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Classic Episode : Elon Musk poised to reclaim title of world’s richest person + SpaceX MASSIVE Test · Elon Musk Podcast

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Hi and welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast where we cover
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Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, Boring Company, and
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everything else Elon Musk. So please take a second hit the
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subscribe button so you can get daily updates about everything
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Elon Musk on your podcast. Player of choice Elon Musk, the
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billionaire entrepreneur behind SpaceX and Tesla, is poised to
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reclaim the title of the world's richest person after a surge in
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Tesla stock price. Musk has earned $45 billion this
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year, and on Thursday, Tesla's shares rose for the 8th
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consecutive day, putting Musk within touching distance of
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overtaking French luxury magnate Bernard Arnault.
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In December, Arnault surpassed Musk as the world's richest
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person when investors lost confidence in Tesla and grew
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concerned about Musk's focus on Twitter, which he acquired for
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$44 billion in October of last year.
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However, Tesla shares have rallied in recent weeks and have
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almost doubled since the beginning of the year, reversing
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most of the 65% drop they suffered in 2022.
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And on Thursday, the shares climbed by almost 5%, putting
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Musk's net worth at over $185 billion compared to our nose
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$187 billion. And the rise in Tesla share
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price comes after the company unveiled better than expected
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quarterly results last month, and other high growth stocks
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have also jumped due to the prospect of lower than expected
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interest rates. Despite selling off billions of
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dollars to finance this acquisition of Twitter, Musk
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remains Tesla's largest shareholder and is pledged not
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to sell his shares for approximately 2 more years.
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In addition to Tesla's recent success, Musk also announced
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this week that he will soon present the third version of
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Tesla's master plan, which will outline the path to a fully
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sustainable energy future for Earth.
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Previous version of the planet have focused on taking electric
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cars, mainstream autonomous technology and home energy
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storage. The company has also cut vehicle
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prices while it plans to start manufacturing its long-awaited
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cyber truck by the end of the year.
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Tesla's rising stock price suggests that investors has
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shrugged off concerns about Musk's management of Twitter,
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which had been seen as a distraction, and the social
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network experiencing hours of glitches earlier this week as it
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attempted to introduce new features.
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But Musk's 13% stake in Tesla is the largest source of his
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wealth, which is also made-up of shares in SpaceX and Twitter.
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He recently claimed that Twitter was on a course to profitability
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after cutting thousands of staff last year, saying that he had to
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save Twitter from bankruptcy. Space XS Starship Super Heavy
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Booster 7 conducted a pre flight test, a static fire test of 31
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of the 33 Raptor engines recently and the hot fire demo
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started at about 4:14 PM and lasted for about 10 seconds.
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It's considered a full duration test of these engines.
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Musk pointed out in a tweet that the team turned off one of the
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engines prior to the mass ignition and 1 engine stopped
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itself. That only 31 engines fired out
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of the 33. Elon said, but still enough
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engines to reach orbit. So this is a success on Spacex's
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part because they didn't know exactly what was going to be
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happening during the static fire test.
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They knew everything down to what was going to happen to the
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engines, how they were going to fire it, how everything was
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going to work up until the engines actually static fired.
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But after that, they had some calculations that they ran.
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They figured it would work right, But you never know with
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rocketry. It's literally the hardest
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engineering task on the face of the Earth.
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And the next step for this rocket, possibly orbit.
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SpaceX didn't disclose much information beyond what's going
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to be happening after the static fire of the 33 engines of the
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Raptor 2 engines, but we're assuming if everything went
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right, the next step for booster 7 is to stack the Starship on
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top of it. This is the physical stuff
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that's happening. Stack the Starship ship on top
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of it. That's about 160 feet tall,
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meaning that the whole stacked ship will be about 400 plus feet
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tall all together. And they're going to be doing an
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orbital flight test in March or April.
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Now, what happens between now and March or April?
