember that, yes? Yeah,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: So Paul Pelosi was attacked Nancy Pelosi's husband on far
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: right media. It became this kind of rumor that he
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: was attacked by a jilted lover, and Elon actually shared
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: that came within days after the his acquisition. He shared
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: that conspiracy theory essentially and this data scientist who's already
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: going to quit, manages to get a one on one
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: meeting with Elon and tell him. He goes in the
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: meeting with the hope that he could maybe change him
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: or change his perspective. And this is a data scientist
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: who had studied misinformation and how it spreads on social platforms.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: And he says, like, look, I can't believe you would
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: believe you know, you're in like the top tenth percentile
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: of folks who would fall for something this ridiculous, Like
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: how could you believe that you really need to like
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: understand online sources better and like how information flows and
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: really be more skeptical of what you read online. And
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: like they get into a shouting match. Elon says, fuck you,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: you know, and the guy was going to quit anyway
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: with like you know, fires him, and you start to
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: realize that, yes, he doesn't he doesn't like to be
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: challenged very often. And there are other scenes of the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: book where he fires people on the spot as well.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: And we go back to, you know, operating on gout instinct.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: It's worked for him in the past, It's worked for
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: him at Tesla. You know, he has worked people to
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: the bone, and if they don't get the things he
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: wants done for him, he'll just find the next person
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: who will. And he's built these major companies off those techniques,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: and he has simply applied those to Twitter. And you
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: see that over and over again in the book.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, he starts taking cost cutting to an extreme level.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: You talk about getting rid of janitorial services. You talk
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: about him actually ripping out a server. Is this like
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: an emotional thing that he is setting. Let me put
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: it differently, is he setting an example or he's for
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: a guy who's worth two hundred north of two hundred billion.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Is he really trying to save every bedding?
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: We had this bit of reporting even before Twitter at
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: Tesla and one it was during the the I think
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: the model why ramp up, you know, one of the
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: crossover SUVs whatever, And he decides to motivate people by
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: removing the cereal from the offices and the factories. This
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: free cereal that people get, it's the only free food
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: that they get. And everyone's just lays like up in arms.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: They're like, you're gonna starve the people in the factory
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: who are working for you, who like literally rely on
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: this for breakfast. And sustenance. And what are you saving here?
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: You're saving how much are Lucky charms? You know, mass
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: produce Lucky charms, you know, a thousand couple thousand bucks.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: But it's for him, it's proving a point, right, it's
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: if I can endure this pain, you can endure this pain,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: and I am willing to cut whatever we need to
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: cut to make this company successful, whether that's lucky charms,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: whether that's servers, whether that's toilet paper, which I keep
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: referencing but actually happened. They didn't have toilet paper the
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: offices for a bit. But it's like a it's a
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: psychological thing, almost right. And what he believes is he's
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: going to be the one enduring this pain as well.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: He'll be the one sleeping at the factory if he
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: can not eat and be on the factory line or
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: be on the factory floor. And if he can sleep
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: in the office, which he did set up be set
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: up a bed in one of the conference rooms, then
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: you like individual employees should be able to tolerate that
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: pain too. Now on the flip side of that, you know,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: I talk to a lot of people about this, and
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: it does motivate a certain amount of people. But then
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: these people start to realize, like the upside for them,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: like what is it in Like what do they get?
