May 28, 2024 • 37 mins
Recently, a Democratic pollster surveyed the value of celebrity endorsement on the presidential race—looking at a sample of younger voters. The upshot was that Zendaya was the most influential celebrity—but Elon's name came up, too. He was one of the celebrities whose endorsement sends people running the other way. Call him an anti-influencer.
Today on Elon, Inc., our panel of regulars—Max Chafkin, Dana Hull and host David Papadopoulos—are joined by Bloomberg political writer Joshua Green to talk about the state of Musk’s political life, as well as a grab bag of other news.
Also: Feud Watch returns!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 5 (00:24):
I mean legitimate. He says He's always voted for Democrats,
but this year it will be different.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Anything he does, he's fascinating people. Welcome to Delan in
Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, May twenty eighth.
I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Today we'll be talkings, a
(01:01):
topic that has come up a lot this year already
and will only continue to do so as we head
into election season. A poll came out recently that showed
that Elon Musk is the celebrity most likely to sway
young people away from his opinions, an anti influencer, if
you will. As other billionaires stake their positions like Blackstone,
Steve Schwartzman endorsing Donald Trump, will examine the role Elon
(01:25):
is playing himself. Also, we have a special treat for
you later this week, a mapping of Elon's universe. Confused, intrigued,
tune back in for more. First up today, a little
news roundup. Xai raised an eye popping six million dollars
in a fundraising round, and campaigns are taking shape ahead
(01:46):
of the June shareholder vote on Musk's mega pay package.
We'll dig into all of this with Max Schafkin, senior
reporter at BusinessWeek. Hello, Max, Hello, David, and Dana Hall
Elon Musk a p reporter Dana Hello, Hey hey. Later
on we're going to have Josh Green, national correspondent for
Bloomberg business Week, join us as well to talk about
(02:08):
the politics. We start with x Ai. It has taken
in a large sum of money from investors. Max Chaffkin,
give us the latest.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, six billion dollars from a group of investors. That's
kind of like a you know, the Elon Supervan's you know,
unite together to help him. We've got Koya Capital, Koya
being you know, basically the venture capital firm that's been
with Elon the longest, I believe, going at least to PayPal.
We've got Andreas and Horowitz. You know, Mark and Ries
(02:38):
of course, has been pretty vocal on social media kind
of drifting in the same right word direction. We also
have a group of Saudi Arabian investors who you know,
were original backers of Twitter. They rolled their shares over
into the new Twitter x. So it's really it's a
group of people who essentially believe in Elon and who
(03:01):
are joining him to ride this wave which is AI.
And so in certain ways it's a big number. In
other ways, it's not surprising at all, Like this is
a super hot market. We've reported previously rumors and little
tidbits that suggested this deal was going to happen, and
now XAI has in fact announced it happening.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Yeah, no, fair enough. Ai is about as hot as
hot gets right now. But still Dana when you take
you know, if you go back to the moment that
Xai was created and you go out, you go back
to the rollout of the Great Rock and how there
was a fair amount of eye rolling and such at
that time to now where they're raising six billion dollars,
(03:43):
you know, like this it's all kind of come together
pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Now Elon is an incredible fundraiser, he's an incredible financial
engineer when it comes to raising money for himself. And
I think what's super interesting is that now xtat ai
is valued higher than X itself.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Right, So if they raise six billion, do we know
exactly what valuation it gives the whole company?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Elon Musk said, it's eighteen million pre money, which is
eighteen billion eighteen billion pre money, which equals twenty four
billion or would imply twenty four billion dollar post money valuation.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
I see. So okay, right, so you're saying Danny he's
a fantastic fundraiser. This just proves that once again. Even
by the way Danner after the flop that was the
acquisition of Twitter.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I mean, to be clear, you know, Musk grossly overpaid
for Twitter. Forty four billion dollars was a crazy amount
of money. He timed it, it was, It was terrible timing.
He has said as much. He's like, we overpaid. That's
why he tried to get out of the deal. He
was forced to buy it. So yeah, he like did
a terrible I mean, that was a terrible like timing mistake.
(04:56):
But when it comes to working with Wall Street raising
ca capital, fundraising for his visions, he has done this
over and over again. I mean, the guy runs six
companies now and his latest startup, which is his Darling,
is now raising billions of dollars from investors old and new,
and you know, every like to Max's point, everyone from
(05:16):
Valor to the Saudis to Fidelity, like people want to
be in with Elon. And I was noting this morning
that Gene Munster of deep Water posted thrilled to report
that deep Water is an investor in Xai's recent round
and he lists four reasons. One of them is the
Elon factor quote his involvement es central to the success
(05:39):
of the company. Given his vision, he has a unique
power to attract world class talent and deep pockets to
fund what will be an incredibly capital intensive five year
infrastructure build. So you know, people, I mean his track
record of raising and deploying capital is kind of unparalleled.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know, you might be time to to say, like,
haven't these investors learned their lesson? I mean, like they
put billions of dollars into the buyout of Twitter. It's
worked out in very poorly. The value value of Twitter's
fallen and I think the answer is no. And it's
no because well, for two reasons. One is it's not
totally clear that Twitter and Xai are entirely separate. I mean,
(06:20):
there are supparate companies, the equity structure are separate.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
But as we talked about.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
On this podcast, Twitter is being used to train Xai.
It is the main distribution platform for Grock, Xai's main product,
and it appears, although we don't know exactly what's going on,
that Twitter investors were given allocations in this startup. So
in certain ways, you back Twitter, you've gotten this other thing.
(06:45):
And remember back in twenty twenty two, you know, people
were talking about this. Our colleague Matt Levine was writing
about it. But basically people were saying, well, why are
these bankers, you know, why are people putting money in
this company? And the answer was, it's not that they
think it's a good deal. It's that they want access
to Elon Musk's next deal. And this is it, right, Like,
this is why you roll if you're the Saudi's or whatever.
(07:08):
This is why you rolled your shares over because you
wanted to stay on his good side. So when he
goes and does something hot like this Xai thing, you.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Can get in.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
You've got access, and I guess that is the broader
point when you talk about did they not learn their
lesson from from giving money to Elon? The broader lesson
from giving money to Elon, whether it's Tesla or SpaceX
or some of these others is that it goes up, up,
up and up. And so yes, it's true. Twitter was
the most recent of these, and it blew up in
spectacular fashion. But I guess they see it to a
(07:37):
certain degree as a one off. Plus as you're saying
it's an entry into this Xai investment, I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
There's another story you could tell, which is that Elon is,
you know, becoming more erratic. We've seen, you know, Tesla's
stock is down. There are a lot of warning signs here,
and if this Ai bubble or what appears to be
an AI bubble is deflated or bursts or whatever, then
Xai is going to be like one of the first casualty.
So it's not like it's totally clear that this is
(08:03):
like a good move, but it is. It's not like
these people are way outside of kind of like the
normal investor consensus in investing in this company. I mean
investors are investing in lots and lots of dumb AI
things right now, this is like not even close to
the most dumb thing that Silicon Valley investors have put
(08:23):
like a billion dollars into in the last couple of years.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Okay, Dana Hall. The shareholder vote on Musk's mega pay package,
the one that was approved by shareholders years ago for
fifty six billion dollars, then a judge struck down a
couple months ago. There is a new pay package now
back in front of shareholders. The vote is on June thirteenth.
(08:49):
Where do things stand?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, so June thirteenth is the annual shareholder meeting. They're
going to be voting on several things. The big one
is the pay package. And to be clear, like this
is part of Tesla's legal strategy, right so you know,
shareholders approve this pay package in twenty eighteen, the Delaware
Chancery judge struck it down. Tesla has yet to appeal
to the Delaware Supreme Court. They're putting it before shareholders
(09:13):
again and they want to be able to say, listen,
shareholders voted again. Elon still has all of the support.
