December 20, 2024 • 36 mins
What a year 2024 has been for Elon Musk. From the ups-and-downs of Tesla stock, to his rapid ascent to the top of Republican party politics to various SpaceX wins and losses, it seems like a year that Musk won’t forget. And neither will we: for the year-end episode, we actually have a two-part special, featuring Max Chafkin as host, Dana Hull (Elon Musk reporter) and Sarah Frier (Big Tech editor) as panelists and a special guest, Ryan Broderick, host of his own podcast, Panic World, and Garbage Day newsletter founder.
In the first part, we go over the word (or words) that describe Musk’s year; discuss both the biggest and most underappreciated stories of the year; and figure out who was the most important sidekick among Elon’s ever evolving entourage.
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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.
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man, starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
I mean legitimate.
Speaker 5 (00:28):
He says.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
be different.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 7 (00:40):
Anything he does is fascinating the people.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to Elon Inc. I'm Max Schafkin.
Speaker 6 (00:53):
It's the holiday season.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and here at Elon Inc.
Speaker 6 (00:59):
We have a very special two part set of shows
for you today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And so you know, it's mid December when we're recording.
This is the first of two. It's our episode of reflection.
Think of this as your pre Christmas pre Honika ritual.
You can gather with your family and think about the
year that was for Elon Musk and when we think
about it ourselves, to be honest, an enormous year, an
epic year both for the guy and also for this
(01:25):
podcast because we've been following it. The next week, we're
gonna kick back for New Year's We're gonna crack open
some champagne, eat some oysters, and play some games as
we look forward to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
To do that, we've got some of.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Our heavy hitters, Dana Hull, Bloomberg's Elon Musk reporter, and
Sarah Fryar, the big tech boss here at Bloomberg News. Dana, Sarah, Welcome,
Hey Max, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
Okay, and I'm so excited about this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We have a special guest, Ryan Broderick, who runs the
newsletter Garbage Day, which I never miss and I know
a lot of people on this podcast are big fans
of and the podcast Panic World, which is about basically
Internet related moral panics. Ryan is an expert in all
things digital culture and kind of the way that intersects
(02:12):
with business.
Speaker 6 (02:12):
Ryan, thank you for being on Elon Inc. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I'm for saying such as I say.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
Is it very uncomfortable? It's all true, and you know,
happy holidays.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Just before we get into the meat of the show,
I just wanted to kind of get your perspective.
Speaker 6 (02:26):
I mean, you're.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Writing I sort of quickly went through the last few
episodes of Panic World, you know, mister Beast QAnon something
called perfume talk and the possibility I guess that's it's
moving to the right politically, which I didn't know was possible.
But I'm kind of curious, like, in this kind of
world of digital culture and influence, the kind of world
you live in, how where does Elon Musk kind of
(02:50):
figure and how is that changing.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I like to think of him as sort of like
the last germaining right wing influencer that has the juice.
A lot of them have lost a lot of influence because,
like you know, YouTube is changing up his algorithm. Facebook
isn't as powerful as it used to be as.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
A publishing platform.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
But Elon Musk, because he owns x and because he
has the money to kind of do ridiculous stuff NonStop
and say crazy things and all the rest of it,
he can still command attention and that makes him very valuable.
So I sort of see him as sort of like
the mega node for the right wing Internet right now.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
That's cool, well, and I assume you're paying attention to
him to some extent, although I'm guessing maybe not as
closely as the rest of us are or the rest
of us on this podcasting it for a living.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, I know, I can consider him one of my
you know, one of the many cast of characters on
the internet, but he's I try to keep him separate
to make sure, like you know, I'm not writing about
him too much.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So like what would be like a non political equivalent
in that cast of characters.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Okay, you know how like in the early Game of
Thrones episodes, Danny's like off in the desert doing like
her own thing. I start to treat him like that,
like he's always got something going on, and sometimes it matters,
but I try to separate him out from the larger mix.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Okay, got it? The Narest Mother of Dragons, Yes to
the Game of Drones. That is our.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
World, all right? So okay, first question and listeners. These
were submitted and I have them in front of me
and we're gonna we're gonna go through them. But basically,
we asked Dana, Sarah, and Ryan and me to answer
a series of questions looking back in the year, and
the first one was, and Dana, I'm gonna start with
you a one word description of Elon's year twenty twenty
(04:25):
four in a word go epic. I want you to
tell me how it was more epic than previous years,
because like every year is an epic year for Elon,
So like why why why was this year particularly epic?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, And I feel and I feel like I'm parroting
the language that he himself loves to use, Like epic
is not a word that like I floor throw around,
but it's one that Elon likes a lot. But by
all measures, he had an incredible year, Like Tesla's stock is,
like the market cap of Tesla is above one point
three trillion. SpaceX's evaluation is now three hundred and fifty billion,
(04:59):
making it the most valuable private company in the world.