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: They get a couple shares, they get a good salary,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: but his upside is, you know, millions of shares that
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: could increase in value. So he's the one seeing the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: upside from the enduring of pain by these folks. And
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: whereas you know, the individual contributor to the individual employee
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: isn't seeing the same kind of payoff. I guess he
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: would argue, you know, he's made many people at Tesla millionaires,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: but you know, the cutting has always been a part
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: of him and his identity, and it's something he's now
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: taking into to the White House.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, he doesn't pay all these severance fees, etc. What
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: is the status of the people were owed money, both
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: in terms of severance, any stocked payouts, even people are
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: owed money for office space. Are those people continuing to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: be stiffed or did anybody ever get paid?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: So there've been a series of lawsuits that have been filed.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: When we talk about the employees, there's thousands of employees
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: that are currently awaiting arbitration. A lot of them had
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: arbitration clauses in their contracts. So they're fighting essentially to
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: get that severance paid to them, which is being overseen
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: by a couple of different legal firms. But Elon has
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: not relented. He has not signaled that he's just going
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: to simply settle and pay these things. He's going to fight,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: which ultimately may cost him more, or you know, maybe
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: his calculation is that some people would simply give up
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: and forget about it. He's taking the same tact with
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: the four executives that he fired in like literally the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: minutes after taking over, he fired the CEO, chief legal officer,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: General counsel, and chief financial officer. That was literally his
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: first action upon taking over the company in October twenty
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: twenty two. And all these these four executives were do
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: golden parachutes on a change of on a transfer power, which, uh,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: you know, any kind of merger or anything, they would
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: do these golden parachutes, which amounted to about I think
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: it's around one hundred and twenty million dollars total for
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: all four of them combined. So he's he's fired them
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: for cause, which allowed him to say, actually, you know,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: I fired you for cause, Therefore you don't deserve your
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: golden parachutes or you're you're not, I don't have to
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: pay you those And of course those executives sued.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: And.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: You know, now they're paying millions of dollars to lawyers
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: to litigate that, and eventually they'll probably be a settlement
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: where those executives get tired and they maybe don't get
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: their full package, but they you know, they get some
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: part of it. And that's kind of his strategy. You know,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: with rent as well, he stopped paying rent just you know,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: just didn't write the checks and continued to occupy the
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: buildings until the real estate companies were forced to come
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: to table and negotiate with him. We often think about
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: like too big to fail, and we use that with banks.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: Obviously the financial crisis. There's a quality of Elon. There's
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: a quality of that to Elon as well. You know,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: this idea that he is too big that people have
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: to play on his terms. He's not going to simply
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: do things because he signed a contract or because he's
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: legally obligated to. But he can bend the rules and
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: get people to play on his playing field if he
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: wants to, and he's done that constantly with Twitter.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, changes the name of the company, puts up a
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: huge sign which breaks the law, and has to take
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: it down. Is he aware that he's breaking laws and
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: regulations or is he just doing whatever he's doing because
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: he's blind to the rest of the world.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: I think he just simply doesn't care. I mean his lawyer,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: we had we quote his lawyer in the book. You know,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Elon does not care about FTC consent decrees. Now that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: applies to building permits, it applies to whatever rules governed signage.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: In San Francisco, the company, the city sent inspectors to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: inspect the so called Twitter hotel in the building where
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: he built these hotel rooms for employees to stand because
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: he didn't want to pay for out of time employees
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: to stay in hotels, so they would sleep in conference
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: rooms on mixshift beds and shower in the office and
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So the city set investigators and
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: like you know, they continued to operate and have people
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: stay there. He just doesn't care, you know. And that
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: is a again going back to accountability. That's just a
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: key understanding that he has. He is bigger than any
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: law or any regulator or any agency.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: If we pull the lens all the way back. Those
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: of us who were active on Twitter and we're aware
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: of the changes he made, expected a the service to
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: go down. There were a couple of hiccups, but nothing
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: significant and for the whole thing to collapse on some level.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: It has not collapsed. So on some level do we say, hey,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: by cutting the vast majority of employeing and costs, he.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: Was right, You're right in that it hasn't collapsed, but
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: there's been some pretty severe outages. Australia in December twenty
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: twenty two was without it for a couple of days.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: You know, he's taking down a lot of the tools
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: that oversee content moderation that have allowed you know, there
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: the bought problem is still a major issue, you know,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: and there were there were a lot of tools that
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: he took out that were overseeing that. When we talk
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: about cuts, it's not just the platform itself, it's the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: people that also oversee advertising and what happened with advertising
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: at the company. It's completely cratered. So yes, I think
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: at the time, all these speculator all the speculation about
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: Twitter collapsing after he did all the layoffs, I think
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: was a bit premature, and Twitter over the years had
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: built up a pretty robust infrastructure to keep itself online.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: You know, obviously we all remember the days of the
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: fail well and you know those error messages that we
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: we get or during big events like the Super Bowl,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: the site crashing or not the super Bowl, but the
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: World Cup and stuff like that. But by and large,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: it's it's a bit a pretty robust system that Eleono
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: has been able to take over, and so it stayed online.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: That being said, you know, it doesn't guarantee that it's
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: going to stay online forever. And who knows. I reserve judgment,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: I guess, is what I'll say to that.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, he has this vision of turning what is now
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: called next into a universal payment system, you know, akin
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: to what they have in China, in light of what
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: you were talking about self driving cars, et cetera. Is
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: this complete fantasy? He says? You know, that's what he
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: wanted to do with PayPal. Legend is that's why he
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: was squeezed out. Should we pay any heed to that?