This will help them with their appeal, but it doesn't
actually like ultimately, the judge she'll has to do her
findings and this legal process has to continue. So it's
largely symbolic. What's fascinating is that the Tesla board is
all out with this full on campaign. There's a vote
(09:36):
Tesla website. All these retail shareholders are being urged to vote.
There is Tesla this morning actually posted that if you
vote your Tesla shares, you have a chance to win
a tour of Jigaexas with Elon and France on holds houses.
And you know, some of the large proxy advisory firms,
(09:57):
the two big ones are Glass Lewis and Iss. Over
the moment Morialty weekend, Glass Lewis came out and they
were like no, no on the pay package. So it's
going to be a really close vote. And I think
the board is extremely worried because it's it's fundamentally a vote.
It's like a referendum on Elon's leadership as CEO, and uh,
you know, if it's a squeaker or if he only
(10:18):
gets fifty point one percent of the vote, that's like
a huge sign that like not everyone is happy. And
so you know, the big the big voting blocks are
the big shareholders. Retail is significant but you need retail
to actually vote. So there's this unprecedented campaign where they're
shaking the trees trying to get every retail voter out
(10:38):
there to vote their shares.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And this is partly a reflection the fact that, like
Tesla's stockholder base is different from many other companies, Like
there are a lot of they're more retail shareholders in
this company than in a normal company.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
And so like these votes are more like this, this campaign,
the Musk fanboys more significant.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You know, Normally Glass Lewis, like the big asset managers
just kind of do whatever Lewis recommends and that's that.
And so that would be to vote against this. But
because you have this substantial contingent of retail investors, because
you have Tesla, you know, and Elon Musk, you know,
despite the ways in which he's polarizing, like, there's still
a lot of people, particularly Tesla's shareholders, who.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Really believe in him.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So him, you know, going out there and campaigning, you know,
I mean, I think it has the potential to be
a factor. I think Dan is right, it's going to
be close vote.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
And it is also interesting that, as Dana is saying,
it's ultimately something of a bank shot in the sense
that it's not it's not binding in and of itself.
Even if the vote goes his way, they can't immediately
turn around and give them the pay package. They then
have to turn back to the judge in Delaware and say, look, look,
you see that people are still with us. But if
I remember correctly what our reporter in Delaware told is
(11:49):
Jeff Feely, the judges in Delaware and the courses in
Delaware tends to be unmoved by such appeals.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
You do wonder the announcement of this XAI deal, right like,
that's not news that was leaked. That is news that
was announced, right we for you know, months have been
and other news outlets have been reporting on the possibility
of this. Elon had previously denied that it was even
a thing, and him announcing this just in front of
this vote, it does make you wonder if part of
(12:17):
the goal here is to signal to TESLA board members
and shareholders and so on that there is this risk
that if we don't pay you on what he's worth,
or at least as far as he sees it, there's
a chance he walks away and does his AI thing. Elsewhere.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
More to come on this as we get closer to
that vote. Okay, We're now joined by Josh Green, a
national correspondent for Bloomberg Business Week. Hello, Josh, gonna be
with you. Hey, Okay, Josh, So you come bearing gifts
(12:51):
of sorts. There's a new pull out. What exactly does
it say?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It's kind of a weird stunt poll from a Democratic
firm called Blueprint that does a lot of messaging advice
to President Biden into Democrats, and because he's been struggling
with younger voters in particular, the polsters went out and
asked younger voters, people eighteen to thirty, who were the
most influential endorsers that Democrats and Republicans could come up
(13:22):
with to sway their votes. The winners for men not
super surprising. Lebron James was the most influential endorser for
young men. For young women, it was the actress and
Daya who actually beat out Taylor Swift, somewhat to the
surprise of political insiders. But the name that jumped out
(13:42):
to me was who they described as the least influential endorser,
who by a two to one margin, voters said his
endorsement would make them less likely to support the candidate
that he endorsed, and that was, of course Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
What's the margin of error in this poll?
Speaker 4 (14:00):
What exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
What was the sample size? I'm very curious about what
a stunt pole is.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Sample well, what I call it a stunt pole? What
I mean it's not that it isn't statistically valid, it
is sample size. I think it was about a thousand
registered voters, margin of error with something like four or five.
So it's about what you get for kind of public
facing polls. Stunt more in the sense of, you know,
the campaigns aren't out there focusing super hard on my gosh,
(14:29):
can we just get Lebron to endorse us? As much
as both candidates would like that, there are more important
things for campaigns to be doing. But it's sort of
a catnit for political insiders and political reporters. Everybody likes
to see how everybody else ranks. That being said, I
don't think Lebron, or Tailor or Zendia, or probably even
Elon Musk is going to tilt the election one way
(14:50):
or another. But it is interesting to see just how
phenomenally unpopular Elon Musk has become, especially with younger people.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think the key thing here is
younger people, right eighteen to thirty. You know, Elon Musk
doesn't necessarily play to that demographic. You don't normally think
of the typical cyber truck driver as being a zoomer.
It's more like a father or a grandfather of a zoomer.
I'd say that said. You know, we've talked about this
(15:19):
a lot. Like Elon Musk, there have been a lot
of attempts to sort of put some kind of like
galaxy brain gloss on Elon musk political moves and when
you're like embracing, you know, extreme political positions, extreme right
wing political positions like newsflash. That does not play well
with voters of any kind, and even less well with
(15:39):
young voters.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
The poll is interesting in it, but it is also
interesting to me that they really just highlight younger voters
and not let's say, middle aged voters, who who who
might view Musk more favorably than the youth of America do?
Is there a sense of why they chose that age group?
Is that because perhaps they are more malleable and easier
(16:01):
to sway?
Speaker 3 (16:02):
No, I don't think so I mean, you know, the
youth vote is going to be pivotal in this election.
Biden won it last time. Democrats traditionally do. But if
you look at all sorts of polsters beyond these ones,
including both campaigns pollsters, young people are more down on
Joe Biden and more open to Donald Trump than they
were four years ago. So it is an important subject.
(16:24):
I don't think that the youth voters any more malleable
than than older voters. What we do know is that
the older the voters are, the more likely they are
to show up the polls and pull the lever, and
a lot of younger people just don't. So, you know,
I don't think it invalidates the results at all. I
think what stands out to me, though, is the idea
that Elon is sort of the typhoid Mary of celebrity endorsers,
(16:45):
at least when it comes to younger voters, Like he
actually makes you less likely to vote for somebody he's endorsed,
and like, there I'm looking at the list of celebrities.
You know, there were a couple dozen of them, from
Cardi b to Billie Isle to Beyonce, the Lil Wayne,
Kevin Hart, lil Yati. I'm sure you guys are all
(17:05):
fans cute. None of these voters actually push young people
against their chosen candidates. The ones, it's really the ones
who are who do that are are Elon Musk, Jake
Paul and Kanye West, who, much like Elon Musk, has
kind of run into some trouble in the Culture Wars lately.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
A couple other names in there too, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joe Rogan.