He is by far the wealthiest person, like wealthier than ever,
Like he's now above four hundred billion, and his companies
are doing well. And then aside from all that, he
basically is the de facto vice president. He helped elect
President Trump, he went all in, he campaigned for Trump
(05:19):
all across Pennsylvania. He's now basically enmeshed at mar A
Lago has the year of the president, has been tapped
to kind of lead this Doge Commission. Like he's at
that kind of height of his wealth, his political influence,
and his corporate power, because you know, this has also
been a year where a lot of his rivals have
had really crappy years. Boeing has had a horrible year.
(05:42):
General Motors just basically announced that they are no longer
pursuing their ROBOTAXI, like all of his competitors in the
business arena have had really hard years, and his businesses
are actually doing pretty well.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Dan, I had almost the same answer as I wrote, triumph,
maybe a little less. Elanie Sarah, you also so kind
of we're in the same zone right well.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
I picked the word political, and it also is a
reflection of just how I looked back on this Elon Inc.
Project when this started. When we were devising this podcast,
it was like around the time that everyone was so
surprised that the Starling satellites had become this tool in
the war in Ukraine and Musk had the power to
(06:25):
turn off or on the Internet in a war zone,
and that was kind of a moment for us realizing, Wow,
this guy is like, this guy's hands on the on
like the pulse of geopolitics right now, Like he can
really make things happen, and what does that mean? For
the richest man in the world, who owns a social network,
who owns you know, this satellite company and this very
(06:47):
influential car company, and the only means for the US
government to get to space. Like what does it mean
that he has this power? And I think that this
year is like, oh, it means he can help can
a president elected and then like sit with him at
every meeting as he's building his cabinet and you know,
basically shadow him in a typical Elon Musk launch mode.
(07:12):
So yeah, extremely political is what I would say about
Musks here.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
Okay, Ryan, what about you? I cheated light on me.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I put four words down. I believe I wrote exactly
let's see here, dumb and unfortunately successful.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Okay, so you cheated.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
But actually I'm intrigued by this answer, just because I
feel like you can successful as difficult to quibble with unfortunately,
like that's a question of opinion.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
But I'm curious, like why you said dumb. So I
sort of.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
See this whole year as a massive existential gamble for Musk,
both in terms of let's say, you know, let's say
if the Harris team had won, Like, is he looking
at a lot more scrutiny on his various businesses and
how they all interact. Is he looking at more sort
of crackdowns on X and how that operates all the
rest of it?
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Right, And it fell like.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You know, mask off this year of saying like I'm
going to endorse Donald Trump because he's always been this
sort of political chameleon. So in a lot of ways,
I sort of saw him putting all of his chips
on the table this year and saying I'm going to
get behind this. And I think if Trump had not won,
we'd be having a very different conversation about like his
perceived success this year, because I think there'd be more
questions about what might happen next.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
But Trump did win, and he won all seven swing states,
and they also won the Senate and Congress, so now
they've got a trifecta in the Supreme Court. So whether
it was dumb to put the chips all in or not,
it was like a big bet that has paid off
for musks so far. Like, are you saying that it's
dumb because it was just dumb to make such a
big bet, or that it's dumb because there are risks
(08:45):
to this bet that haven't played out yet.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I think that there are unknown risks. I also just
think much of what he does publicly is dumb, but
that's just my personal opinion, like the doge naming of
the Department of Government Efficiency and sort of his various
viral stunts that I think he uses to kind of
ask his political moves. This year, it felt like he
kind of aligned them all at once.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
I spent a lot of the.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Year, like Ryan, thinking that Elon was making mistakes and
that this was a huge This was like obviously a
big bet, but a bet with a lot of risk,
and I think there are still risks.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
And it's like very.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Easy now we can talk when we get to predictions,
we can talk about this. But like it's very easy
to see, you know, stock is at whatever, over four hundred.
It's like nearly twice what it was not too long ago,
and and and he's at the Year of Trump. But
like it could definitely fall apart. All right, But we're
segueing into pretty pretty nicely into the biggest story of
the year. And really there's only one answer, and I
(09:40):
think we had to listen to the answer before we
hear from all of us.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Elan, Eileen, Elon, Elan, Elon, Elon, Elan, Elan Elan.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And we all in one way or another brought up
something around Trump and Elon Musk, but ever had slightly
different ideas about what specifically, what part of this was
the biggest Sarah, why don't you lay your first one
on us?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
I think it was when he decided to form a
pack and donate millions to Trump, And in the beginning
he was sort of warm about it. He was like, yeah,
forty five million to Trump, and then he was like,
I didn't promise forty five million. We had this debate
is like is he actually going to spend that much?