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Elan is a man that makes big, big promises. That's
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: been his whole career. He's going to get humans to Mars.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: He's going to defeat climate change. He is going to
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: build the everything up, and that's what he has pitched
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: to investors. That's why he was in our book. We
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: go over as some of the projections that he had
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: for three years from now, five years from now, ten
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: years from now, and some of those numbers were, you know, fantastical,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: you know, they were just fantasy looking at it now.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: And he sold investors on this idea that he could
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: build the weed Chat of the US, you know, a
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: place where you could watch videos, you would hail your cab,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: you would order your food, you would have your bank.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: And by and large, that vision has not been achieved.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: You know, they've been still working on those money transmitter
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: licenses in all those states. You know, there's really you
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: can't pay for anything with X at this point in time.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's again these promises that he continues
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: to make, and that's how he's operated as companies. It's
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: always on this idea of a vision, this mission that
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: we need it to and for for X, that mission
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: has been the everything app mean, by the way, he
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: hasn't mentioned that very recently. If you notice how we
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: talked about it, he doesn't really talk about payments anymore.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: He doesn't talk about the everything app so maybe that
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: was a convenient message for him to raise capital at
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: the time. But yeah, I guess that's kind of a
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: wait and see moment still as well.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about Linda Yakarno. So we read all
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: about this stuff. I'm into a small conference where she
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: was spoke very unimpressive, a sales lady at best. You know,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: the news was all about how much power she would
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: be given. I mean, I got to meet the woman
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: for three minutes to know you're not going to put
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: her in control? What was going on in with you?
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: Linda yak Arino.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: Lynda Yakarino has passed over for the head job at
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: Mbcuniversal and was very successful what she did there. You know,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: she's a big advertising person, pretty highp executive. It worked
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: a way up, but kind of saw the writing on
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: the wall when she didn't get the gig and had
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: always been angling for a top job. Her politics aligned
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: with Elon. You know, she was involved with some Trump
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: councils on the first Trump administration, and her Twitter feed
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: was pretty obviously right leading. There were a lot of
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: engagements with right wing accounts and that kind of thing,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: and she saw an opportunity, so they began a conversation.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: Remember Elon had that very bizarre period in December twenty
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: twenty two where he had a lot of self doubts
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: of whether he wanted to run the company, and he
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: tweeted out that thing about, you know, should I still
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: be CEO of Twitter. It's this dark moment in the book,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: and it's I think one thing you realize about Elon
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: is this very human He goes through these very up
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: and down and in that point in time, our reporting
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: put him in like a very dark place. You know,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: he had a lot of self doubts, and so there
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: was kind of some public chatter about, you know, maybe
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: he's looking for someone to like take the burden off.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: And so Linda Yakarino comes in and they start to
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: have those conversations. She interviews him at a conference and
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: ads conference where they have decent rapport on stage, and
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: a couple months later she's named as the CEO. You know,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: I think anyone looking at that company knows who calls
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: the shots. But also Linda oversees a lot of the
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: aspects of the business that Elon just has no care for,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: and that particular part is advertising because Twitter, despite what
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: Elan has said about subscriptions and despite what he has
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: said about wanting to develop new revenue streams, is supremely
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: dependent on advertising, and so Linda is there to do
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: that but also carry his message. So you often get
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: this very weird dynamic where she has to speak out
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: of both sides of her mouth, or she has to
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: pairt what Elon says, and uh, yeah, it's it's it's
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: fascinating watching her and what she says online.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, then you have the famous meeting with the advertisers
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: where Elon basically says, fuck you, we don't need you.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: What's the status of advertising today on X?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: So? I think you're referencing the deal Book conference where
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: he goes yes as go fuck yourself. Yes, he says,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: Bob Igers in the audience, that kind of thing, you know,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: just that that from I often forget about that moment,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: but like I also now remember where I was for it,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: and to think that felt like a decade ago now.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: But the status of advertising on X is it's still declining.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: We get kind of piecemeal numbers. Obvious they don't they
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: don't have to report those anymore. But I guess some
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: numbers internally in the US, for example, that it's it's
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: still declining after year over year, after a pretty bad
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: year in the in the previous twelve months, it's still declining.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: And so Elon has wanted to put out this message
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: that actually advertisers are returning, but you should, we should
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: all be kind of skeptical about what returning means. Does
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: that mean they're returning and spending five dollars? You know,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: what's the actual spend is actually the main question. And
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: like you can often I pay attention a lot to
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: what's on the Explore page that that on the training topics.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: You see that not right? So that big like banner
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: ad is about a five hundred, it's anywhere from tw
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: hundred fifty to fi hundred thousand dollars a day to
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: take over that page and run that banner ad, and
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: it's often very empty. You know, that used to be
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: a place where artists promoted their new albums, or there
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: were movie promotions, or if there was a new Apple
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever, iPhone launch or whatever, they would take
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: over that space. And that goes empty a lot of
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: the time. And that just speaks to where the platform
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: is at with advertisers being very queasy about the content
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: and the people that remain on.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: X okay. A month or two ago, Tim Cooked very publicly,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: Tim Apple very publicly said, oh, yeah, we're advertising on
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: x So you'd talk about Andreese and Horowitch, talk about
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley, these people looking to the future. To what
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: degree are other companies afraid of Elong?
