September 3, 2024 • 25 mins
After months of back and forth, Brazil finally did what it’s been threatening to do: ban X. This comes on the heels of government complaints from Britain and elsewhere about false information thriving on Elon Musk’s embattled social media platform—some of it from Musk himself. In this episode of Elon, Inc., we dig into Brazil’s action and also talk about the Android app launch of X TV, a way to watch video content from the former Twitter on your home TV screen. Our panel—David Papadopoulos, Max Chafkin and Kurt Wagner—have some ideas.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, he's a legitimate super genius, I mean legitimate.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year
it will be different. He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him. Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's
done nothing. Anything he does, he's fascinating people.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Welcome to Elon Ing, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
It's Tuesday, September third. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Welcome
back from Labor Day. This week it's all about X.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
We'll start with the ban of X in Brazil.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
And then we're gonna hit Elon's latest election antics on
you guessed it X, and then we're gonna wrap up
by discussing his vision and dreams for X TV. Joining
us to talk about that are some familiar faces. Max Chafkin, Hey,
what's going on?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Max? How are you?
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Happy? Belated Labor Day?
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Happy blated Labor Day, and to you Kurt Wagner aka
Number eight and a social media reporter for us here
at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Kurt, Hey, David, how are you good? All right, Kurt,
We're gonna start with you.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Just give us an overview for those of us out
there who were just at the beach, soaking up the rays,
sipping summer martinis. And we're not following the ins and
outs of Elon Muskin X versus the Brazilian Supreme Court.
What is transpired and where do things stand there now?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (01:57):
So I believe it was Friday, so a lot of
people may have already been checked out for the long weekend,
at least here in the US. A Brazilian judge basically
cut off X or banned X for the entire country.
And this had been the end result of a long
saga that has played out over the last several months.
The short version is that this judge he wanted X
(02:21):
to take action on certain accounts on the platform for
sharing misinformation or anti democratic content. X and Elon, of course,
you know, saying well free speech absolutism, said no, we're
not going to do that. As things sort of got
more intense than judge said, well, I'm going to arrest
the person or attempt to arrest the person who is
(02:43):
representing X and country.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
That was weeks ago, the threat to arrest them, right.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
That's right that we talked about that, because then Elon's
response to that was, well, we're going to leave the
country entirely. We're going to you know, stay operational, that
you'll be able to use the app in Brazil, but
we're not going to have employees there. There's not going
to be anyone to arrest. And the judge then said, well,
in order to operate here, you need someone here to
basically answer questions for the company and you know, receive
(03:13):
in this case, our complaints.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You don't have any entire.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
X Brazilian staff cannot be working from home in the Bahamas.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Yeah, in Brazil, they need someone physically there to handle
an issue like this. And so he says, you need
to appoint a legal representative otherwise I'm going to ban you.
Elon says, you know, more or less, shove off. I'm
not going to appoint anybody, and kind of I don't
know if he was attempting to call his bluff or
just simply said, you know, we'll we'll be happy to
(03:45):
be banned. I don't care, but the judge did follow
through and band X on Friday. I believe it's officially
no longer working for people in Brazil, and it's a
fine if you use a VPN to access it. It's
a way to sort of redirect your Internet traffic to
maybe a server that's in another country, right, so you
would first go to a server in a country where
(04:05):
X is allowed, and then it sort of redirects it
and that way you get around the ban that way.
But again there's a fine for people who do that.
So you know, we're at this point now where X
is banned. The Supreme Court, the rest of the Supreme
Court upheld the original judge's decision, so X can still appeal,
but you know, we're kind of at this stage where
things are looking like X is just gone unless Elon
(04:28):
is willing to concede to some of these demands.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You know, a year ago, Elon Musk was asked by
the government of Turkey to ban a bunch of accounts
and he went through with it under court order. And
the explanation at the time offered was, you know, yes,
I'm a free speech absolutist, but the question is either
you know, lose access to a handful of accounts in Turkey,
or lose access to the service altogether. And he argued,
(04:55):
you know, it's better to better to preserve X and Turkey,
you know, making the making a different calculation here. Not
entirely clear why, although I suppose Musk would argue that
there was less transparency, like one of the big reasons
he offered at the time for opposing this order was
that the judge was was limiting what X could.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Say about it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't know if that's significant enough to put the
entire operations in the country at risk, but but of
course Elon Musk saw it that way. But what I
think is actually going on here is you have Brazilian politics,
which Elon Musk has already sort of entered the fray right.
He's attempted to cozy up to Bolsonnaro, former.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
President, sort of far right president of Brazil, who I believe,
Max correct me if I'm wrong, who is closely allied
with many of the accounts right on X that the
Brazilian Supreme Court wanted to shut down.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, we know that because Twitter released a sort of
sequel to the Twitter Files called the Alexander Files.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
That's the first name of the Brazilian justice who ordered.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
This banims right and thank you and and so so right.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
It was it looked like seven accounts. These are all
sort of far right aligne. It really feels like, you know,
Elon musk Is, in inserting himself into Brazilian politics, has
now you know, decided to make this a thing, just
as he's made you know, his engagement in American politics
a thing. He's you know, posting memes, he's you know,
he's he's going to war over this, and you know,
(06:21):
you can debate whether that makes sense as a principal
stand I think for X it's not great news because
Brazil is a pretty substantial market for social media.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Yeah, it's a big market for them from a user
base standpoint, significantly less, you know, important from a financial standpoint.