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Well, they have a deluge system at Star Base that just came in
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from Florida, and they're building it out as we speak,
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night and day, 24/7. This static fire only lasted 10
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minutes, but they're doing clean up for the next few hours
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afterwards and the next few days, they're making sure that
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all the data points have been reached and have been sent out
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to the appropriate committees. Well, it may be NASA, and it is
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most positively the FAA because the FAA will comb through this
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data and make sure that SpaceX is going to have a safe and
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reliable flight when they do the orbital flight test.
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Doesn't seem to be a problem with the FAA, doesn't seem to be
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a problem with any of these Raptor engines.
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So it seems like the FAA is probably going to push this
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thing straight through. Now, if you think about it, the
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Raptors have about 51 or 510,000 lbs of thrust each.
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The whole rocket, £15.8 million of thrust in the SLS rocket.
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The Space Launch System, NASA's most powerful rocket, only has
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£8.8 million of thrust on lift off.
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So Spacex's Starship is about double that.
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And there's a series of clamps and restraints that held this
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rocket down during the Starship's static fire test.
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Now, SpaceX has been known to do crazy things at Star base.
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They've launched Starships into a suborbital flight and landed
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them and also exploded them when they landed.
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But now they're going a little bit more cautious.
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We have Gwynne Shotwell, who's the COO of SpaceX.
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He's also the president of SpaceX said she didn't expect
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the pad to have the same issues that they had with the 14 engine
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static fire test. And because the company
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performed some work on the pad and she didn't really tell
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exactly what that was. But she from things that we've
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seen, they've added new reinforced concrete to the pad.
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And from what we saw from the videos from numerous sources,
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the blast from behind the launch mount shows that there was about
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a, there was a huge mass of smoke that billowed out of this
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thing and it didn't blow up the launchpad though.
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And that's a success because every static fire before this,
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the 11 engine static fire and the 14 engine static fire ripped
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that thing to shreds. And there was concrete flying
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for miles from that pad all around Star Base and all around
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the Boca Chica area because it's so powerful.
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These rockets are so powerful that it would basically ignite
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the the concrete and blast it up into the air.
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Numerous birds. There was a huge flock of birds
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in front of this booster right before they blasted it in the
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environmental study that was happening last year.
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They put a precaution in there saying that we can't control
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wildlife. They do their own thing and this
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is not going to be a stopper for SpaceX in the future.
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And locally, some people had to leave their homes.
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There's an over pressure notice that's handed out to the people
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of Boca Chica Village and during the static fire test, everybody
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has to leave the area. And if it's a long duration
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test, if there's, if they're going to be a couple days,
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they'll put them up in a hotel. But this didn't happen to be a
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long test. It was only 10 seconds.
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And at about 4:00 in the afternoon, everything was good
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to go after a 10 second static fire test.
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So the FAA, everything looks good, the locals, everything
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looks good. Everyone's back in their homes
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and now we just have to wait for the FAA to approve SpaceX for
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the orbital flight test of the Starship.
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Now, when I was talking about this earlier, the the gigantic
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smoke cloud that happened during this static fire test, gigantic
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exhaust, it dissipated pretty easily into the Texas sky.
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And this is the methane, it's methane fuel.
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In this, there's some carbon dioxide and water vapor, and
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these are the byproducts of that.
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And there is more water vapor than there is methane in the air
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from these things. So it didn't really damage
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anything in the environment. So this is a partial test,
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though this isn't a full test of all 33 Raptor engines.
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So we're not exactly sure what the environmental impact will be
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or if it will affect any of the clouds nearby or any of the
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wildlife nearby with any of this carbon dioxide and wire water
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vapor. But the area is wide open.
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So I believe it's going to dissipate more than it in a in a
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closed area. So we'll see what happens with
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the first environmental checks after this with the FAA.
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If they approve them, then SpaceX should in theory be able
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to watch this Starship in the next few months.
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And this is a massive, massive deal because this is literally
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the most powerful rocket that will ever be built.
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Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's company, is building something
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similar, but not quite as big, not quite as powerful.
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SpaceX fully reusable. Blue Origin kind of wants to
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make it fully reusable. They're on that path, but they
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haven't shown anything it to the public that shows that they're
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on the right path to make it fully reusable.