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: Oh completely? You know Cook got in a fight with
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: Elon very famously and then had to like invite him
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: to headquarters to like smooth it over. And that was
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: over the thirty percent fee in the app store, right,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, I think these these even the top
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: of the top, the Top Sea, Sundar Pichai, Sasha Nadella,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: Reid Hoffmann, they don't want to be seen on the
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: other end of a shotgun blast from Elon Musk. You know,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: it creates a huge headache for you. And on some level,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: you know, like if he tweets value, you're just gonna
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: have millions of people coming after you and denigrating you,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, a just criticizing you. And I think
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: all of them believe that it's just easier to play
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: nice with him. And so when Tim Cook says we're
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: still advertising on X. It's interesting, right, like they still
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: could be advertising an X, but what is the amount?
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: You know, how does that compare in the past. And
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: bear in mind that these companies are also very they
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: have to do it's best for their business as well,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: and so if they are trying to break out of
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: the duopoly of Google and Facebook and online advertising, you know,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: X offers a pretty reliable place, I guess, or at
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: least an alternative. And that's not new to Elon. That's
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: how it's always been. That's why Twitter was able to
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: survive as a kind of alternative to the kind of
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: two giants. But when when Tim Cook says something like that,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: it definitely feels like a very placating move, right, it's
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: a it's a it's an olive branch to Elon.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, you follow this very closely. What's the long term
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: maybe not that long term, not immediate, but short term
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: prognosis with X? Do they miss the debt payments? Is
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: it essentially like truth social it is gonna live forever?
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Relevant to the economics, what's gonna happen here?
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: I don't think they miss the debt payments. I wouldn't
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: be surprised if elon Treasury Finance members some negotiation that
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: probably that's actually already happened that there's been reporting on
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: that X will operate as long as elon Ce's fit.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: You know, it's his favorite toy. He's created the thing
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: that he wants the most. It's it's essentially his echo chamber, right.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: It's the place where he's now become the most followed user,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: he's the most engaged with account. This wasn't his intent
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: when he bought the company, but he's been able to
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: use it to leverage UH and get the presidential candidate
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: he's wanted into the White House. So for him, it's
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: been a you know, absent all the discussion about finances
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: and everything. It's been a great success, and he's shaped
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: it in a way. He's driven away the reporters that
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: used to thrive on there, the news outlets that used
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: to thrive on there, the people used to criticize them,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: and recreated it to become this place where his favorit.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: People have the blue check marks, they've bought them. They're
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: elevated in his replies. They're the ones being shared on
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: the for you page, the algorithmically curated page, and yeah,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: I think you could be happier in some ways. You know,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: his net worth has never been higher. You know, he's
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: now worth three hundred and twenty three twenty five billion
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: dollars give and take on any given day. So we
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: talk about the financial problems that Twitter has had, but
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: again in the plus minus column, like he's he's on,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: he's up, you know, and uh so, Yeah, I think
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: I think X continues to exist forever, for however long
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: he wants it to.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: If Elon doesn't buy Twitter, Elon doesn't put money into
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: the election process, does Trump win?