But we don't know exactly how many users because they
don't they've never broken those out. We've seen some estimates,
I believe E Marketer said it was around forty million
monthly active accounts, which would put Brazil probably in the
(06:50):
top five, maybe even in the top three, behind the
United States and Japan in terms of total size. For
X but revenue wise, again, they've never broken it out.
I was texting with a source over the weekend and
he told me that, you know, it used to be
that Brazil was around two percent of global revenue for them,
So you know, those numbers obviously could could be adjusted
(07:14):
slightly since Elon has taken over. But point being is
that it's a small, very small market for them. From
a business standpoint, It's it's possible that Elon is making
a calculation here saying that, you know, taking this stand
does not hurt them very much financially, but the you know,
the benefits of being of looking or appearing to be
(07:36):
the ultimate free speech guy on a global scale far
outweigh what he's losing in actual Yes, And to.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
That point, it is my understanding that for not only
the far right in Brazil and other places, but also
in just some more mainstream conservative circles, this has become
a bit of a cause celeb in Brazil. I get
the sense that there are a lot of factions who
feel like this is a bit of overreach by the
Supreme Court there, and then in some ways they are
(08:05):
perhaps exacerbating the problem. It feels to me, though, Max
like at this point though each side Gimo Eyes, the
judge and Elon Musk really just have their backs up
and our and our loath to back down at this point.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Right, what's sort of most extreme about this order.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's not the you know, ordering X to suspend certain accounts,
which is, as we said, has happened in other countries
and X has complied to argue whether that how significant
the question of transparency really is. But this idea of
putting a fine on on VPN users like that is
a pretty.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nine thousand dollars a day, don't and I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
That it's enforceable.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Like a lot of authoritarian countries have really struggled to
including China, have really struggled to crack down on if
you can't use But like.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
In Brazil, to be clear, is not an authoritarian country.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I mean, Elon Musk is now saying this is you know,
this is evidence, you know, but it is not. No,
what I'm saying is there's a real question about whether
this can be enforced even but regardless of so that,
it's like threatening people with a fine, a significant fine
for just for attempting to consume this content like that
is pretty that's pretty out there, right, that's pretty far
(09:11):
away from what most countries have done in these situations,
most democratic countries have done in these situations.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
It is something that I learned as a young reporter
in Brazil in the late nineteen nineties that the Brazilian
Supreme Court likes to exercise its influence. It will not
be cowed or bullied by anyone, and certainly not by
Elon Musk. And to this point it actually almost seems
to have gotten into a bit of a tit for
tat sort of personal thing with him that from Afar
(09:40):
seems a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Now Kurt tell us this.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
It seems that another key business of Mosques, SpaceX's starling unit,
has gotten ensnared in this whole conflict.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
What's the situation there, Well, so, as part.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
Of the penalty that the judge is imposing on X
includes some financial fines, financial penalties, and X is not
paying those fines. But Starlink is in Brazil and prominent
in Brazil and has bank accounts in Brazil, and so
the judge instead is saying, well, Elon, you know, if
your one company is not going to pay the fines
(10:17):
that are owed, we will just get the money from
your other company, So I believe they froze the bank
accounts from Starlink in order to pay these fines. I
think this is such an interesting element of this whole
thing because we've talked at length on this pod of course,
about sort of the constellation of Elon's companies, right, and
the benefits at times of him pulling resources from Tesla
(10:37):
to benefit others or vice versa. And here we're seeing
the real negative of this, you know, Elon connection, because
now he's being sort of threatened with one company by another.
And this was a huge concern. You have to remember
when Elon bought Twitter in late twenty twenty two, this
is one of the biggest concerns was like, hey, you
have all these other companies where governments could apply leverage
(11:01):
on you, you know, in China and India and other places.
Are you prepared to deal with the fact that like
Tesla could be used as a bargaining chip to get
to X and the speech related issues at X. And
it's been talked about, but this is the first time
I think we've really seen it actually play out in
a negative way for Elon.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, this is that's a really great point, Like this
could be a Canarian coal mine situation where we could
see other countries, probably not like the US, but but
but other countries you know at tempt the same kind
of thing. And you know, Elon Musk's SpaceX's response has
been like, you can't. This is totally ridiculous. You're conflating,
you know, Elon Musk with SpaceX. But it's a little
(11:39):
hard to make that argument when you're when you're CEO
goes around acting like they're one and the same.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And because he not only.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Not only is the CEO like he is also of
Tesla and other companies, but in the case of both
SpaceX and of X, he is also majority shareholders.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
He not does he not have a majority stake in SpaceX.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I think he definitely is. He's majority control. I'm not
sure that he has.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
But if you are the majority, you have majority control
over company, which again would not be the case with Tesla.
I mean you can almost sort of see it right
the link. It's it's not crazy, Hey, you own this.
You also own that they're all essentially, you know, units of.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
A big And again, when you have a guy who
goes around saying all these rules are bs, you know,
just like, let's just go.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
You know, I don't pay attention to the the.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Ins and outs of securities laws like I think it's
much easier for regulators say, come on, man, you are
SpaceX like and anyone who's looking like, yeah you can.