And then you know it would turn out to be
upwards of two hundred and fifty million. He really went
(10:31):
all in and so deciding to get financially involved. Even
though that amount of money for him is like not
much when you've got four hundred billion, it was extremely
significant in the race. And he also used it in
a way that surprised us because he was going after
the base. He was targeting people who already were in
(10:53):
favor of Trump, just kind of a get out the
vote effort, which is very different than what a lot
of campaigns do in trying to like convince independence, convince
swing voters. It was like, yeah, you know, if you're
a white man, gets the polls.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I mean, I remember there was this whole thing in
the middle of the year where we weren't sure if
he really was giving money, and like the Wall Street
Journal in Bloomberg had reported forty five million dollars a
month and Elon was denying it. I mean, did you Ryan,
I'm curious, did you think he was going to go
like rewind to July or whatever when this reporting started
(11:31):
coming out.
Speaker 6 (11:32):
Do you think he was going to play such a
big role, like financially, I did not.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
The question that I've had about his political involvement all
year is would he have donated as much if X
was as socially powerful as Twitter used to be? And
so I sort of view it through that lens where
you know, a lot of his dealings with the pack
and the giveaways and sort of dumping money into the
Trump campaign. I do wonder if that was this sort
of kind of make up for the fact that like
(11:58):
X doesn't really have the reach it used to, and
so because he.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
Wanted to be a player.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
But I did not think it would be as extensive
as it was.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Maybe there are three aspects of this of his political
engagement this year, and like one of them Sarah just
mentioned is the money and this pack. Another one was
x which Ryan just brought up. And then there was
a third which was essentially his campaigning and Dana, that
was for you, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Wrote electing Trump because I think you know, in politics,
everyone always talks about the October surprise, and for me,
the October surprise was how publicly Elon campaigned for Trump.
And you look at the month of October, just look
at the calendar. He goes to Butler, the site of
the first assassination attempt, and is jumping around on stage.
He holds a series of town halls across Pennsylvania from
(12:53):
like Lancaster to Pittsburgh. He does this million dollar giveaway,
which is just basically a way to get free media.
The fact that he's doing this and gets people who
maybe wouldn't normally have signed his petition to sign his petition.
Then he uses that list to actually get people motivated
to go to the polls. And then you know, the
big coda of the month, Madison Square Garden, You and
(13:14):
I were sitting there together and there speaker after speaker
after speaker, and we were like, oh my god, when
is Elon gonna speak? And then it was like holy cow,
like JD. Vance speaks, and then there's like other speakers,
and then there's Elon, and then Elon introduces Milania and
then like Malania introduces her husband. Like he had top
billing at like the magifest of the year. He was
(13:35):
fully like the most powerful surrogate Trump could have asked
for in an election that largely hinged on voter frustration
about the economy and inflation and immigration. You have Musk
who has been sounding all of those same notes for
months now, like on the trail, like lending credence and
lending his personality and his vibe to the campaign. Like
(13:59):
it was just sort of the best thing that the
Trump campaign could have ever asked for, and it really
made a difference in all of those swing states. I mean,
his pack knocked on eleven million doors.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
I answered this question very similar to you.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I was like, my biggest thing was the Butler rally,
and really the rallies. And now as we're talking through this,
I don't know if I was actually answering it as
like Elon's biggest story or my biggest story was God
the Madison Square Garden rally, Like these these incredible shows
and the way that he put himself in the middle
of it and in the way, you know, we made
(14:30):
this mini series sit as an Elon and and talk.
We talked to this historian. We're asking him, like, what
what is different about Elon Musk versus other rich guys.
And the thing he said is like the campaigning, Like
like this is a guy who's doing it out in
the open rather than you know, like some like Shelle
Nagelson just writing a check and then essentially disappearing. Ryan,
(14:51):
you actually had sort of an out of the box
idea here for the biggest Elon story of the year.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, I mean I zeroed in on like the new
information that's currently come o out about Elon Musk's involvement
with RBG Pack, which was sort of this superback funding,
like a dark social campaign to kind of muddy the
waters around abortion rights. And it kind of comes back
to this idea that I had mentioned slightly earlier, which
is that I think this year part of Elon Musk's
big gamble and part of his like sort of like
(15:18):
push for a political power was making X feel valuable,
even though you know, anyone who has ever been on
it can tell you it's not nearly as powerful as
it used to be. And so my major question throughout
the entire election is, Okay, if the conversations aren't happening
on what used to be Twitter, where are they happening?