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I gotta get my DeLorean out. I don't know.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: It's a bad place to be in a reporter to
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: make these kinds of predictions. Yeah. Maybe, maybe maybe. If
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: he doesn't buy Twitter, he doesn't become so steeped in
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: right wing culture. You know, after he buys Twitter, he
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: becomes really invested in immigration and starts pushing effectively the
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: great replacement theory. He starts caring about voter fraud and
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: you know, the thing that it has been talked about
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: ad nauseum on Fox News, And he starts engaging with
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: folks like Tucker Carlson and that kind of stuff. So
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: I view that process as radicalizing him towards Trump, because
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: you have to remember he was never a Trumper. He
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: supported Ron de Santis in as late as May twenty
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: twenty three. You remember that Twitter space he had where
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: he DeSantis launched his you know, his disastrous but he
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: launched his his presidential campaign on x with Elon, but
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: owning Twitter, engaging in that sphere really pushed him further
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: and further to the right, to the point where he
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: arrived on Trump's doorstep and they began a fast and
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: aggressive relationship that kind of continues to this day.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, is this bro man that's going to continue? Really? Elon?
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Although South African is a classic American one man job,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: what do we know? Trump is uneducated, stupid, and impulsive.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: So therefore, seeing over the overall landscape and being manipulative,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: what you see is what you get. What we learned
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: with Trump is hey, barring you know, are worst fears.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: He's constrained by the government. Also, he may not agree
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: with Elon on certain things. Also, Elon likes to move fast,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: the government moves at a glacial piece. To continue would
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: absolutely require compromise on Elon's part. Is that going to happen,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: or is Elon going to jump the rails at some
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: point say you know this is just fucked up. You
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: don't know what you're doing. I gotta I gotta lead.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: I thinks a big question. I think Trump does want
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: Elon to break some of that those processes, right, That's
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: why he's brought him in for the Department of Government
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: Government Government Efficiency, Right. I think it's more analyzing it
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: on a kind of one to one relationship standpoint as
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: opposed to anything policy related, like can their egos exist
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: in the same space for however long? We've already started
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: to see reports about folks around Trump tiring of the
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: amount that that that Elon has spent at the president's
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: side in mar A Lago. That's the big question, you know.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: I wish I was in the game of predictions, but
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: historically they have tended not to get along well with
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: other people that have similar egos, similar desires to take
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: control and be the leader. In my opinion, though, and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: this is complete speculation, I think both of them are
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: aware of that, and they understand that like they're being
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: watched in this way, and so to do things as
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: they've always done them might not be the way to go.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: But who knows. I mean, these guys make split decisions,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: especially Elon, and one day you could wake up and
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: find himself on the other side of Trump's good list
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: or bad list, and it may lead to fireworks, but
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: hopefully were there to report it out.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, So for two years Elon has been heavily invested
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: in x miyor to him becoming very right wing when
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: the lefties were still gun home on buying Tesla's question was,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: and this was an issue for the stock who's running
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: the ship? He's so busy at X. Is the real
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: story that he's just a figurehead and these companies run
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: by themselves.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: It's actually really interesting that he's developed these kind of
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: deep benches at these companies, and that's largely because he's
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: at Tesla and SpaceX has been able to shape them
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: from the ground up. You know, Tesla, he was an
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: early investor that took over at SpaceX he founded, but
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: he was able to mold these companies and put in
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: place the people he wants to oversee, you know, at
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: SpaceX rocket manufacturing or design. So all these people are
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: very very familiar with how he works and what we've
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: heard from people at these companies, is he's kind of
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: the troubleshooter. If there's a major problem that's happening at
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: Tesla or SpaceX, let's say in twenty eighteen, for example,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: on the on the factory line manufacturing Model threes, you
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: know he'll get in and try and problem solve very
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: aggressively and spend all his time on that problem until
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: it's fixed. And so actually, if you think about it,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: like people call elon the sun in these companies, and
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: you don't want to get too close to sunny get burned.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: So like if he is, if he's working with you
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: on your part of the company or whatever project you're
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: you're probably fucked. Like you're probably in there, you're probably
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: in deep shit, right. You don't want to be in
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: that position. You don't want to be in the same
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: room with him. And so, by and large, these companies,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: when there is no crisis, he's run themselves. SpaceX has
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: a very strong number too, and when shot well he
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: had he has other vps around him as well that
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: run that company and know about way more about rocket
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: science or manufacturing than he does, and he defers to them.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: Same thing at Tesla with X, he didn't have that right.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: This wasn't a company he built up from the ground up,
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: and so when he came in and fired everyone, there
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: was really no one he could trust. He couldn't he
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: couldn't leave and like let this thing operate week to week.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of what explains why he spent so
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: much time there when after he took over, and explains
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: why he eventually hired Linda Ekerino. But that's that's just
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 2: an understanding of how it operates. So x is I
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: guess getting there to the point where it can maybe
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: be a little more self sustainable and he's not spending
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: all his time there. But yeah, that's just that's how
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: he works.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: Okay. Steve Jobs the legendary entrepreneur before Elon Musk. It's
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: been well documented that the other Steve Wozniak was the
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: brilliant engineer, and Steve Jobs was an incredible marketer and
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: an incredible trends spotter. What is Elon's expertise? Is he
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: really that great an engineer?