You can talk about the bylaws or whatever or the
cap table. But everybody knows, including people who work at SpaceX,
that Elon Musk controls SpaceX. He that these companies effectively
operate like one conglomerate.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
So is it really surprising when.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
A judge and you know, in Brazil or anywhere else,
treats them as such?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Okay, Max.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
So Musk has been eching up a storm about US
politics and election, the upcoming election in recent days, including
by the way, saying that Kamala Harris supports the banning
of X there in Brazil KEX by EKEX.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
What's it looked like flipping on X yesterday and seeing,
I think, in particular, a post from Elon Musk saying
that you know, Kamala Harris has promised to govern as
a communist from day one, and then this kind of
like AI generated picture of Kamala and a communist outfit
that goes beyond just like a campaign ad where you're
saying these policies are communists like or or some of
(13:36):
the attacks you've seen from Trump and to something that
more feels like what we would associate with, right, like
disinformation type accounts like It's It. And the other thing
he did yesterday that was also quite strange, I thought,
is he kind of boosted an in cell adjacent post
or a post that was arguing that the world would
better off if only high status males were in charge.
(13:58):
So again we're really it's really crossing into kind of
you know, far right posting twenty four to seven.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
I think this is just the consequence of.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Elon Musk, you know, getting involved in the presidential race
and is a he's effectively part of Donald Trump's campaign,
and so he's posting that way at this point, although
posting in his kind of idiosyncratic, extra provocative way.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Now, Kurt, I suppose his argument is going to be that, well,
everyone's going to know that my post of Kamala there
is just a parody, I will say, having taken a
very quick glance at the post. Yeah, it doesn't seem
to be anything particularly real about it, right.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
Yeah, I mean that would be the argument humor. Right,
He's used this sort of humor defense repeatedly since taking
over that like, hey, as long as it's funny or
it's intended to be funny, you know, it should be fine.
I think more than anything, I think what this weekend
has just reinforced for me is just the you know,
the way in which he is no longer even pretending
(15:01):
to keep his thumb off the scale of politics.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Right.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
You remember when he first took over Acts, it was
very much like, hey, I'm I'm not gonna, you know,
turn this into a political.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
The I'm just neutral, yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
And it's just like the we've come so so so
far from that kind of initial takeover and initial pledge
or promise or or at least framing.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
It's just striking right.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Part of the problem here is with Musk's like philosophy
of free speech, like this idea that the platforms shouldn't
make any decisions, should be all up to the government,
and platforms should just be like crazy free for alls
and then and then let the government step in number one.
It creates the standoffs right where like we're talking about
in Brazil, but it also creates you know, all of
(15:47):
a sudden, like Elon Musk, the CEO of one of
these major companies is acting like you know, any old poster.
I don't know, like it it it it's just further
eroding trusted and it's almost like daring governments to step
in and try to make rules.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
And and so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I mean, you know, I think there are critiques from
both the left and the right over how like Facebook
managed misinformation and disinformation, But you know, it doesn't it's
not clear to me that this is like an improvement,
you know, in any metric.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
To Max's point, whatever's legally allowed as fair game. If
it's not legal, you know, we're going to take it down.
That's not exactly how he does it anyway. Right like this,
he when he wants something removed, the account that's following
his private plane, if he wants to take what is it?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
The word cis.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Right is now like considered a slur in the US
if you're if you're on.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
X or something like that.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I mean, the point being is that he's very much like, Hey,
anything goes as long as it's legal, and with a
major caveat being that also if I'm okay with that
thing being on X because if not personally, I will
make a change as well. And I think that's the
big issue is he's not truly free speech absolutist within
the law. He says that, but then he makes his
(17:02):
own decisions when they suit him, and I think that's
where people get frustrated.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
He puts his own spin on it.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
He also, max, I believe, continues to ex about his
potential future role in a Donald Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
I mean he's.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Disputed a lot of the reporting, you know, including reporting
it's based on the actual filings and so on. But
in terms of his support of Donald Trump and kind
of attempted to play it down in various ways. But
this is one thing he's genuinely seems excited about. He's
he's ready to serve if called upon. It's like, I
don't know what the opposite of a sherman esque denial is,
but that's what it is. He's basically raised his hand
(17:38):
and said I want to be the you know, efficiency czar,
which you know, given Elon Musk has some pretty out
there views on the government, you know, it's hard to
imagine any of this actually coming to pass. Like, I
don't think that Elon Musk will be giving broad leeway
to like ru you know, closed federal agencies, but he
definitely has that appetite.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
All right, we're gonna move on to the launch of
the beta version of x TV for Android.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Man, I've been waiting.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
For this, man, you know, I'm sure feels the same way.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
But like, I'm gonna pivot.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Remind me of what exactly x TV is. This is
where we go to watch porn.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, now you can watch porn on your on the
big screen at home. It is essentially the idea of
video being a big thing on x and that what
Elon Musk has wanted pretty much since he got to
the company was to have some sort of app on
your TV to make it easier to stream these shows
Tucker Carlson or Elon Musk interviewing Trump or or whatever else.