How are people getting informed about the election? Is Elon
(15:38):
Musk connected in any way to that? And it seems
like yes, he was. And I find that to be
very interesting that he is. He is clearly involved in
other ways that we weren't aware of, and so I
find that under reported and sort of a curiosity.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That's a really great point. And we also don't know
what other dark money is slashing around. I mean that's
the whole thing about dark money, Like it's not really traceable,
and thanks to Citizens United and so many other court cases, like,
he could have put way more money in in other
ways that we will never know.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
I think it's interesting too that you think that this
is kind of to make up for the irrelevance of X,
because in Elon's mind it probably still is quite relevant
because it's this like echo chamber for the things he
cares about.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
Yeah, I got to stop. Actually, I'm glad Sarah brought
that up. Like, do you think that Do you think
he thinks that it's successful? I think it is successful.
Do like, like I think that X is more relevant
than it was a year ago? Yeah? No, really, that's why.
And I guess the reason I would say that is
it never had huge reach Twitter. I'm never right and
(16:49):
and but what it has now.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And maybe there was a moment like in twenty eleven
or something when it was like you know, like when
the Arab Spring or whatever was playing out a next
where maybe that was a higher level of relevance than
it has today. But I mean it is at the
center of conservative politics. Like it is where like the
entire it's where conservative lawmakers are talking to supporters. It's
(17:14):
where like memes are bubbling up on the right. It's
like what it was in twenty ten or twenty eleven,
but just on the right. And I think that is actually,
in certain ways, like an achievement.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I don't disagree that it is clearly the new hub
for like America's right wing throwing stuff at the wall
and seeing what sticks as we saw with Springfield, Ohio. Right,
they're sort of using it as like a SNL writer's
room kind of thing. But I do question if it
can accomplish what most of I think Elon Musk's diehard
(17:46):
supporters want, which is to essentially invade and kind of
take over and influence what they understand as the media,
and that I think it has become actually less influential,
and I don't see the same sort of ability for
Twitter to put its thumb on American media and generate
millions of pieces like it could five or six years ago,
which is I think why Elon Musk bought it in
the first place. But I don't disagree with you about
(18:08):
it sort of it becoming this new right wing hob online.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I also don't think that it's going to be the
Trump megaphone that it was no in the first presidency.
I think we're going to see a very different version
of it. And part of that is just like main
character theory, like you can only have one main character
on a social platform, and it was Trump and now
it's Elon And does Trump really want to play that game?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (18:33):
Their breakups could be spectacular.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I can't wait Okay, So let's move on to another category,
Sidekick at a Year. I've asked each of you before
we started taping to send me the name of your
nominee for the Sidekick of the Year, the person who
has been key to Elon Musk's success, who you think
of when you think of, who is sitting next to
Elon Musk and offering him support. We've gathered tape from
(18:56):
each one of these four sidekicks, and I'm going to
play the tape and the people who did not pick
that sidekick are gonna have to try to guess who
it is. And there's gonna be a scoring system, and
we're gonna carry this through across both shows. If you
get it right, you get two points. Okay, great, Okay,
I love points.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
All right?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
This is this first clip comes from a very own
Sarah Fryar. Let's hear the first nominee for Sidekick of
the Year, What should.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
I do save America? And how Trump? Okay?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Okay, Ryan, Am I identifying what sounds to be some
sort of toddler or baby talking or am identifying the
more adult voice in the clip?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You are identifying who in the clip is the side
is a nominee, A very credible nominee for Sidekick of
the Year. This is This is a hard one if
you're not following this closely, although I know that Dana
will steal this.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Is this one of his sons, the one that he
keeps the Daniel Plainview kind of kid he keeps bringing
around like they will be blood Like that's what we're
talking about. Let me hold on, let me mash my
computer keyboard and figure out what his name is. But yeah,
I can't remember. Is it Techno Maximus.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
His name is X.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
This is one of his children with Grimes and it
is the one that he definitely kind of trots around,
you know. I mean he brought this child to Capitol Hills.
It's kind of like take your dad to workday. And
so he has joined custody, so they'll be like week
one week off, so you'll see him a lot and
then you won't see him, and you'll see him a lot,
you won't see him.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
But yes, X has been to Auschwitz, he has been
to the US Capitol, He's been to the Rocket Factor.
Speaker 6 (20:28):
He's been a little boy's favorite thing and everywhere Elon goes.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
He was at Madison Square Garden yes, he was.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
All right, our next sidekick of the year. This is
Dana Hall's nominee. Let's listen to the tape.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
The thing is, I was at a three day fashion
conference in Mrrakish and I dare not talk politics among
fashion people, So I said, when I get back, I'm
ruin my modeling career, but I'll help you save America's
And that's why I was so so active in the
(21:04):
last week.