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: As I said earlier, he's he's a great salesman. He's
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: a great person in pushing people towards a vision and
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: motivating them, collecting them in a room and getting him
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: marching in the same direction. And that's for the causes
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: of making humanity multiplanetary. It's for the causes of electrifying
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: cars and bringing up and bringing about the ev revolution.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: And it's funny because Jobs and Musk are often talked
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: talked about as having this quote reality distortion field, right,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: this ability to you know, if it's not real in
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: real life, they able to make it happen. You know,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: no one saw the iPhone before Steve Jobs, no one
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: saw self landing rockets before Elon, And they're able to
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: push people and the boundaries to get them working towards
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: these once impossible goals. And you know, I think I
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: think that's it's borrowed from Star Trek. I'm not a Treky,
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: but I think the reality distortion field is a Star
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: Trek thing. But we've talked to so many people that
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: say that about someone like Elon right, like that he
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: has that ability to make people believe. And you see
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: that quality not just that his companies, but outside his companies.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: You talk about the Robotaxi event. Again, he got people
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: believing in this thing that's not even real. You know,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: that is on a movie set you know, farrying people
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: around from fake city to fake city on a movie set.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: And when we talk about like his greatest quality as
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur, I think that that's it.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, But is he a good engineer?
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: Uh? I guess it depends. Yeah, he's given himself the
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: chief engineer title. I think at some of his companies,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know enough about his day to day at
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: Tesla and SpaceX. At Twitter, for example, he is not
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: in the code, he is not tweaking the algorithm. In fact,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: what we reported is he barely even uses as a
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: computer that you know, he had. He had to have
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: an assistant that set up his computer for him whenever
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: he needed to really use a computer. But he views
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: everything on his iPhone. Presentations have to be delivered to
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: him so it's readable on a you know, whatever the
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: size screen of an iPhone is, and from there he's
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: able to dictate his vision and you know, tell people
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: and direct them. But I don't think he's doing much
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: engineering these days, particularly at Twitter or X.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, my dealings with Walter isaacs in have been relatively minimal,
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: but I got to bug up my ass based on
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: that dealing and the reverence this guy gets so he
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: writes a book on Elon. People who are not don't
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: follow this space, and we rave and then everybody follows
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: this space. Said this guy drank the kool aid. And
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: then reading your book where Elon literally asked Walter Isaacs
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: in advice, whether consciously what this will do for the
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: book or not, that compromises the entire reporting. But as
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: a reporter, I'm sure you've read the book. What do
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: you say about Isaacs in book?