(18:42):
It's kind of a weird and confused set of ideas
that feels like at once kind of caught up in
the past, like, hey, it's not real unless it's on
the big screen in your living room and also sort
of out of touch with like the realities of how
videos consumed. But anyway, Yeah, there's a on Android TV
which is like one of the platform, one of the
operating systems for TVs. It has modest market share. I
(19:05):
saw figures around six percent market share, so not a
huge amount. But you can download, you can get this
x TV app and you know, watch that Tucker, that
great hard hitting Tucker interview or whatever else you know,
in the comfort of your home on the big screen.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Kurt expectations from you for XTV.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
I think it's a huge waste of time and resources
for the company, to be honest with you, I mean,
I think Max sort of flicked at it right, like
this isn't what. I don't know anybody who's clamoring to
bring the x videos they see scrolling through their phone
and blast them onto the sixty inch TV in their
living room.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So I just think, like, well, can.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
I just say for one second, car hold on, let
me just say everyone age as.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I as being the old man in the room here,
as I will have to say, as I watch my.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Daughter or my nephews and nieces and they watch everything,
games and everything just on their phones, and I'm like,
as the I'm like it is slightly unsatisfying to me,
Like I need I need a big come on, give
me a big screen or something. So I'm all over
X David.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
This is what I was going to say.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
This would make sense if there was a huge library
of high quality videos that were worthy of being on
your TV. Right, Like, let's pretend this whole Don Lemon,
Tucker Carlson, WWE whatever, the big push into premium video
that they announced earlier this year. Like, let's pretend that
worked and they had thirty different shows.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Okay, Like, sure.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
You want to watch your Tucker Carlson show on the
big TV, Like, David, you go for that and you can.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Keep that popcorn.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, there's like two shows. There's like two shows.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
So I'm just saying my When I said it, I
thought it was a waste of time and resources. It's
because they don't have the content that really merits going
on a live TV to to spend the time on this,
in my opinion, and.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
They will not be acquiring content elsewhere, Like they can't
flick Style.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
They'd like to, but it's it's easy to want to
do that stuff. I mean, this stuff is incredibly expensive.
This is not a company that has a lot of
extra cash. It's competitive, right like Amazon, Fit, Amazon, Apple,
all these other companies they want the high quality stuff too.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
They're not just gonna let X have it.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
So I just think it's you know, I don't know
in the universe of things they could do.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I just don't think it's a good space.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You got me Card, you convinced me. You convinced me. Max.
We never sort of brought it up.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
You and David you put it.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
You you brought made a good.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Point, which is like with the porn joke, which is
that if anyone has like tried to like search, like
look at X, like at A on a workplace computer,
you are aware of the dangers of looking at X
on a large screen.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Like It's just it is.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
It is not associated with the kind of content that
Kurt is talking about. So you're you're not just talking
about like the technical challenge of like building apps for
all these platforms Set top Box. That market is really
really fractured. They're all these players. You're gonna have to
build all these different apps, you have to work on
all these different business deals, and you're gonna have to
change the fact that most people don't see X the
(22:02):
way that Elon Musk wants us to see it.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
There we are, We're gonna we're gonna end this episode.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Uh, I don't gonna pitch pitch my show here?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Well what is your show?
Speaker 5 (22:13):
All right?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
So I well, I was just trying to think about
what content that might work. Kurt's talking about, you know
the fact that we don't have Tullsia's you know that
we you know, the cut in offerings right now are limited,
and I'm trying to think, like, okay, what what is realistic?
Because Elon Musk doesn't have zasloft dollars. He's not going
to spend huge amounts of money to buy content. He's
(22:34):
not gonna he's not gonna pay Oprah zillion dollars. But
and the you have the brand problem. So what works
in next is Elon Musk? Right, we all agree like
Elon Musk content so basically keeping up with the Kardashians.
But Elon Musk's various complicated family arrangements like just call
it like repopulating the earth or something, and you know,
(22:56):
just just like go full reality. He already kind of
wants to be a kardash and let's like let's do it.
I think it'd be a huge hit.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
It actually would be a huge hit.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
It will be Yeah, that's as crazy as that would be.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
If if any if Linda Yakarino or anyone else from
Max is listening, Max Schinda, call me exactly all right,
and so you don't like my cage match? I didn't
you would do? You would start with the cage match?
No no, no, no, no, actually scraped that. You would need
to build to the cage match Musk versus Zucker, but
(23:28):
you'd build slowly building.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I hadn't thought, honestly to be you know, maybe it's
just like labor day brain I was. I hadn't considered
the cage match. But that is also a really good idea.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
I mean, you know, that would put that would put
this app on a must download list for me if
we were getting to watch elon Zuck.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And then on top of that, let me paint a
picture for you, David, just real quick.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Max Scott his show we've you know, lightheartedly mocked my
high school football career, But imagine kicking back on the
couch of the bowl of popcorn and pulling those highlights
up and watching those on the big screen. I don't know,
I mean, it's hard for me to picture a better
way to spend a holiday weekend.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Whoa, whoa, my understanding.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
Nothing high school football clips.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
He was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, that's right, Yeah seventeen, thought all yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
No, Kurt, we're gonna, we're gonna Max and I are
gonna consider that one. We're gonna get back to you,
never on it. Thank you for pitching, Max, Kurt, thanks
for joining.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Naomi Shaven 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, our supervising
producers Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
The Elon Inc. Theme is written and performed.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
By Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiira. Brendan Francis Newnham is
our executive producer in Sage Bauman is the head of
Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks as always to our supporter
Joel Weber. I'm David Papadopolis. If you have a minute,
rate and review our show, it'll help other listeners find us.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
See you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, he's a legitimate super genius, I mean legitimate.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year
it will be different. He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him. Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's
done nothing. Anything he does, he's fascinating people.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Welcome to Elon Ing, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
It's Tuesday, September third. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Welcome
back from Labor Day. This week it's all about X.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
We'll start with the ban of X in Brazil.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
And then we're gonna hit Elon's latest election antics on
you guessed it X, and then we're gonna wrap up
by discussing his vision and dreams for X TV. Joining
us to talk about that are some familiar faces. Max Chafkin, Hey,
what's going on?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Max? How are you?