Speaker 6 (21:06):
Well, thanks, all right, Sarah Friar.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Oh, it's mom, it's May Musk.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
That's right, Dana. You want to refresh us rush our
memory of the context here.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, So, I mean, Elon has always been close to
his mom. His mom has always been a regular at
like Tesla events, but this was like the first year
that we saw May become like sort of a pundit
in her own night right, Like she went on Fox
News like talking about how she also used to be
a Democrat but was now voting for Trump. And then
this clip is actually from election day itself, when you know,
(21:42):
as Max will remember, like the polls are closing and
Elon is on his private jet flying from Texas to
Palm Beach to go to mar A Lago and he
hosts this like impromptu x spaces that hundreds of thousands
of people tune into, and then all of a sudden,
like May calls up and chimes in and is on
her son's Twitter spaces And.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
It was adorable. Honestly, it was really great.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
It's a fascinating dynamic.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
Getting some looks. You know. It's just I just thought
it was very relatable. When he and his you know,
audience of.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Twitter people were were sort of like talking about politics stuff.
Somehow they started talking about May Musk, and then all
of a sudden, you heard I'm here, and she just
jumped in. It was kind of like a like a
like an advertisement for the beautiful spontaneity that is x
spaces elon Musk's real time chat platform.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
She's my favorite SNL cast member.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
What can I say? I think she's great. I wish
my mom played political defense for me on Twitter.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
That would be great.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
She has an account, but I've told her to never tweet,
please do never tweet, So yeah, I support May Musk
doing that.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I guess all right, We've got two more clips and
the next one comes from me, so you all have
the opportunity to guess it.
Speaker 8 (22:49):
I get asked this question time was about like what
is that elong like in private? And I think the
main thing to understand is just kind of what you
see is what you get. Like the things he says
in public are the things is what he's saying in
private is just maybe you know, we'll hear them a
little sooner.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
Okay, Ryan, who's that is that? I'll give you him.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
He has a government job or he has been designated
to have a government job, assuming you know, Trump duly
takes office and nothing falls through.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
I was gonna guess the egg Mark and Dreeson, but
I can't. I can't place the voice. It's kind of
a huskier voice, isn't it. It's a great guess, Sarah,
what do you think is this?
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Is this?
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
The vic?
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Oh? No, wrong way too husky of a voice. Dan,
I'm stumped.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I can't. I can't pick David Sacks.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
Can you put Oh David Sacks? Did you say all
In is a tease for that? No?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
No, I said he has He's he not David Sacks,
co host of the All In Podcast. Okay, guys, I
really the fact that no one knows David Sacks's voice,
A famous podcaster future cryptos are you know, obviously, the
White House Press Office has a lot of work to
do in the coming weeks. All right, we have one
more clip that I feel like we're gonna all get instantly,
(24:04):
but we'll still be interesting.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Just consider this, our parents and grandparents they went to Mars,
or excuse me, they went to the moon with pocket calculators.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
And slide rulers.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Americans can't even build enough housing for our citizens. Now,
I think that suggests something fundamentally broken.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
And what I like about Elon.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Musks is that he reminds us that America is a
nation of great ambitions, of great dreams. And I believe
that it is the solemn obligation of the American civilization
to conquer the stars.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
We are meant for great things in the.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
United States of America.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
And Elon reminds us of that. All right, Sarah Fryar,
this is an easy one, but I'm giving it to you.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Oh man, I'm the worst of voices. This is jd Vance.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yes, it is jd Vance. And Ryan tell us why
you picked Vance?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Okay, So obviously I was thinking about Vivek because he
is literally Elon Musk psychic right now, But there's really nothing,
and keeping Vivek involved because like Dojes doesn't exist, it's
not real, and he can just fire him if he
wants to.
Speaker 6 (25:05):
He can't really get rid of jade Vance.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
But jade Vance has like obviously lowered his status in
the operation enough that he's posting AI generated photos of
him as Trump's wife. I don't know if you've seen that,
where it's like a photo and he like photoshopped his
face over the wife next to Trump's like clearly in
his mind, like he has already accepted the second fiddle role.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
So I don't know if you're.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Familiar with like Batman lore, but like oftentimes there's like
an older Robin and a younger Robin, and I kind
of see it like that. So it's like Elon's in
the middle there, and then jade Vance is already accepted
that he's.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
Like underneath the Elon.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
Yeah, I thought about this quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
It's very clear to me that Elon is the de
facto vice president because he is he is going to
Capitol Hill, he is, you know, meeting with the lawmakers.