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: I've read the book, and I'll say this, I really
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: loved the I read the Steve Jobs book cover to cover.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: I loved it. You know, I learned so much about him.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: But then I started to realize is that there are
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: issues with these kind of great man biographies. Right, You're
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: starting with this premise that these are great men and
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: that they can be forgiven in some instances because they
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: are such great men because have done such great things.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: And I think as a reporter, like leading with that
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: is uncomfortable for me, particularly because I view my job
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: as having to interrogate power. Like Yes, on one hand,
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: I can understand that he's built great companies, but on
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: the other hand, if he is harming, if people are
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: getting hurt in his factories if he is breaking the law, like,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: it's my job to report that and expose that and
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: show that and understand that there are costs to being
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: this supposed great man. And I think, you know, with
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: the Isaacson case, we'll just let a reporting do the talking.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: You know, our reporting showed that he was providing advice
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: to Elon on Twitter Blue, the subscription service. He was
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: telling him that a lot of people will use a service,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: how we should you know, he should price it low
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: because it's going to be such a game changer. He
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: was giving Elon advice on labeling. You know, there was
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: that kind of tiff with NPR and whether or not
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: it should be labeled as state sponsored media, and apparently
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: Isaacson got involved with that as well. And as a reporter,
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: that's just not a place I want to be in,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: I don't, you know. I want my I want my subject. Yes,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: I want to be in the room with my subject
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: if they allow me to. But I'm not going to
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: compromise my integrity as reporter. I don't want to be
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: an advisor to him by any means. And I think
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: that's the trap that he fell into, you know, Elon
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: is extremely influential. He he he has a gravitational pull.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: We see this with all the people that come to
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: kind of kiss his ring, and you know a lot
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: of people described it as a king's court, and you
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: kind of if you guess, if you're around it long enough,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: you fall into that. And we see that time and
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: time again in our book with Walter, and I think
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: that caloused your judgment when it comes to reporting. I
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: think one of my main issues with his book is
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: that he took Elon for face value on a lot
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: of reporting. You know, as a reporter, you want to
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: get multiple perspectives. And so for example, Elon's daughter has
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: come out as trans daughter and said, you know, you've
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: written about me a lot in your book, but you
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: never reached out to me to get my perspective, and
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: you just took my dad's and they don't have a
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: very good relationship effect. Elon has said that his daughter
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: is dead to him. So he simply took Elon's perspective
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: about the trans daughter and ran with it. And I
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: don't think that's good reporting. You know, that would that
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: would never fly in a basic reporting one in one class,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: and yeah, that's that's kind of my view on it.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, starlink, we have the issue in the Ukraine War,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: we read about the plethora of satellites. No one has
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: ever made satellite communications profitable. What's the future of starlink
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: and to what degree do we have to fear Elon
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: Musk's actions on the world stage.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: Starlink is another source of his power and one that
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 2: ah gosh, I mean, it makes him so influential. You
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: think about the Ukraine War and him essentially controlling the
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: communications and pipes for the Ukraine defense effort as he
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: simultaneously is calling for a cease fire and end of
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: the war and an appeasing of putin right, it's kind
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 2: of just nuts, Like we haven't really never seen this,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: and I think starlink only will get more powerful, like
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: because Elon has a virtual monopoly on getting things into space,
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 2: at least in the private industry, Like he controls how
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: those satellites get up and he knows that and it
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: gives him a lot of power. I think of the
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: hurricanes that just hit, you know, the Southeast, and how
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: FEMA was reliant on starlink and getting communications to that region,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: and Elon is is literally criticizing FEMA on on X
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: he is shitting on the federal government, He's shitting on Biden,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: and yet FEMA has to play ball with him because
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: he controls Starlink like it's an incredible position to be in,
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: and I think Starlink will become more and more a
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: source of his power. I think I saw today in
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: the news that they had signed a contract with T
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: Mobile to provide I guess calling service, So you know,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: we start to see more of those deals overseas. It's
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: quite influential as well. And yeah, yeah, it's it's definitely
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: an underrated part of his empire.
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, and the Boring Company, which he never really took
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: that seriously, but we almost never hear about it. Neuralink,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: he had his press conference. Are those businesses or those hobbies?
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: I mean their businesses in the sense that they've raised
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: venture capital and they employ people, and you know, Neuralink
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: had its first patient that got something implanted. It's very
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: very developmental early stages. The Boring Company, I guess it
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: built that tunnel in Vegas that you know, shuttles people
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: mile cars can drive through it, but there hasn't been
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 2: very much from that from that company either, I would
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: say those are not his main focuses. You know, obviously
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: he'll dip into uralink stuff when they have an announcement
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: or things like that. But when we talk about those
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 2: kinds of teams that he's built up from the ground up,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: those companies are good examples of that where they kind
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: of self operate without him. He'll dip in when he
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: needs to, and when there's a big announcement he can
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 2: draw attention to it. But it certainly adds to his lore,
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: right Like he he's the man that runs six companies ostensibly,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: and it gives him a great legend. And oftentimes I
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: get asked, you know, does how is he able to
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: do this? Like I can't even do my own job,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: how can you do six and like run all these companies? Well,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: the truth is, like there's more to it, and he
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: certainly loves to profit off this this image. But it's
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: not like he is. He is going into New orlank
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: every day and working on that from a nine to five.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: So what have you learned now that the book is out?