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Happy? Belated Labor Day?
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Happy blated Labor Day, and to you Kurt Wagner aka
Number eight and a social media reporter for us here
at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Kurt, Hey, David, how are you good? All right, Kurt,
We're gonna start with you.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Just give us an overview for those of us out
there who were just at the beach, soaking up the rays,
sipping summer martinis. And we're not following the ins and
outs of Elon Muskin X versus the Brazilian Supreme Court.
What is transpired and where do things stand there now?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (01:57):
So I believe it was Friday, so a lot of
people may have already been checked out for the long weekend,
at least here in the US. A Brazilian judge basically
cut off X or banned X for the entire country.
And this had been the end result of a long
saga that has played out over the last several months.
The short version is that this judge he wanted X
(02:21):
to take action on certain accounts on the platform for
sharing misinformation or anti democratic content. X and Elon, of course,
you know, saying well free speech absolutism, said no, we're
not going to do that. As things sort of got
more intense than judge said, well, I'm going to arrest
the person or attempt to arrest the person who is
(02:43):
representing X and country.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
That was weeks ago, the threat to arrest them, right.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
That's right that we talked about that, because then Elon's
response to that was, well, we're going to leave the
country entirely. We're going to you know, stay operational, that
you'll be able to use the app in Brazil, but
we're not going to have employees there. There's not going
to be anyone to arrest. And the judge then said, well,
in order to operate here, you need someone here to
basically answer questions for the company and you know, receive
(03:13):
in this case, our complaints.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You don't have any entire.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
X Brazilian staff cannot be working from home in the Bahamas.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Yeah, in Brazil, they need someone physically there to handle
an issue like this. And so he says, you need
to appoint a legal representative otherwise I'm going to ban you.
Elon says, you know, more or less, shove off. I'm
not going to appoint anybody, and kind of I don't
know if he was attempting to call his bluff or
just simply said, you know, we'll we'll be happy to
(03:45):
be banned. I don't care, but the judge did follow
through and band X on Friday. I believe it's officially
no longer working for people in Brazil, and it's a
fine if you use a VPN to access it. It's
a way to sort of redirect your Internet traffic to
maybe a server that's in another country, right, so you
would first go to a server in a country where
(04:05):
X is allowed, and then it sort of redirects it
and that way you get around the ban that way.
But again there's a fine for people who do that.
So you know, we're at this point now where X
is banned. The Supreme Court, the rest of the Supreme
Court upheld the original judge's decision, so X can still appeal,
but you know, we're kind of at this stage where
things are looking like X is just gone unless Elon
(04:28):
is willing to concede to some of these demands.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You know, a year ago, Elon Musk was asked by
the government of Turkey to ban a bunch of accounts
and he went through with it under court order. And
the explanation at the time offered was, you know, yes,
I'm a free speech absolutist, but the question is either
you know, lose access to a handful of accounts in Turkey,
or lose access to the service altogether. And he argued,
(04:55):
you know, it's better to better to preserve X and Turkey,
you know, making the making a different calculation here. Not
entirely clear why, although I suppose Musk would argue that
there was less transparency, like one of the big reasons
he offered at the time for opposing this order was
that the judge was was limiting what X could.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Say about it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't know if that's significant enough to put the
entire operations in the country at risk, but but of
course Elon Musk saw it that way. But what I
think is actually going on here is you have Brazilian politics,
which Elon Musk has already sort of entered the fray right.
He's attempted to cozy up to Bolsonnaro, former.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
President, sort of far right president of Brazil, who I believe,
Max correct me if I'm wrong, who is closely allied
with many of the accounts right on X that the
Brazilian Supreme Court wanted to shut down.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, we know that because Twitter released a sort of
sequel to the Twitter Files called the Alexander Files.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
That's the first name of the Brazilian justice who ordered.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
This banims right and thank you and and so so right.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
It was it looked like seven accounts. These are all
sort of far right aligne. It really feels like, you know,
Elon musk Is, in inserting himself into Brazilian politics, has
now you know, decided to make this a thing, just
as he's made you know, his engagement in American politics
a thing. He's you know, posting memes, he's you know,
he's he's going to war over this, and you know,
(06:21):
you can debate whether that makes sense as a principal
stand I think for X it's not great news because
Brazil is a pretty substantial market for social media.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Yeah, it's a big market for them from a user
base standpoint, significantly less, you know, important from a financial standpoint.