I mean, these are all people who I think, like
a young person might describe as cringe in one way
or another, like even because they have big followings among
older folks like you are not if you're a young person,
you are not going for Gwyneths like chosen, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
So Josh, even for those like the Zendayas, like the
Lebron But people who are indeed apparently will have you know,
young voters say hey, yeah, I would be influenced by
this person to a certain extent. Does that actually even
what is history show? Does that even translate into a
meaningful movement of the needle in terms of the way
people vote? Or No, yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Think it does among you know, particular subgroups.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Both candidates, you know, Trump just because he's sort of
generally needy and Democrats, because their candidates tend to be
older and lamer, have really prized celebrity endorsements over the
last couple of cycles. You know, Obama was thought of
as a particularly cool candidate, a lot of people want
to endorse him. But even Donald Trump back in the
twenty sixteen Republican National Convention had a couple of like,
(18:32):
kind of B list actors there, and he was so
excited because Trump cares about celebrity more than more than
just about anybody. And like I said, it's tough to
get young people to turn out to vote if it's
not like an Obama on the ticket, or a Bernie
Sanders on the ticket, or somebody who they would naturally
be enthused to turn out for, And especially when you
have an election shaping up like the one that we
(18:55):
have between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. These are two
of the most unpopular candidates with age groups across the board,
but particularly so with younger people. So you could actually
make an argument that celebrity endorsers for these two particular
candidates are more important this cycle than they would be
in an ordinary cycle.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Now Dan has Elon endorse anyone yet.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No, he has an endorsed and he said that he's
not donating to any political candidates, but he sort of
left open the possibility of a pack or donating via
a pack or you know, dark money works in mysterious ways.
And if you just look at his tweets on X
his platform, I mean, he's all, I mean, he's he's
(19:39):
just slamming Joe Biden left and right all the time,
and so you know, it's like a de facto endorsement
of Trump. But he hasn't come out and said like,
I am voting for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
And a lot of.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
People always ask the question, like, well, why doesn't Elon
Musk run for president? He cannot run for president himself
because he was born in South Africa, but he is
registered to vote in Texas. He registered to vote in
July of twenty twenty and in the Brownsville area. And
you know, he has increasingly like encouraged his employees to vote.
So pretty recently he sent this like staff white email
(20:11):
out to everybody at TESLA saying like, hey, if you
live in the Austin area, please be sure to vote
in the DA's race.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
A lot of employees were Yeah, but that didn't go
particularly well.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
For me because it was like he was telling people
how to vote on the day of the election, and
you know, like it was sort of a very late
and late to the party kind of thing. But also
like employees don't really want their boss telling them how
to vote. So that's and the candidate lost. So I
think that like a big question for this campaign cycle
is what exactly is Elon doing with his money if anything?
(20:44):
Or is he putting his thumb on the scales just
in terms of what he amplifies on X or is
he really, like you know, going around to fundraisers with
Trump and doing kind of stuff behind the scenes. Like
we haven't really seen exactly what his role is going
to be this cycle yet.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Right, And we do know that like Schwartzman at Blackstone
are starting to line up, billionaires like him are starting
to line up behind Trump and send more money his way.
On that question of giving out money, is there any
movement there? I know you said he has said his
public postures that he will not donate, but is there
(21:22):
any do we have any indications that beneath the surface
there may be movement there.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I mean, there's no record of Musk donating to any candidates,
Like if you look at FEC filings and there's no
record of a pact. But that's not to say that
one doesn't exist, like you know, I mean, I mean
there's no you know, if you look up Elon Musk
and campaign donations, you're not going to find anything to
presidential candidates this cycle.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Elon's David Sachs is hosting a fundraiser for Trump in
early June, and so there is you know, like he
does have some friends who are starting to line up
behind Trump. I think the conventional wisdom when you talk
to people like in Silicon Valley been around Elon is
that he's too.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Cheap to to donate to Trump.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
He's not gonna wanna, you know, write a massive check
that will be used to pay Trump's legal bills or whatever,
which I think is like generally a good bet. Elon
Musk is a person who uses capital in a very
efficient way. And like, and I brought this up before,
like you know, you go tomorrow lago, and like it's
not this is not going to look like an efficient
(22:26):
use of capital.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
What's the actual net present value right now of me
giving Donald Trump tk amount of dollars. But if Trump
is in the White House come January, it's suddenly going
to feel like you.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Know, oh yeah, right, and and you know, given this
is a guy who's you know, we've talked about this
earlier on the podcast. He's spending you know, billions of
dollars on you know, in Nvidia, GPUs and so on,
Like you know, what's a couple of million dollars for
some for for like a significant amount of influence, especially
when you're talking about the prospect of you know, we're
talking about ev tariffs, We're talking about like lots of policies,
(23:01):
The Defense Department has a massive procurement budgement, lots of
ways that.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
That the next administration will very.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Be very helpful to.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Elon Musk that said, like Dan has talked about this,
I mean we've talked. It's like it is a little
bit outside of his comfort zone. Like I don't know
that he would definitely do it, although I'm sure, and
I think Josh can comment on this too, I'm sure
Trump would would love it.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Yeah, Josh, you've done some reporting on this recently, on
the dance between these two men. Any any fresh intel
on your end, I.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Mean, the fresh intel is kind of the same as
as like the longtime intel on Elon and Washington. He's
eve in Washington as a chief skate too. Is essentially
somebody who talks a big game and wants a lot
of attention, but, as one Trump advisor put it to me,
won't stroke a check. There's a lot of bad feelings
toward Elon, especially among people in the RHN DeSantis orbit.
(23:54):
They were led to believe that Elon was going to
be coming in with a big check to support a
Dessanda's super pac and that check never materialized. I don't
think he ended up giving a dollar. And of course
Desanda's kind of flamed out and is out of the race.
And I think what that did was just sort of
reinforce the idea that this guy is all about himself
and getting attention and cares about politics to the extent
(24:19):
that it intersects with his own life, either in a
culture war sense or getting government contract sense, but doesn't
think of himself as being like a political player who
needs to be donating millions of dollars along the lines
of like a more traditional rich person who wants to
influence a White House like somebody like a Steve Schwartzman.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
So Max Elon is load to quote stroke the check.
Are other tech billionaires doing this at this point for
Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (24:48):
I mean there is this.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
First of all, there's always been like kind of a
right wing a contingent in Silicon Valley, and during the
primary that group was kind of hesitant and kind of
the same way like Elon to.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Get behind Trump.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But we have seen some signs so that the two
co hosts of the All In podcast, Shamoth poly Abbatilla
and David Sachs, these guys are both venture capitalist. Sacks
is very close to Elon. They're they're hosting a fundraiser
in early June. I think the contribution is like five
hundred thousand dollars per couple or something along those lines.
(25:26):
So this is like a big ticket fundraiser in San Francisco.
I assume there will be a lot of big names
in tech, you know at this event. Also probably a podcast.
So so there is there is some movement towards Trump
from the kind of like I mean, these are like
trumpy Silicon Valley right wingers, Like none of this is
(25:47):
a huge surprise. On the other hand, it does signal
a bit of a shift and could be a way
for like Elon to maybe find his way into into
making a donation.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think, look, Trump Ne's I mean, Joe Biden has
a lot more money than Donald Trump does. So if
non Elon tech billionaires or high centa whatever they are
is are willing to step up and write him five
hundred thousand dollars check, that is a big deal. It
matters to Trump. It's going to help his campaign. You know,
Elon specifically, as we can see from the poll, is
(26:19):
not going to kind of move the needle with younger people.
But if Elon were to kind of get excited by
by David Sachs or the momentum in Silicon Valley for Trump,
and we're willing to start writing checks along with those
other guys, then I think that really would add up
to a meaningful factor for the Trump campaign and in
the presidential race, which which Trump is leading right now.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
There are reasons that Elon might be more motivated to
donate in the context of like a general election than
he was in the Republican primary, where you know, he
clearly feels that Biden has has it out for Tesla
has it out for him, where like the differences might
seem more extreme or more pronounced in the general election
(27:00):
versus like compared to the Santa's with Trump, where there's
like a lot of risk, there's some actual risk to
like going big on pro DeSantis. When you've got this
like huge contingent of Trump, voters are going to be mad.
Whereas now like Elon is completely ideologically aligned with with
Donald Trump, that's a barrier that isn't there, Like, I
(27:21):
don't think donating to Trump is going to cost him
many many Tesla reservations.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
And it all goes back to this kind of like
big narcissistic injury where Biden made a big show of
having like EV companies come to the White House and
Tesla wasn't invited.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Biden has heap praise on General Motors, which is based
in Michigan, and kind of left Tesla out of the narrative.