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: Hmmm. So we end our book in March when he
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: meets Donald Trump for the first time in a long
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: time and they go in there at Florida, at the
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: home of Nelson Pelts, the activist investory tried to take
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: over Disney recently, and it was purposeful one. We couldn't
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: get We couldn't continue the book forever, and we wanted
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: a clean kind of cut to understand. You know, I
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: think people understand like from that moment on is when
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: he when he you know, really got in better of
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: the Trump. But when we ended the book, I do
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: not think we could have predict did the extent which
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: with which with with which he would support Donald Trump.
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: You know, there is a different world in which I
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: thought it would have been a much more quieter support.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: He would have maybe announced his endorsement a couple of
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: days before the election, and he would not have done
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: by any means what we saw happen, you know, which
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: is to pour two hundred million dollars into his campaign
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: and to literally go to rallies in Pennsylvania and stuff
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: for him and have this charity whatever lottery giveaway to
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: people who register to vote for him. That was unfathomable
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: to me, and I'd like, that wasn't even on the
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: cards for me. And what I've learned from that is
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: just his convictions, and what when you have that much money,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: what you're able to do about those convictions. You know,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: he spent two hundred million dollars on Donald Trump's campaign,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: and that seems like a really smart bet considering what
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: he'll get out of that. You know, he'll be able
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 2: to appoint people that he wants the government. He might
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: he has the influence an ear of the president, and
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: so that two hundred million dollars looks incredibly cheap, where
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: whereas that's unfathomable. You know, who else could do that
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: in the world. And so yeah, I've learned, I've learned
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: how that works, I guess, or how that looks, and yeah, yeah.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: So well, I'm actually also interested in what you learn personally.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: You write a book, you're with your co author we
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: both work at the New York Times, comes out on
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: a major publisher, It comes out relative to your expectations
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: and feedback. What did you learn.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: About writing a book or moving through the.
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: World there or writing this book? Yeah, writing this book,
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: in this book coming out, what do we learn? Let
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: me throw on a couple of things. Yeah, sure, sure, sure,
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: everybody's focused on their life. You're leading up to publication, date.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: In your world, this is the most important thing since
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: your status, of the writer's subject matter of the book,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: the publisher. There's a lot of ink media coverage around
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: its publication, then the media moves on. Okay, there's been
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of people have written books recently. I had
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: to listen to Kara Swisher write about her and talk
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: about her fucking book for over a year, came out,
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: was gone within like a week, and really no one
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: bought it. And there are a lot of other people
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: like that. Okay, your book certainly has a higher pedigree,
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: more interest. Do you find you're getting continued feedback? Do
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: you find that you're hearing from people that you didn't
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: used to hear from. Do you find that you're being criticized?
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: Are you stunned that the world has moved on what
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: has been your emotional experience in addition to what has
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: been incoming.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: So I've been surprised because we've had a renewed interest
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: in our book after the election, because more people want
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: to understand what he's going to do with government, how
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: we operate, and people can read about that about in
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: like what he did with Twitter. So we just came
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: back from a tour of Europe actually to where we
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 2: talked about the book. We spoke at web Summit and Lisbon,
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: we did some events in London. So on that level,
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: I honestly thought I talked to a lot of authors
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: who are like, you know, enjoy it while you can,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: because a week later, like, people aren't gonna talking about
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: your book. That's just the natural progression of things. And
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 2: for us to be continuing to talk to people two
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: and a half months out of publication, to people like yourself,
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: has been an incredible privilege. And so I'm just trying
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: to kind of ride that wave and enjoy it and
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: kind of impart the knowledge that we've learned about him too.
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: You know, people that are interested.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 3: Well, Ryan, this has been incredibly edifying. You're a very
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 3: sharp guy. You're on the case. There's certainly a movie
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 3: unspooling in front of us. I know you will be
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 3: reporting on it. I want to thank you so much
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 3: for taking this time to speak with my audience.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Bob. I want to say this has
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: been an honor. I know I've read you for so long.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: You're such a time in the industry, So thank you
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: so much.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 3: Having man till next time, This is Bob left st