But we don't know exactly how many users because they
don't they've never broken those out. We've seen some estimates,
I believe E Marketer said it was around forty million
monthly active accounts, which would put Brazil probably in the
(06:50):
top five, maybe even in the top three, behind the
United States and Japan in terms of total size. For
X but revenue wise, again, they've never broken it out.
I was texting with a source over the weekend and
he told me that, you know, it used to be
that Brazil was around two percent of global revenue for them,
So you know, those numbers obviously could could be adjusted
(07:14):
slightly since Elon has taken over. But point being is
that it's a small, very small market for them. From
a business standpoint, It's it's possible that Elon is making
a calculation here saying that, you know, taking this stand
does not hurt them very much financially, but the you know,
the benefits of being of looking or appearing to be
(07:36):
the ultimate free speech guy on a global scale far
outweigh what he's losing in actual Yes, And to.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
That point, it is my understanding that for not only
the far right in Brazil and other places, but also
in just some more mainstream conservative circles, this has become
a bit of a cause celeb in Brazil. I get
the sense that there are a lot of factions who
feel like this is a bit of overreach by the
Supreme Court there, and then in some ways they are
(08:05):
perhaps exacerbating the problem. It feels to me, though, Max
like at this point though each side Gimo Eyes, the
judge and Elon Musk really just have their backs up
and our and our loath to back down at this point.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Right, what's sort of most extreme about this order.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's not the you know, ordering X to suspend certain accounts,
which is, as we said, has happened in other countries
and X has complied to argue whether that how significant
the question of transparency really is. But this idea of
putting a fine on on VPN users like that is
a pretty.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nine thousand dollars a day, don't and I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
That it's enforceable.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Like a lot of authoritarian countries have really struggled to
including China, have really struggled to crack down on if
you can't use But like.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
In Brazil, to be clear, is not an authoritarian country.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I mean, Elon Musk is now saying this is you know,
this is evidence, you know, but it is not. No,
what I'm saying is there's a real question about whether
this can be enforced even but regardless of so that,
it's like threatening people with a fine, a significant fine
for just for attempting to consume this content like that
is pretty that's pretty out there, right, that's pretty far
(09:11):
away from what most countries have done in these situations,
most democratic countries have done in these situations.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
It is something that I learned as a young reporter
in Brazil in the late nineteen nineties that the Brazilian
Supreme Court likes to exercise its influence. It will not
be cowed or bullied by anyone, and certainly not by
Elon Musk. And to this point it actually almost seems
to have gotten into a bit of a tit for
tat sort of personal thing with him that from Afar
(09:40):
seems a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Now Kurt tell us this.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
It seems that another key business of Mosques, SpaceX's starling unit,
has gotten ensnared in this whole conflict.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
What's the situation there, Well, so, as part.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
Of the penalty that the judge is imposing on X
includes some financial fines, financial penalties, and X is not
paying those fines. But Starlink is in Brazil and prominent
in Brazil and has bank accounts in Brazil, and so
the judge instead is saying, well, Elon, you know, if
your one company is not going to pay the fines
(10:17):
that are owed, we will just get the money from
your other company, So I believe they froze the bank
accounts from Starlink in order to pay these fines. I
think this is such an interesting element of this whole
thing because we've talked at length on this pod of course,
about sort of the constellation of Elon's companies, right, and
the benefits at times of him pulling resources from Tesla
(10:37):
to benefit others or vice versa. And here we're seeing
the real negative of this, you know, Elon connection, because
now he's being sort of threatened with one company by another.
And this was a huge concern. You have to remember
when Elon bought Twitter in late twenty twenty two, this
is one of the biggest concerns was like, hey, you
have all these other companies where governments could apply leverage
(11:01):
on you, you know, in China and India and other places.
Are you prepared to deal with the fact that like
Tesla could be used as a bargaining chip to get
to X and the speech related issues at X. And
it's been talked about, but this is the first time
I think we've really seen it actually play out in
a negative way for Elon.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, this is that's a really great point, Like this
could be a Canarian coal mine situation where we could
see other countries, probably not like the US, but but
but other countries you know at tempt the same kind
of thing. And you know, Elon Musk's SpaceX's response has
been like, you can't. This is totally ridiculous. You're conflating,
you know, Elon Musk with SpaceX. But it's a little
(11:39):
hard to make that argument when you're when you're CEO
goes around acting like they're one and the same.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And because he not only.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Not only is the CEO like he is also of
Tesla and other companies, but in the case of both
SpaceX and of X, he is also majority shareholders.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
He not does he not have a majority stake in SpaceX.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I think he definitely is. He's majority control. I'm not
sure that he has.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
But if you are the majority, you have majority control
over company, which again would not be the case with Tesla.
I mean you can almost sort of see it right
the link. It's it's not crazy, Hey, you own this.
You also own that they're all essentially, you know, units of.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
A big And again, when you have a guy who
goes around saying all these rules are bs, you know,
just like, let's just go.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
You know, I don't pay attention to the the.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Ins and outs of securities laws like I think it's
much easier for regulators say, come on, man, you are
SpaceX like and anyone who's looking like, yeah you can.