At one point, Biden said that like Mary Bara led
the EV revolution, and Elon was really upset about that.
He felt like, wait, Tesla, you know is the company
that dragged everyone kicking and screaming into electrification. And Biden,
because of his pro union stance just always ignored Tesla's contributions,
(28:01):
and that has that's like the original sin that has
led to this huge rift between the two guys, and
then on and on. Elon has called him a damp
sock puppet that, like the teleprompter, is the real president.
He's really made fun of Biden's age. He's railed against
the gerontocracy. I mean, you could argue Trump is also
part of the gerontocracy. But this has been going on
(28:23):
for several months now, and it's probably only going to escalate,
you know, as we get closer to November.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
Now, Josh note, does the Trump camp look at a
pole like this and say, hey, we need to run away,
at least publicly run away from Elon?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
No, I don't think so. They only care about Elon
to the extent that they like the fact that he's
criticizing Joe Biden. It helps spread those criticisms in the culture.
What they would really like is for him to stroke
that big, you know, eight eight figure check to Trump's
super I don't think anybody expects that to happen. But
beyond that, him kind of running his mouth on x
(29:06):
or on Twitter and starting these controversies, even if they're
kind of hostile toward Joe Biden, it really doesn't do
much for Trump one way or the other, and so
he's not viewed as a particularly important factor, and in
order for him to become one, he would kind of
have to step up and do what he doesn't really
want to do, and that start pouring real money into
the presidential race behind behind a big time candidate.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I just want to flag a post on cybertruck owners
club dot com. This is a forum for, as you
might guess, owners of cyber trucks. There's a lengthy thread,
a seven page thread subject what are teenagers problems with
cyber truck?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
And it is an owner of cyber truck commenting that,
you know, everyone he meets seems to like it, except
I've had several teenagers flip me off, yell I hate
your truck, and just today a girl rolled down her
window and.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Just yelled FU.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Perhaps it's the storyline that they're dangerous or bad for
the environment, something on TikTok saying they're evil. I think,
folks that we've figured it out. Elon musk might be
a little bit polarizing with the youth, Josh.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Thank you very much for joining us fun. Okay, Max,
so I was away last week. You were away last week,
which means you know, America has gone a couple weeks
now without a feud. Watch update Elon and all the
(30:32):
folks he's feuding with. Surely there must be an update
out there.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Okay, First of all, David, I was not away last week.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I was working hard watching these feuds so that I
could come here and report back to him. And the
one I want to call everyone's attention to, which is
related to the AI discussion, is a feud between Elon
Musk and Yon Lacuon. Yon Lacun is like the top
AI guy at Facebook. He has been beefing with Elon
(30:59):
Musk on and off, and I'd say the feud reached
a new height.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I think they've they've made it to the board.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yon mccun referred to his his background as a scientist,
and Elon responded in kind of his favorite put down
with what quote unquote science have you done in the
past five years?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Essentially, which he's he of course used on two years.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah, and so we've seen, you know, a bunch of
Elon stands go after this guy, although you do have
Yan mccuhn as a fairly respected AI expert, so there's
some people jumping to his defense. So there's there's a
bit of a beef in AI land. Again, this is
not a top five feud, but perhaps a bottom half
of the top ten kind of situation.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
And I suppose it's it's of the moment with XAI
being ascend in and you know, announcing the fundraising. It's
it's it's top of mind.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yes, So so Jan Lacun's employer is Meta Platforms. You know,
Meta is one of the main players in AI. They
have their own chat gybt like model. But I mean,
really we cannot talk about this. I mean, it's really
all that's aside because of course the real feud, what's
the real as you know, is Elon and Zuckerberg in
the cage, and we're just seeing these proxy wars play
(32:09):
out all over social media, all in different ways, and
it's all leading up to that.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Moment, Yeah, big moment. Now, you're right, you were working
and including you were searching and and and you know
the world for feuds high and low while I was
frolicking in Europe. Did you find any other a couple
of other.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Feuds that are worth talking about. One is so The
New York Times published a really excellent profile of some
of the lawyers who are leading the who are working
on the litigation against Twitter slash X in relation to
severance payments that former employees say are due to them.
This is a kind of ragtag group of plaintive's attorneys
(32:51):
who met and formed kind of a bond on Twitter.
People should check it out because it's it's just kind
of a funny way in which, you know, we talk
about all the ways that X slash Twitter is kind
of a shell of itself. It isn't isn't what it was.
And he reads stories like this, it's X is still
good at certain things. And one of them is like
getting groups of people together in this.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Case to talk trash.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
In this case, this is a group of trash talking
lawyers who have you know, joined up avengers assembled to
try to win a major lawsuit against Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Now there's one other sorry.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Sorry, So he's obviously, of course battling them in court.
But is he engaging with them? Is he talking trash
back at them?
Speaker 4 (33:28):
They I do, I am not aware.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
I can't be allow you then it can't come on.
It's literally.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It's like has Matt's has many feuds? I want to
I want to see his leaderboard.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
There's one other feud and I'm hesitanted to bring this up,
but you know there is Elon Musk has as we've
discussed a long running feud with the Google guys. Now, uh,
some aspect of this feud, I suppose is uh the
divorce of Sergey Brinn from his ex wife, Nicole Shanahan.
She is now a vice presidential candidate. She's running, She's
(34:03):
RFK Junior's running mate. And there was a profile that
came out in The New York Times in which we
learned via a group of anonymous sources, all of whom
seem to be more or less connected to Nicole Shanahan.
Elon Musk and Sergey Brin have denied this, but essentially
that the marriage between Nicole Shanahan and Sergey Brin broke
up when she and Elon took ketamine and disappeared together
(34:26):
at a party, and the divorce, of course that that
followed this purported breakup left her with a giant sum
of money because she was married to Sergey Brin who's
very wealthy, and that money is now playing a role
in the presidential election, and it's possible, just possible, that
this feud could have an impact in Nova.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
So this is essentially still part of the Elon Musk
versus the Google Mafia feud.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Yeah, I mean, like I said, this is you really
have to this.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Guy really does see feuds everywhere.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, I guess this is. But you know, the Musk
brind feud, right, even though didn't Elon like posts some
picture of them supposedly at a party or it was
like a photo bomb where he was like we get along.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
See, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
So the thing is like, yeah, the Wall Street Journal
report a version of this story like in twenty twenty two,
and Musk's response was to post this photo that Danna said.
Now the photo, it really does not totally look like
Sergey Brinn knew that the photo was necessarily being taken.
It kind of seemed like Elon Musk just sort of
did one of those like get behind serge and take
(35:34):
a selfie and kind of you know, arc the camera
a little bit. On the other hand, he has denied it.
Sergei Brinn has denied it, so you know, we don't
whatever happened, you know, at this supposed ketamine party, it
may remain a secret to the attendees.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
That's good stuff. What you're gonna do though, going forward,
whether or not the leaderboard is actually released publicly or not,
when you announce a feud going forward, you bring one
going forward to you, got it? You also, you're going
to start to hit us with the ranking. It's got
like it could be thirty seventh six fourth. Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The challenge here is you have Elon and Google, and
then you have Elon and Larry Page and Elon and
Sergey Brin.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
So it's like, do you is that one?
Speaker 5 (36:18):
I don't know? Don't ask me, Max. That really is
for you to figure out on your own. You come
all to me that, But thank you for joining me.
Thank you for the assignment, Dana. Thanks as always, always
a pleasure. This episode was produced by Stacey Wong. Naomi
(36:40):
Shavin and Rayhan Harmanci are senior editors. The idea for
this very show also came from Rayhan Blake Maples handles engineering,
and we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott and
Antonio mufaett Our supervising producers Magnus Hendrickson. The Elon Inc.
Theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sudiera.
(37:03):
Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. If you have a minute,
rate and review our show, it'll help other listeners find us.
See you later this week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 5 (00:24):
I mean legitimate. He says He's always voted for Democrats,
but this year it will be different.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Anything he does, he's fascinating people. Welcome to Delan in
Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, May twenty eighth.
I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Today we'll be talkings, a
(01:01):
topic that has come up a lot this year already
and will only continue to do so as we head
into election season. A poll came out recently that showed
that Elon Musk is the celebrity most likely to sway
young people away from his opinions, an anti influencer, if
you will. As other billionaires stake their positions like Blackstone,
Steve Schwartzman endorsing Donald Trump, will examine the role Elon
(01:25):
is playing himself. Also, we have a special treat for
you later this week, a mapping of Elon's universe. Confused, intrigued,
tune back in for more. First up today, a little
news roundup. Xai raised an eye popping six million dollars
in a fundraising round, and campaigns are taking shape ahead
(01:46):
of the June shareholder vote on Musk's mega pay package.
We'll dig into all of this with Max Schafkin, senior
reporter at BusinessWeek. Hello, Max, Hello, David, and Dana Hall
Elon Musk a p reporter Dana Hello, Hey hey. Later
on we're going to have Josh Green, national correspondent for
Bloomberg business Week, join us as well to talk about
(02:08):
the politics. We start with x Ai. It has taken
in a large sum of money from investors. Max Chaffkin,
give us the latest.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, six billion dollars from a group of investors. That's
kind of like a you know, the Elon Supervan's you know,
unite together to help him. We've got Koya Capital, Koya
being you know, basically the venture capital firm that's been
with Elon the longest, I believe, going at least to PayPal.
We've got Andreas and Horowitz. You know, Mark and Ries
(02:38):
of course, has been pretty vocal on social media kind
of drifting in the same right word direction. We also
have a group of Saudi Arabian investors who you know,
were original backers of Twitter. They rolled their shares over
into the new Twitter x. So it's really it's a
group of people who essentially believe in Elon and who
(03:01):
are joining him to ride this wave which is AI.
And so in certain ways it's a big number. In
other ways, it's not surprising at all, Like this is
a super hot market. We've reported previously rumors and little
tidbits that suggested this deal was going to happen, and
now XAI has in fact announced it happening.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Yeah, no, fair enough. Ai is about as hot as
hot gets right now. But still Dana when you take
you know, if you go back to the moment that
Xai was created and you go out, you go back
to the rollout of the Great Rock and how there
was a fair amount of eye rolling and such at
that time to now where they're raising six billion dollars,
(03:43):
you know, like this it's all kind of come together
pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Now Elon is an incredible fundraiser, he's an incredible financial
engineer when it comes to raising money for himself. And
I think what's super interesting is that now xtat ai
is valued higher than X itself.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Right, So if they raise six billion, do we know
exactly what valuation it gives the whole company?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Elon Musk said, it's eighteen million pre money, which is
eighteen billion eighteen billion pre money, which equals twenty four
billion or would imply twenty four billion dollar post money valuation.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
I see. So okay, right, so you're saying Danny he's
a fantastic fundraiser. This just proves that once again. Even
by the way Danner after the flop that was the
acquisition of Twitter.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I mean, to be clear, you know, Musk grossly overpaid
for Twitter. Forty four billion dollars was a crazy amount
of money. He timed it, it was, It was terrible timing.
He has said as much. He's like, we overpaid. That's
why he tried to get out of the deal. He
was forced to buy it. So yeah, he like did
a terrible I mean, that was a terrible like timing mistake.
(04:56):
But when it comes to working with Wall Street raising
ca capital, fundraising for his visions, he has done this
over and over again. I mean, the guy runs six
companies now and his latest startup, which is his Darling,
is now raising billions of dollars from investors old and new,
and you know, every like to Max's point, everyone from
(05:16):
Valor to the Saudis to Fidelity, like people want to
be in with Elon. And I was noting this morning
that Gene Munster of deep Water posted thrilled to report
that deep Water is an investor in Xai's recent round
and he lists four reasons. One of them is the
Elon factor quote his involvement es central to the success
(05:39):
of the company. Given his vision, he has a unique
power to attract world class talent and deep pockets to
fund what will be an incredibly capital intensive five year
infrastructure build. So you know, people, I mean his track
record of raising and deploying capital is kind of unparalleled.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know, you might be time to to say, like,
haven't these investors learned their lesson? I mean, like they
put billions of dollars into the buyout of Twitter. It's
worked out in very poorly. The value value of Twitter's
fallen and I think the answer is no. And it's
no because well, for two reasons. One is it's not
totally clear that Twitter and Xai are entirely separate. I mean,
(06:20):
there are supparate companies, the equity structure are separate.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
But as we talked about.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
On this podcast, Twitter is being used to train Xai.
It is the main distribution platform for Grock, Xai's main product,
and it appears, although we don't know exactly what's going on,
that Twitter investors were given allocations in this startup. So
in certain ways, you back Twitter, you've gotten this other thing.
(06:45):
And remember back in twenty twenty two, you know, people
were talking about this. Our colleague Matt Levine was writing
about it. But basically people were saying, well, why are
these bankers, you know, why are people putting money in
this company? And the answer was, it's not that they
think it's a good deal. It's that they want access
to Elon Musk's next deal. And this is it, right, Like,
this is why you roll if you're the Saudi's or whatever.
(07:08):
This is why you rolled your shares over because you
wanted to stay on his good side. So when he
goes and does something hot like this Xai thing, you.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Can get in.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
You've got access, and I guess that is the broader
point when you talk about did they not learn their
lesson from from giving money to Elon? The broader lesson
from giving money to Elon, whether it's Tesla or SpaceX
or some of these others is that it goes up, up,
up and up. And so yes, it's true. Twitter was
the most recent of these, and it blew up in
spectacular fashion. But I guess they see it to a
(07:37):
certain degree as a one off. Plus as you're saying
it's an entry into this Xai investment, I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
There's another story you could tell, which is that Elon is,
you know, becoming more erratic. We've seen, you know, Tesla's
stock is down. There are a lot of warning signs here,
and if this Ai bubble or what appears to be
an AI bubble is deflated or bursts or whatever, then
Xai is going to be like one of the first casualty.
So it's not like it's totally clear that this is
(08:03):
like a good move, but it is. It's not like
these people are way outside of kind of like the
normal investor consensus in investing in this company. I mean
investors are investing in lots and lots of dumb AI
things right now, this is like not even close to
the most dumb thing that Silicon Valley investors have put
(08:23):
like a billion dollars into in the last couple of years.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Okay, Dana Hall. The shareholder vote on Musk's mega pay package,
the one that was approved by shareholders years ago for
fifty six billion dollars, then a judge struck down a
couple months ago. There is a new pay package now
back in front of shareholders. The vote is on June thirteenth.
(08:49):
Where do things stand?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, so June thirteenth is the annual shareholder meeting. They're
going to be voting on several things. The big one
is the pay package. And to be clear, like this
is part of Tesla's legal strategy, right so you know,
shareholders approve this pay package in twenty eighteen, the Delaware
Chancery judge struck it down. Tesla has yet to appeal
to the Delaware Supreme Court. They're putting it before shareholders
(09:13):
again and they want to be able to say, listen,
shareholders voted again. Elon still has all of the support.
This will help them with their appeal, but it doesn't
actually like ultimately, the judge she'll has to do her
findings and this legal process has to continue. So it's
largely symbolic. What's fascinating is that the Tesla board is
all out with this full on campaign. There's a vote
(09:36):
Tesla website. All these retail shareholders are being urged to vote.