He is weigh in on these cabinet picks at mar
A Lago, like we haven't really seen jad Vance that much,
and when we have seen him, he's gotten like the
worst jobs, like it was cheating dance to like basically
dogwak Matt Gates around the Hill. If I'm not mistaken,
(26:02):
I think it was like the very that same very
day he withdrew his nomination for the for the attorney
general role. So he's getting like the crappy jobs. And
I mean, to be fair, of being vice president is
kind of a crappy job. Like it's like you have
to do all the gruntwork and all the bad things.
You get the portfolio that nobody wants, which is the
challenge that Vice President Harris has. But like, so yeah,
(26:23):
I don't know, Musk isn't really it's like de facto
vice president sounds wrong because vice president isn't even that powerful.
He's more of like the consigliere or the first buddy.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's funny because I've had a lot of people say, like, oh,
jd Vance and Elon Musk they must hate each other,
right because clearly on the drama Because yeah, because you know,
like Danna said when we were at Madison Square Garden,
you know, jd Vance is kind of buried between like
doctor Phil and like a painter. I mean, you know,
like really like he's in the bowels of the program.
Elon Musk has like a really good spot. And it's
(26:54):
that that's kind of played out over and over again,
and I think that is like totally wrong because Elon
is like Jade Vance's best friend. It is like it
like this the Batman Robin thing, I think is right.
Like jd Vance. First of all, when your vice president
Dana hit It hit on this like you don't get
to do important stuff. You're kind of cast aside. What
you really need to do is stay out of trouble,
(27:16):
avoid getting caught in too many scandals, and just kind
of coast to the next nomination.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
And that's basically where Jade Vance is headed.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He's he's gonna be the front runner to be the
next Republican candidate, and as long as he stays close
to Elon Musk, who, as far as we know based
on reporting and and such, they have a good relationship.
Elon Musk was advocating for Jdvance. So Jade Vance goes
into you know, twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, as
people start thinking about who the next person is, as
(27:45):
you know, vice president, immediate qualification and good friends with
the number one donor, So like, I think he's going
to be in a great position as long as he
can just bring himself, you know, to deal with the
constant you know, potential humiliations that come with being vice
especially vice president in this administration.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Sarah might have more thoughts on this, but I feel
like Elon Musk and JD. Vance are very important for
each other because they're both the closest articulation we've seen
of this sort of like reactionary tech CEO wing of
the Republican Party, and like they're very aligned that way.
Like Vance from as I sort of have read and understand,
it was sort of groomed to be this guy that
(28:23):
could represent the Silicon Valley dark Enlightenment guys in Washington,
and Elon Musk has never like totally aligned with those guys,
but he likes enough of the same stuff that it
feels like they can help each other kind of define
what Republicanism is after Trump can't run anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
So just a quick recap on the scoring. Right now,
we have Sarah with two points, Dana with three points,
and Ryan back but still.
Speaker 6 (28:47):
In contention with one point.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I split the points on that on the X one
you each got one. All right, let's move on to
most underrated story of the year. And Ryan, I want
to start with you tell us what the most underrated
story of the year for Elon Musk was in twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Okay, I have to say that this is totally unconfirmed.
It's an internet rumor. I want to stand that we're
in a serious journalistic institution right now, but I'm gonna
just I'm gonna go for it. There is a rumor
that Elon Musk is not actually playing Diablo all the time,
and that he has hired a ghost player to keep
his score at number one. I have nothing, guys.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
You need to break that story.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
You need to confirm that if there's anyone listening here
who can give me the details, I need to lock
this thing down. My email is Ryan at garbage date
dot email and.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Do me a favor and cc Elon ain't get Bloomers
because this, yeah, this just might be a collaboration. I mean,
Dan and Sarah, what do you think about this? The
Ryan's right, very little evidence except for the general thing
that like this guy is running six companies. He's you know,
first buddy, he's has an precedented political influence.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
He's a parent. Where like, where would he possibly find
the time.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Well, he doesn't really sleep, and he plays video games
to wind down or when he's on his plane. Right,
You'll notice that his tweet storms are often when he's
in the air, and I think maybe he games when
he's on the air too, And I think he games
a lot. But I love the idea of a ghost player,
Like how I didn't even know that that was a job,
Like I've heard of ghost writer, but a ghost player
that would be that would be amazing. We thought he
(30:28):
was training X to take over the business, and maybe
he's training X to maintain his Diapolis store score once
he's old enough.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I think this is like the thing that I yeah,
he's playing those games.