You can talk about the bylaws or whatever or the
cap table. But everybody knows, including people who work at SpaceX,
that Elon Musk controls SpaceX. He that these companies effectively
operate like one conglomerate.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
So is it really surprising when.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
A judge and you know, in Brazil or anywhere else,
treats them as such?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Okay, Max.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
So Musk has been eching up a storm about US
politics and election, the upcoming election in recent days, including
by the way, saying that Kamala Harris supports the banning
of X there in Brazil KEX by EKEX.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
What's it looked like flipping on X yesterday and seeing,
I think, in particular, a post from Elon Musk saying
that you know, Kamala Harris has promised to govern as
a communist from day one, and then this kind of
like AI generated picture of Kamala and a communist outfit
that goes beyond just like a campaign ad where you're
saying these policies are communists like or or some of
(13:36):
the attacks you've seen from Trump and to something that
more feels like what we would associate with, right, like
disinformation type accounts like It's It. And the other thing
he did yesterday that was also quite strange, I thought,
is he kind of boosted an in cell adjacent post
or a post that was arguing that the world would
better off if only high status males were in charge.
(13:58):
So again we're really it's really crossing into kind of
you know, far right posting twenty four to seven.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
I think this is just the consequence of.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Elon Musk, you know, getting involved in the presidential race
and is a he's effectively part of Donald Trump's campaign,
and so he's posting that way at this point, although
posting in his kind of idiosyncratic, extra provocative way.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Now, Kurt, I suppose his argument is going to be that, well,
everyone's going to know that my post of Kamala there
is just a parody, I will say, having taken a
very quick glance at the post. Yeah, it doesn't seem
to be anything particularly real about it, right.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
Yeah, I mean that would be the argument humor. Right,
He's used this sort of humor defense repeatedly since taking
over that like, hey, as long as it's funny or
it's intended to be funny, you know, it should be fine.
I think more than anything, I think what this weekend
has just reinforced for me is just the you know,
the way in which he is no longer even pretending
(15:01):
to keep his thumb off the scale of politics.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Right.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
You remember when he first took over Acts, it was
very much like, hey, I'm I'm not gonna, you know,
turn this into a political.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
The I'm just neutral, yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
And it's just like the we've come so so so
far from that kind of initial takeover and initial pledge
or promise or or at least framing.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
It's just striking right.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Part of the problem here is with Musk's like philosophy
of free speech, like this idea that the platforms shouldn't
make any decisions, should be all up to the government,
and platforms should just be like crazy free for alls
and then and then let the government step in number one.
It creates the standoffs right where like we're talking about
in Brazil, but it also creates you know, all of
(15:47):
a sudden, like Elon Musk, the CEO of one of
these major companies is acting like you know, any old poster.
I don't know, like it it it it's just further
eroding trusted and it's almost like daring governments to step
in and try to make rules.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
And and so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I mean, you know, I think there are critiques from
both the left and the right over how like Facebook
managed misinformation and disinformation, But you know, it doesn't it's
not clear to me that this is like an improvement,
you know, in any metric.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
To Max's point, whatever's legally allowed as fair game. If
it's not legal, you know, we're going to take it down.
That's not exactly how he does it anyway. Right like this,
he when he wants something removed, the account that's following
his private plane, if he wants to take what is it?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
The word cis.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Right is now like considered a slur in the US
if you're if you're on.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
X or something like that.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I mean, the point being is that he's very much like, Hey,
anything goes as long as it's legal, and with a
major caveat being that also if I'm okay with that
thing being on X because if not personally, I will
make a change as well. And I think that's the
big issue is he's not truly free speech absolutist within
the law. He says that, but then he makes his
(17:02):
own decisions when they suit him, and I think that's
where people get frustrated.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
He puts his own spin on it.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
He also, max, I believe, continues to ex about his
potential future role in a Donald Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
I mean he's.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Disputed a lot of the reporting, you know, including reporting
it's based on the actual filings and so on. But
in terms of his support of Donald Trump and kind
of attempted to play it down in various ways. But
this is one thing he's genuinely seems excited about. He's
he's ready to serve if called upon. It's like, I
don't know what the opposite of a sherman esque denial is,
but that's what it is. He's basically raised his hand
(17:38):
and said I want to be the you know, efficiency czar,
which you know, given Elon Musk has some pretty out
there views on the government, you know, it's hard to
imagine any of this actually coming to pass. Like, I
don't think that Elon Musk will be giving broad leeway
to like ru you know, closed federal agencies, but he
definitely has that appetite.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
All right, we're gonna move on to the launch of
the beta version of x TV for Android.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Man, I've been waiting.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
For this, man, you know, I'm sure feels the same way.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
But like, I'm gonna pivot.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Remind me of what exactly x TV is. This is
where we go to watch porn.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, now you can watch porn on your on the
big screen at home. It is essentially the idea of
video being a big thing on x and that what
Elon Musk has wanted pretty much since he got to
the company was to have some sort of app on
your TV to make it easier to stream these shows
Tucker Carlson or Elon Musk interviewing Trump or or whatever else.