There is Tesla this morning actually posted that if you
vote your Tesla shares, you have a chance to win
a tour of Jigaexas with Elon and France on holds houses.
And you know, some of the large proxy advisory firms,
(09:57):
the two big ones are Glass Lewis and Iss. Over
the moment Morialty weekend, Glass Lewis came out and they
were like no, no on the pay package. So it's
going to be a really close vote. And I think
the board is extremely worried because it's it's fundamentally a vote.
It's like a referendum on Elon's leadership as CEO, and uh,
you know, if it's a squeaker or if he only
(10:18):
gets fifty point one percent of the vote, that's like
a huge sign that like not everyone is happy. And
so you know, the big the big voting blocks are
the big shareholders. Retail is significant but you need retail
to actually vote. So there's this unprecedented campaign where they're
shaking the trees trying to get every retail voter out
(10:38):
there to vote their shares.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And this is partly a reflection the fact that, like
Tesla's stockholder base is different from many other companies, Like
there are a lot of they're more retail shareholders in
this company than in a normal company.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
And so like these votes are more like this, this campaign,
the Musk fanboys more significant.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You know, Normally Glass Lewis, like the big asset managers
just kind of do whatever Lewis recommends and that's that.
And so that would be to vote against this. But
because you have this substantial contingent of retail investors, because
you have Tesla, you know, and Elon Musk, you know,
despite the ways in which he's polarizing, like, there's still
a lot of people, particularly Tesla's shareholders, who.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Really believe in him.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So him, you know, going out there and campaigning, you know,
I mean, I think it has the potential to be
a factor. I think Dan is right, it's going to
be close vote.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
And it is also interesting that, as Dana is saying,
it's ultimately something of a bank shot in the sense
that it's not it's not binding in and of itself.
Even if the vote goes his way, they can't immediately
turn around and give them the pay package. They then
have to turn back to the judge in Delaware and say, look, look,
you see that people are still with us. But if
I remember correctly what our reporter in Delaware told is
(11:49):
Jeff Feely, the judges in Delaware and the courses in
Delaware tends to be unmoved by such appeals.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
You do wonder the announcement of this XAI deal, right like,
that's not news that was leaked. That is news that
was announced, right we for you know, months have been
and other news outlets have been reporting on the possibility
of this. Elon had previously denied that it was even
a thing, and him announcing this just in front of
this vote, it does make you wonder if part of
(12:17):
the goal here is to signal to TESLA board members
and shareholders and so on that there is this risk
that if we don't pay you on what he's worth,
or at least as far as he sees it, there's
a chance he walks away and does his AI thing. Elsewhere.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
More to come on this as we get closer to
that vote. Okay, We're now joined by Josh Green, a
national correspondent for Bloomberg Business Week. Hello, Josh, gonna be
with you. Hey, Okay, Josh, So you come bearing gifts
(12:51):
of sorts. There's a new pull out. What exactly does
it say?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It's kind of a weird stunt poll from a Democratic
firm called Blueprint that does a lot of messaging advice
to President Biden into Democrats, and because he's been struggling
with younger voters in particular, the polsters went out and
asked younger voters, people eighteen to thirty, who were the
most influential endorsers that Democrats and Republicans could come up
(13:22):
with to sway their votes. The winners for men not
super surprising. Lebron James was the most influential endorser for
young men. For young women, it was the actress and
Daya who actually beat out Taylor Swift, somewhat to the
surprise of political insiders. But the name that jumped out
(13:42):
to me was who they described as the least influential endorser,
who by a two to one margin, voters said his
endorsement would make them less likely to support the candidate
that he endorsed, and that was, of course Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
What's the margin of error in this poll?
Speaker 4 (14:00):
What exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
What was the sample size? I'm very curious about what
a stunt pole is.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Sample well, what I call it a stunt pole? What
I mean it's not that it isn't statistically valid, it
is sample size. I think it was about a thousand
registered voters, margin of error with something like four or five.
So it's about what you get for kind of public
facing polls. Stunt more in the sense of, you know,
the campaigns aren't out there focusing super hard on my gosh,
(14:29):
can we just get Lebron to endorse us? As much
as both candidates would like that, there are more important
things for campaigns to be doing. But it's sort of
a catnit for political insiders and political reporters. Everybody likes
to see how everybody else ranks. That being said, I
don't think Lebron, or Tailor or Zendia, or probably even
Elon Musk is going to tilt the election one way
(14:50):
or another. But it is interesting to see just how
phenomenally unpopular Elon Musk has become, especially with younger people.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think the key thing here is
younger people, right eighteen to thirty. You know, Elon Musk
doesn't necessarily play to that demographic. You don't normally think
of the typical cyber truck driver as being a zoomer.
It's more like a father or a grandfather of a zoomer.
I'd say that said. You know, we've talked about this
(15:19):
a lot. Like Elon Musk, there have been a lot
of attempts to sort of put some kind of like
galaxy brain gloss on Elon musk political moves and when
you're like embracing, you know, extreme political positions, extreme right
wing political positions like newsflash. That does not play well
with voters of any kind, and even less well with
(15:39):
young voters.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
The poll is interesting in it, but it is also
interesting to me that they really just highlight younger voters
and not let's say, middle aged voters, who who who
might view Musk more favorably than the youth of America do?
Is there a sense of why they chose that age group?
Is that because perhaps they are more malleable and easier
(16:01):
to sway?
Speaker 3 (16:02):
No, I don't think so I mean, you know, the
youth vote is going to be pivotal in this election.
Biden won it last time. Democrats traditionally do. But if
you look at all sorts of polsters beyond these ones,
including both campaigns pollsters, young people are more down on
Joe Biden and more open to Donald Trump than they
were four years ago. So it is an important subject.
(16:24):
I don't think that the youth voters any more malleable
than than older voters. What we do know is that
the older the voters are, the more likely they are
to show up the polls and pull the lever, and
a lot of younger people just don't. So, you know,
I don't think it invalidates the results at all. I
think what stands out to me, though, is the idea
that Elon is sort of the typhoid Mary of celebrity endorsers,
(16:45):
at least when it comes to younger voters, Like he
actually makes you less likely to vote for somebody he's endorsed,
and like, there I'm looking at the list of celebrities.
You know, there were a couple dozen of them, from
Cardi b to Billie Isle to Beyonce, the Lil Wayne,
Kevin Hart, lil Yati. I'm sure you guys are all
(17:05):
fans cute. None of these voters actually push young people
against their chosen candidates. The ones, it's really the ones
who are who do that are are Elon Musk, Jake
Paul and Kanye West, who, much like Elon Musk, has
kind of run into some trouble in the Culture Wars lately.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
A couple other names in there too, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joe Rogan.
I mean, these are all people who I think, like
a young person might describe as cringe in one way
or another, like even because they have big followings among
older folks like you are not if you're a young person,
you are not going for Gwyneths like chosen, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
So Josh, even for those like the Zendayas, like the
Lebron But people who are indeed apparently will have you know,
young voters say hey, yeah, I would be influenced by
this person to a certain extent. Does that actually even
what is history show? Does that even translate into a
meaningful movement of the needle in terms of the way
people vote? Or No, yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Think it does among you know, particular subgroups.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Both candidates, you know, Trump just because he's sort of
generally needy and Democrats, because their candidates tend to be
older and lamer, have really prized celebrity endorsements over the
last couple of cycles. You know, Obama was thought of
as a particularly cool candidate, a lot of people want
to endorse him. But even Donald Trump back in the
twenty sixteen Republican National Convention had a couple of like,
(18:32):
kind of B list actors there, and he was so
excited because Trump cares about celebrity more than more than
just about anybody. And like I said, it's tough to
get young people to turn out to vote if it's
not like an Obama on the ticket, or a Bernie
Sanders on the ticket, or somebody who they would naturally
be enthused to turn out for, And especially when you
have an election shaping up like the one that we
(18:55):
have between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. These are two
of the most unpopular candidates with age groups across the board,
but particularly so with younger people. So you could actually
make an argument that celebrity endorsers for these two particular
candidates are more important this cycle than they would be
in an ordinary cycle.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Now Dan has Elon endorse anyone yet.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No, he has an endorsed and he said that he's
not donating to any political candidates, but he sort of
left open the possibility of a pack or donating via
a pack or you know, dark money works in mysterious ways.