Speaker 6 (30:40):
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I just think like this would be such a weird
thing to fake. I mean, it's part of why would
be such an amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
So that's why he would fake it. I don't know.
I like conspiracies part of being an online person.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I wish that way I had known that we could
just we could put out rumors because I have great
I mean, I have a great room, uncut, unsubstantiated rumors, dish.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Let's go all right, let's let's let's move to Sarah.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Sarah, what was your most underrated Elon Musk's story of
twenty twenty four?
Speaker 4 (31:12):
So I really liked Dan and Sophie's big piece on
Elon Musk's fertility obsession and how he's basically trying to
make more babies in the world, and he's talked about
that quite a bit on the Internet. So I like that,
But I think that maybe the most surprisingly underrated piece
where like this this news broke and then like within
(31:36):
an hour, like nobody really talked about it anymore, was
Elon's regular contact with Vladimir Putin, and it was just like,
you know, the journal had that story and people were like, Wow,
what a big story, and then like, what have you
guys heard anyone talk about it in the week since,
like he can get away with anything.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
He's teflon Elon.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
What's important to about it to me is just that
he's like as tied in with the Trump administration as
he is. He's a private citizen, right, he can do
whatever he wants. He's a business owner, and he can
do things. He can talk to China as a business owner,
and he can talk to Russia as a business owner.
And in you know, no one's gonna brief him or
(32:19):
stop him or make him an ambassador to the United States,
but other countries will see him as a representative of
the US. So it's good to be tricky, right.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
He was at Notre Dam Sarah.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I've never been convinced that this was like such a
like a huge scandal or something, but also it does
seem like there's a lot here and it's something that
we that no one really like has explored. Dana over
to you your underrated story of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So this is a story that was broken by Laura
Kaladney at CNBC, who is a friend of mine and
a fierce competitor. But she had a great piece about
how you know, Elon basically had ordered these in Vidio
chips and he they were supposed to be for Tesla,
but he diverted them to x dot Ai, his ai startup,
and he sort of poop pooed it away like oh well,
(33:14):
like the Tesla factory wasn't really ready and couldn't accommodate
these chips, So why have them just sit around when
they could go to work. But it was just yet
another example of how like his companies are not really independent,
they're all fused together. They have overlapping people involved, overlapping
engineers like and Elon will Rob Peter to pay Paul
and like move resources around as needed. And this was
(33:34):
just sort of an example of him kind of moving
around the resources. Like there's been nothing in Tesla's proxy
or any filings about this conflict or potential conflict.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
All right, I have two underrated stories that I want
to offer. The first one is sort of more serious,
second one is less serious. So the first one is
and I can't canna can't believe no one brought this up.
But like Elon put a chip in some guy's braw Yeah,
that guy, okay, And now listen, let's be fair.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
There have been some problems with this chip. There's a
lot to talk about here. But he's like playing chess
with his thoughts.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And that just happened like at the beginning of the year,
and and like it's not like we've all forgotten about it.
It's just so many other things happen that that it.
Speaker 6 (34:16):
It's it's just weird.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I genuinely did forget it about that's that's actually wild.
Speaker 6 (34:21):
What a year.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Now catch up, you'll see that there have been and
we've talked about this on the podcast. The threads, it's
a little bit I don't gnarley like the threads from
the device popped out a little bit. It's it's definitely
still an experimental technology, but I mean it is a thing,
and and and they're looking to put more chips and
more people's brains. This is gonna be a thing I
think that we're gonna talk about in twenty twenty five.
(34:43):
The second one, and this is a very specific moment
from the Madison Square Garden event that I have a
little tape to play for all of you.
Speaker 7 (34:50):
USA us said usa usay.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Usa, Ryan, I think you're the one who suggested this
or that I encountered this first. But the mispronunciation of
the USA chan is fascinating.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah, the only way you can interpret that is that
he's never tried it before. He's maybe never heard it before,
but like it's ussa Usa, but he can't get the
inflection right.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
And uh yeah, fascinating to watch. Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
For the first part of our year end special, Ryan, Sarah, Dana,
Happy holidays, thanks for coming, Bye.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Bye bye, Happy Holidays.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
But listeners, don't worry. This trio is coming back in
a week for more games. And you're not gonna believe this,
but the scores already accrued on the sidekick portion of
the game will carry over and we're gonna make some
predictions for twenty five. It's gonna be a really good
time and we will see you then. This episode was
(35:56):
produced by Stacy Wong. Anna Maserakis is our editor and
Rayhan Harmansi our senior editor, and if you believe it,
the idea for this show also came from Rayhan. Blake
Maples handles engineering, and Emma Sanchez fact checks.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Our supervising producer.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Is Magnus Hendrickson. The e Linink theme is written and
performed by Taka Yazuzawa and Alex Sagierra. Brendan Francis Newnham
is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is the.