(18:42):
It's kind of a weird and confused set of ideas
that feels like at once kind of caught up in
the past, like, hey, it's not real unless it's on
the big screen in your living room and also sort
of out of touch with like the realities of how
videos consumed. But anyway, Yeah, there's a on Android TV
which is like one of the platform, one of the
operating systems for TVs. It has modest market share. I
(19:05):
saw figures around six percent market share, so not a
huge amount. But you can download, you can get this
x TV app and you know, watch that Tucker, that
great hard hitting Tucker interview or whatever else you know,
in the comfort of your home on the big screen.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Kurt expectations from you for XTV.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
I think it's a huge waste of time and resources
for the company, to be honest with you, I mean,
I think Max sort of flicked at it right, like
this isn't what. I don't know anybody who's clamoring to
bring the x videos they see scrolling through their phone
and blast them onto the sixty inch TV in their
living room.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So I just think, like, well, can.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
I just say for one second, car hold on, let
me just say everyone age as.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I as being the old man in the room here,
as I will have to say, as I watch my.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Daughter or my nephews and nieces and they watch everything,
games and everything just on their phones, and I'm like,
as the I'm like it is slightly unsatisfying to me,
Like I need I need a big come on, give
me a big screen or something. So I'm all over
X David.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
This is what I was going to say.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
This would make sense if there was a huge library
of high quality videos that were worthy of being on
your TV. Right, Like, let's pretend this whole Don Lemon,
Tucker Carlson, WWE whatever, the big push into premium video
that they announced earlier this year. Like, let's pretend that
worked and they had thirty different shows.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Okay, Like, sure.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
You want to watch your Tucker Carlson show on the
big TV, Like, David, you go for that and you can.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Keep that popcorn.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, there's like two shows. There's like two shows.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
So I'm just saying my When I said it, I
thought it was a waste of time and resources. It's
because they don't have the content that really merits going
on a live TV to to spend the time on this,
in my opinion, and.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
They will not be acquiring content elsewhere, Like they can't
flick Style.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
They'd like to, but it's it's easy to want to
do that stuff. I mean, this stuff is incredibly expensive.
This is not a company that has a lot of
extra cash. It's competitive, right like Amazon, Fit, Amazon, Apple,
all these other companies they want the high quality stuff too.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
They're not just gonna let X have it.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
So I just think it's you know, I don't know
in the universe of things they could do.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I just don't think it's a good space.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You got me Card, you convinced me. You convinced me. Max.
We never sort of brought it up.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
You and David you put it.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
You you brought made a good.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Point, which is like with the porn joke, which is
that if anyone has like tried to like search, like
look at X, like at A on a workplace computer,
you are aware of the dangers of looking at X
on a large screen.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Like It's just it is.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
It is not associated with the kind of content that
Kurt is talking about. So you're you're not just talking
about like the technical challenge of like building apps for
all these platforms Set top Box. That market is really
really fractured. They're all these players. You're gonna have to
build all these different apps, you have to work on
all these different business deals, and you're gonna have to
change the fact that most people don't see X the
(22:02):
way that Elon Musk wants us to see it.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
There we are, We're gonna we're gonna end this episode.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Uh, I don't gonna pitch pitch my show here?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Well what is your show?
Speaker 5 (22:13):
All right?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
So I well, I was just trying to think about
what content that might work. Kurt's talking about, you know
the fact that we don't have Tullsia's you know that
we you know, the cut in offerings right now are limited,
and I'm trying to think, like, okay, what what is realistic?
Because Elon Musk doesn't have zasloft dollars. He's not going
to spend huge amounts of money to buy content. He's
(22:34):
not gonna he's not gonna pay Oprah zillion dollars. But
and the you have the brand problem. So what works
in next is Elon Musk? Right, we all agree like
Elon Musk content so basically keeping up with the Kardashians.
But Elon Musk's various complicated family arrangements like just call
it like repopulating the earth or something, and you know,
(22:56):
just just like go full reality. He already kind of
wants to be a kardash and let's like let's do it.
I think it'd be a huge hit.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
It actually would be a huge hit.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
It will be Yeah, that's as crazy as that would be.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
If if any if Linda Yakarino or anyone else from
Max is listening, Max Schinda, call me exactly all right,
and so you don't like my cage match? I didn't
you would do? You would start with the cage match?
No no, no, no, no, actually scraped that. You would need
to build to the cage match Musk versus Zucker, but
(23:28):
you'd build slowly building.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I hadn't thought, honestly to be you know, maybe it's
just like labor day brain I was. I hadn't considered
the cage match. But that is also a really good idea.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
I mean, you know, that would put that would put
this app on a must download list for me if
we were getting to watch elon Zuck.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And then on top of that, let me paint a
picture for you, David, just real quick.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Max Scott his show we've you know, lightheartedly mocked my
high school football career, But imagine kicking back on the
couch of the bowl of popcorn and pulling those highlights
up and watching those on the big screen. I don't know,
I mean, it's hard for me to picture a better
way to spend a holiday weekend.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Whoa, whoa, my understanding.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
Nothing high school football clips.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
He was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, that's right, Yeah seventeen, thought all yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
No, Kurt, we're gonna, we're gonna Max and I are
gonna consider that one. We're gonna get back to you,
never on it. Thank you for pitching, Max, Kurt, thanks
for joining.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Naomi Shaven 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, our supervising
producers Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
The Elon Inc. Theme is written and performed.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
By Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiira. Brendan Francis Newnham is
our executive producer in Sage Bauman is the head of
Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks as always to our supporter
Joel Weber. I'm David Papadopolis. If you have a minute,
rate and review our show, it'll help other listeners find us.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
See you next week.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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