And if you just look at his tweets on X
his platform, I mean, he's all, I mean, he's he's
(19:39):
just slamming Joe Biden left and right all the time,
and so you know, it's like a de facto endorsement
of Trump. But he hasn't come out and said like,
I am voting for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
And a lot of.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
People always ask the question, like, well, why doesn't Elon
Musk run for president? He cannot run for president himself
because he was born in South Africa, but he is
registered to vote in Texas. He registered to vote in
July of twenty twenty and in the Brownsville area. And
you know, he has increasingly like encouraged his employees to vote.
So pretty recently he sent this like staff white email
(20:11):
out to everybody at TESLA saying like, hey, if you
live in the Austin area, please be sure to vote
in the DA's race.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
A lot of employees were Yeah, but that didn't go
particularly well.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
For me because it was like he was telling people
how to vote on the day of the election, and
you know, like it was sort of a very late
and late to the party kind of thing. But also
like employees don't really want their boss telling them how
to vote. So that's and the candidate lost. So I
think that like a big question for this campaign cycle
is what exactly is Elon doing with his money if anything?
(20:44):
Or is he putting his thumb on the scales just
in terms of what he amplifies on X or is
he really, like you know, going around to fundraisers with
Trump and doing kind of stuff behind the scenes. Like
we haven't really seen exactly what his role is going
to be this cycle yet.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Right, And we do know that like Schwartzman at Blackstone
are starting to line up, billionaires like him are starting
to line up behind Trump and send more money his way.
On that question of giving out money, is there any
movement there? I know you said he has said his
public postures that he will not donate, but is there
(21:22):
any do we have any indications that beneath the surface
there may be movement there.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I mean, there's no record of Musk donating to any candidates,
Like if you look at FEC filings and there's no
record of a pact. But that's not to say that
one doesn't exist, like you know, I mean, I mean
there's no you know, if you look up Elon Musk
and campaign donations, you're not going to find anything to
presidential candidates this cycle.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Elon's David Sachs is hosting a fundraiser for Trump in
early June, and so there is you know, like he
does have some friends who are starting to line up
behind Trump. I think the conventional wisdom when you talk
to people like in Silicon Valley been around Elon is
that he's too.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Cheap to to donate to Trump.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
He's not gonna wanna, you know, write a massive check
that will be used to pay Trump's legal bills or whatever,
which I think is like generally a good bet. Elon
Musk is a person who uses capital in a very
efficient way. And like, and I brought this up before,
like you know, you go tomorrow lago, and like it's
not this is not going to look like an efficient
(22:26):
use of capital.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
What's the actual net present value right now of me
giving Donald Trump tk amount of dollars. But if Trump
is in the White House come January, it's suddenly going
to feel like you.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Know, oh yeah, right, and and you know, given this
is a guy who's you know, we've talked about this
earlier on the podcast. He's spending you know, billions of
dollars on you know, in Nvidia, GPUs and so on,
Like you know, what's a couple of million dollars for
some for for like a significant amount of influence, especially
when you're talking about the prospect of you know, we're
talking about ev tariffs, We're talking about like lots of policies,
(23:01):
The Defense Department has a massive procurement budgement, lots of
ways that.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
That the next administration will very.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Be very helpful to.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Elon Musk that said, like Dan has talked about this,
I mean we've talked. It's like it is a little
bit outside of his comfort zone. Like I don't know
that he would definitely do it, although I'm sure, and
I think Josh can comment on this too, I'm sure
Trump would would love it.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Yeah, Josh, you've done some reporting on this recently, on
the dance between these two men. Any any fresh intel
on your end, I.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Mean, the fresh intel is kind of the same as
as like the longtime intel on Elon and Washington. He's
eve in Washington as a chief skate too. Is essentially
somebody who talks a big game and wants a lot
of attention, but, as one Trump advisor put it to me,
won't stroke a check. There's a lot of bad feelings
toward Elon, especially among people in the RHN DeSantis orbit.
(23:54):
They were led to believe that Elon was going to
be coming in with a big check to support a
Dessanda's super pac and that check never materialized. I don't
think he ended up giving a dollar. And of course
Desanda's kind of flamed out and is out of the race.
And I think what that did was just sort of
reinforce the idea that this guy is all about himself
and getting attention and cares about politics to the extent
(24:19):
that it intersects with his own life, either in a
culture war sense or getting government contract sense, but doesn't
think of himself as being like a political player who
needs to be donating millions of dollars along the lines
of like a more traditional rich person who wants to
influence a White House like somebody like a Steve Schwartzman.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
So Max Elon is load to quote stroke the check.
Are other tech billionaires doing this at this point for
Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (24:48):
I mean there is this.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
First of all, there's always been like kind of a
right wing a contingent in Silicon Valley, and during the
primary that group was kind of hesitant and kind of
the same way like Elon to.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Get behind Trump.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But we have seen some signs so that the two
co hosts of the All In podcast, Shamoth poly Abbatilla
and David Sachs, these guys are both venture capitalist. Sacks
is very close to Elon. They're they're hosting a fundraiser
in early June. I think the contribution is like five
hundred thousand dollars per couple or something along those lines.
(25:26):
So this is like a big ticket fundraiser in San Francisco.
I assume there will be a lot of big names
in tech, you know at this event. Also probably a podcast.
So so there is there is some movement towards Trump
from the kind of like I mean, these are like
trumpy Silicon Valley right wingers, Like none of this is
(25:47):
a huge surprise. On the other hand, it does signal
a bit of a shift and could be a way
for like Elon to maybe find his way into into
making a donation.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think, look, Trump Ne's I mean, Joe Biden has
a lot more money than Donald Trump does. So if
non Elon tech billionaires or high centa whatever they are
is are willing to step up and write him five
hundred thousand dollars check, that is a big deal. It
matters to Trump. It's going to help his campaign. You know,
Elon specifically, as we can see from the poll, is
(26:19):
not going to kind of move the needle with younger people.
But if Elon were to kind of get excited by
by David Sachs or the momentum in Silicon Valley for Trump,
and we're willing to start writing checks along with those
other guys, then I think that really would add up
to a meaningful factor for the Trump campaign and in
the presidential race, which which Trump is leading right now.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
There are reasons that Elon might be more motivated to
donate in the context of like a general election than
he was in the Republican primary, where you know, he
clearly feels that Biden has has it out for Tesla
has it out for him, where like the differences might
seem more extreme or more pronounced in the general election
(27:00):
versus like compared to the Santa's with Trump, where there's
like a lot of risk, there's some actual risk to
like going big on pro DeSantis. When you've got this
like huge contingent of Trump, voters are going to be mad.
Whereas now like Elon is completely ideologically aligned with with
Donald Trump, that's a barrier that isn't there, Like, I
(27:21):
don't think donating to Trump is going to cost him
many many Tesla reservations.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
And it all goes back to this kind of like
big narcissistic injury where Biden made a big show of
having like EV companies come to the White House and
Tesla wasn't invited.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Biden has heap praise on General Motors, which is based
in Michigan, and kind of left Tesla out of the narrative.
At one point, Biden said that like Mary Bara led
the EV revolution, and Elon was really upset about that.