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Now, Spacex's COO Gwynn Shotwell said something interesting the
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other day at a conference. She said before they fly people,
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they want to have 102 hundred plus of these launches, of these
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test launches before they put people in the Starship.
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So they're going to ramp up production of these Starships
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and they can only do five of these launches per year in
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Texas, if I'm not mistaken. I may be a little bit off there,
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but I'm, I think there's 5 to 15 launches per year.
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I'll have to get back to you on that one.
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So if they need to do hundreds of launches, if they can prove
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that they can do 5 successful launches per year, 10 successful
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launches per year, they may move the production and everything
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else over to Kennedy Space Center in Florida where they
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could have a, a faster cadence, a faster turn around for these
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ships. And once they start catching
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these on the robotic gigantic meccazilla arms on the launch
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tower, it's going to be a turn around time of hours, not days.
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And they'll be able to launch numerous rockets per day if they
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have flight clearance because they could possibly have the the
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Kennedy Space Center for the whole day.
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They could sanction off for a 24 hour period to have Kennedy
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Space Center reserved for launches of the rocket.
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And that's usually how it goes. If there's a Falcon 9 rocket
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launching from Kennedy Space Center, more than likely it's
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the only rocket launching that day.
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So if they have numerous rockets, they could possibly
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work with NASA and work with the FAA to get numerous flights per
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day. And if that's going to happen,
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they're going to get to 100 flights relatively quickly.
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And Artemis 3, that's going to be the first time the people go
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back to the moon since the Apollo program.
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SpaceX has to be ready. So they're going to do hundreds
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of flights before that. And in a few years, Artemis 2
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will be going around the moon and coming back with people
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inside. And SpaceX by that time should
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have had at least 50 to 100 flights and get ready.
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Because when people get inside of the Starship and start
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orbiting the Earth, it's going to be a amazing, amazing change
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in spaceflight. Twitter is reportedly making
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millions of dollars from just a small number of its most
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notorious users, according to a recent study by the Center for
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Countering Digital Hate, the CCDH.
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The report estimates that the social media giant could
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generate up to $19,000,000 in annual advertising revenue from
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just 10 accounts that were previously banned from the
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platform for promoting hateful content and dangerous
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conspiracies. The study analyzed the
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engagement of these 10 accounts, which include prominent figures
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associated with the extremism and conspiracy theory groups
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such as Andrew Tate, Andrew Anglin, Robert Malone, and The
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Gateway Pundit. Over a 40 day period in December
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and January, the CCDH analyzed nearly 10,000 tweets from these
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accounts and found that they received a combined total of
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54,000,000 impressions on an average day.
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Projecting this average across a year, the accounts could
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potentially reach nearly 20 billion impressions.
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To determine the ad revenue these impressions might generate
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for Twitter, the CCDH created 3 new Twitter accounts that
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followed only the 10 users named in the report.
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The authors found that the ads appeared about once every 6.7
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tweets, and using data from analysts firm Brandwatch
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estimated that Twitter ads cost an average of $6.46 per 1000
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impressions. Based on this information, the
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CCDH calculated that the 10 accounts could generate up to
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$19,000,000 in annual ad revenue.
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And the report highlights the value that a small number of
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highly polarizing accounts can have for a platform like
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Twitter. It also sheds light on the
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potential profits Twitter can make by reinstating even more
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controversial users, as the company has recently announced
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plans to allow previously banned users to appeal their
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suspensions. However, Twitter's advertising
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business has suffered majorly since the takeover by Elon Musk,
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with high profile advertisers pulling back from the platform
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and revenue down by as much as 40%, according to Platformer.
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The report also notes several instances when ads from
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prominent advertisers appeared next to offensive and
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inflammatory posts from the users, in which raise questions
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about Twitter's commitment to responsible advertising.
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So the CCDH report confirms that Twitter is displaying ads next
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to toxic accounts that promote hateful views and falsehoods,
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despite the fact that these individuals are well known for
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their harmful content. And the findings highlight the
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need for social media companies to be more accountable and
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responsible when it comes to the content they promote and the ads
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that they display. Thank you so much for listening
15:28
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