He felt like, wait, Tesla, you know is the company
that dragged everyone kicking and screaming into electrification. And Biden,
because of his pro union stance just always ignored Tesla's contributions,
(28:01):
and that has that's like the original sin that has
led to this huge rift between the two guys, and
then on and on. Elon has called him a damp
sock puppet that, like the teleprompter, is the real president.
He's really made fun of Biden's age. He's railed against
the gerontocracy. I mean, you could argue Trump is also
part of the gerontocracy. But this has been going on
(28:23):
for several months now, and it's probably only going to escalate,
you know, as we get closer to November.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
Now, Josh note, does the Trump camp look at a
pole like this and say, hey, we need to run away,
at least publicly run away from Elon?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
No, I don't think so. They only care about Elon
to the extent that they like the fact that he's
criticizing Joe Biden. It helps spread those criticisms in the culture.
What they would really like is for him to stroke
that big, you know, eight eight figure check to Trump's
super I don't think anybody expects that to happen. But
beyond that, him kind of running his mouth on x
(29:06):
or on Twitter and starting these controversies, even if they're
kind of hostile toward Joe Biden, it really doesn't do
much for Trump one way or the other, and so
he's not viewed as a particularly important factor, and in
order for him to become one, he would kind of
have to step up and do what he doesn't really
want to do, and that start pouring real money into
the presidential race behind behind a big time candidate.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I just want to flag a post on cybertruck owners
club dot com. This is a forum for, as you
might guess, owners of cyber trucks. There's a lengthy thread,
a seven page thread subject what are teenagers problems with
cyber truck?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
And it is an owner of cyber truck commenting that,
you know, everyone he meets seems to like it, except
I've had several teenagers flip me off, yell I hate
your truck, and just today a girl rolled down her
window and.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Just yelled FU.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Perhaps it's the storyline that they're dangerous or bad for
the environment, something on TikTok saying they're evil. I think,
folks that we've figured it out. Elon musk might be
a little bit polarizing with the youth, Josh.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Thank you very much for joining us fun. Okay, Max,
so I was away last week. You were away last week,
which means you know, America has gone a couple weeks
now without a feud. Watch update Elon and all the
(30:32):
folks he's feuding with. Surely there must be an update
out there.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Okay, First of all, David, I was not away last week.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I was working hard watching these feuds so that I
could come here and report back to him. And the
one I want to call everyone's attention to, which is
related to the AI discussion, is a feud between Elon
Musk and Yon Lacuon. Yon Lacun is like the top
AI guy at Facebook. He has been beefing with Elon
(30:59):
Musk on and off, and I'd say the feud reached
a new height.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I think they've they've made it to the board.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yon mccun referred to his his background as a scientist,
and Elon responded in kind of his favorite put down
with what quote unquote science have you done in the
past five years?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Essentially, which he's he of course used on two years.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah, and so we've seen, you know, a bunch of
Elon stands go after this guy, although you do have
Yan mccuhn as a fairly respected AI expert, so there's
some people jumping to his defense. So there's there's a
bit of a beef in AI land. Again, this is
not a top five feud, but perhaps a bottom half
of the top ten kind of situation.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
And I suppose it's it's of the moment with XAI
being ascend in and you know, announcing the fundraising. It's
it's it's top of mind.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yes, So so Jan Lacun's employer is Meta Platforms. You know,
Meta is one of the main players in AI. They
have their own chat gybt like model. But I mean,
really we cannot talk about this. I mean, it's really
all that's aside because of course the real feud, what's
the real as you know, is Elon and Zuckerberg in
the cage, and we're just seeing these proxy wars play
(32:09):
out all over social media, all in different ways, and
it's all leading up to that.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Moment, Yeah, big moment. Now, you're right, you were working
and including you were searching and and and you know
the world for feuds high and low while I was
frolicking in Europe. Did you find any other a couple
of other.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Feuds that are worth talking about. One is so The
New York Times published a really excellent profile of some
of the lawyers who are leading the who are working
on the litigation against Twitter slash X in relation to
severance payments that former employees say are due to them.
This is a kind of ragtag group of plaintive's attorneys
(32:51):
who met and formed kind of a bond on Twitter.
People should check it out because it's it's just kind
of a funny way in which, you know, we talk
about all the ways that X slash Twitter is kind
of a shell of itself. It isn't isn't what it was.
And he reads stories like this, it's X is still
good at certain things. And one of them is like
getting groups of people together in this.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Case to talk trash.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
In this case, this is a group of trash talking
lawyers who have you know, joined up avengers assembled to
try to win a major lawsuit against Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Now there's one other sorry.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Sorry, So he's obviously, of course battling them in court.
But is he engaging with them? Is he talking trash
back at them?
Speaker 4 (33:28):
They I do, I am not aware.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
I can't be allow you then it can't come on.
It's literally.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It's like has Matt's has many feuds? I want to
I want to see his leaderboard.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
There's one other feud and I'm hesitanted to bring this up,
but you know there is Elon Musk has as we've
discussed a long running feud with the Google guys. Now, uh,
some aspect of this feud, I suppose is uh the
divorce of Sergey Brinn from his ex wife, Nicole Shanahan.
She is now a vice presidential candidate. She's running, She's
(34:03):
RFK Junior's running mate. And there was a profile that
came out in The New York Times in which we
learned via a group of anonymous sources, all of whom
seem to be more or less connected to Nicole Shanahan.
Elon Musk and Sergey Brin have denied this, but essentially
that the marriage between Nicole Shanahan and Sergey Brin broke
up when she and Elon took ketamine and disappeared together
(34:26):
at a party, and the divorce, of course that that
followed this purported breakup left her with a giant sum
of money because she was married to Sergey Brin who's
very wealthy, and that money is now playing a role
in the presidential election, and it's possible, just possible, that
this feud could have an impact in Nova.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
So this is essentially still part of the Elon Musk
versus the Google Mafia feud.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Yeah, I mean, like I said, this is you really
have to this.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Guy really does see feuds everywhere.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, I guess this is. But you know, the Musk
brind feud, right, even though didn't Elon like posts some
picture of them supposedly at a party or it was
like a photo bomb where he was like we get along.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
See, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
So the thing is like, yeah, the Wall Street Journal
report a version of this story like in twenty twenty two,
and Musk's response was to post this photo that Danna said.
Now the photo, it really does not totally look like
Sergey Brinn knew that the photo was necessarily being taken.
It kind of seemed like Elon Musk just sort of
did one of those like get behind serge and take
(35:34):
a selfie and kind of you know, arc the camera
a little bit. On the other hand, he has denied it.
Sergei Brinn has denied it, so you know, we don't
whatever happened, you know, at this supposed ketamine party, it
may remain a secret to the attendees.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
That's good stuff. What you're gonna do though, going forward,
whether or not the leaderboard is actually released publicly or not,
when you announce a feud going forward, you bring one
going forward to you, got it? You also, you're going
to start to hit us with the ranking. It's got
like it could be thirty seventh six fourth. Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The challenge here is you have Elon and Google, and
then you have Elon and Larry Page and Elon and
Sergey Brin.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
So it's like, do you is that one?
Speaker 5 (36:18):
I don't know? Don't ask me, Max. That really is
for you to figure out on your own. You come
all to me that, But thank you for joining me.
Thank you for the assignment, Dana. Thanks as always, always
a pleasure. This episode was produced by Stacey Wong. Naomi
(36:40):
Shavin and Rayhan Harmanci are senior editors. The idea for
this very show also came from Rayhan Blake Maples handles engineering,
and we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott and
Antonio mufaett Our supervising producers Magnus Hendrickson. The Elon Inc.
Theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sudiera.
(37:03):
Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. If you have a minute,
rate and review our show, it'll help other listeners find us.
See you later this week.
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