Speaker 6 (36:21):
Head of Bloomberg Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
A big thanks to our supporters Joel Weber and Brad Stone.
I'm Max Schaffkin. If you have a minute, rate and
review our show. It'll help other listeners find us, and
we will see you next week. Happy twenty twenty five.
Thanks for listening to the ELONN podcast. If you never
want to miss a story, become a bloomberg dot com
subscriber today. Check out our special intro offer right now
(36:45):
at bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast Offer or click in
the link on the show notes. You'll also unlock deep
reporting data and analysis from reporters all around the world.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man, starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
I mean legitimate.
Speaker 5 (00:28):
He says.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
be different.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 7 (00:40):
Anything he does is fascinating the people.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to Elon Inc. I'm Max Schafkin.
Speaker 6 (00:53):
It's the holiday season.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and here at Elon Inc.
Speaker 6 (00:59):
We have a very special two part set of shows
for you today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And so you know, it's mid December when we're recording.
This is the first of two. It's our episode of reflection.
Think of this as your pre Christmas pre Honika ritual.
You can gather with your family and think about the
year that was for Elon Musk and when we think
about it ourselves, to be honest, an enormous year, an
epic year both for the guy and also for this
(01:25):
podcast because we've been following it. The next week, we're
gonna kick back for New Year's We're gonna crack open
some champagne, eat some oysters, and play some games as
we look forward to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
To do that, we've got some of.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Our heavy hitters, Dana Hull, Bloomberg's Elon Musk reporter, and
Sarah Fryar, the big tech boss here at Bloomberg News. Dana, Sarah, Welcome,
Hey Max, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
Okay, and I'm so excited about this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We have a special guest, Ryan Broderick, who runs the
newsletter Garbage Day, which I never miss and I know
a lot of people on this podcast are big fans
of and the podcast Panic World, which is about basically
Internet related moral panics. Ryan is an expert in all
things digital culture and kind of the way that intersects
(02:12):
with business.
Speaker 6 (02:12):
Ryan, thank you for being on Elon Inc. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I'm for saying such as I say.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
Is it very uncomfortable? It's all true, and you know,
happy holidays.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Just before we get into the meat of the show,
I just wanted to kind of get your perspective.
Speaker 6 (02:26):
I mean, you're.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Writing I sort of quickly went through the last few
episodes of Panic World, you know, mister Beast QAnon something
called perfume talk and the possibility I guess that's it's
moving to the right politically, which I didn't know was possible.
But I'm kind of curious, like, in this kind of
world of digital culture and influence, the kind of world
you live in, how where does Elon Musk kind of
(02:50):
figure and how is that changing.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I like to think of him as sort of like
the last germaining right wing influencer that has the juice.
A lot of them have lost a lot of influence because,
like you know, YouTube is changing up his algorithm. Facebook
isn't as powerful as it used to be as.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
A publishing platform.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
But Elon Musk, because he owns x and because he
has the money to kind of do ridiculous stuff NonStop
and say crazy things and all the rest of it,
he can still command attention and that makes him very valuable.
So I sort of see him as sort of like
the mega node for the right wing Internet right now.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
That's cool, well, and I assume you're paying attention to
him to some extent, although I'm guessing maybe not as
closely as the rest of us are or the rest
of us on this podcasting it for a living.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, I know, I can consider him one of my
you know, one of the many cast of characters on
the internet, but he's I try to keep him separate
to make sure, like you know, I'm not writing about
him too much.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So like what would be like a non political equivalent
in that cast of characters.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Okay, you know how like in the early Game of
Thrones episodes, Danny's like off in the desert doing like
her own thing. I start to treat him like that,
like he's always got something going on, and sometimes it matters,
but I try to separate him out from the larger mix.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Okay, got it? The Narest Mother of Dragons, Yes to
the Game of Drones. That is our.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
World, all right? So okay, first question and listeners. These
were submitted and I have them in front of me
and we're gonna we're gonna go through them. But basically,
we asked Dana, Sarah, and Ryan and me to answer
a series of questions looking back in the year, and
the first one was, and Dana, I'm gonna start with
you a one word description of Elon's year twenty twenty
(04:25):
four in a word go epic. I want you to
tell me how it was more epic than previous years,
because like every year is an epic year for Elon,
So like why why why was this year particularly epic?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, And I feel and I feel like I'm parroting
the language that he himself loves to use, Like epic
is not a word that like I floor throw around,
but it's one that Elon likes a lot. But by
all measures, he had an incredible year, Like Tesla's stock is,
like the market cap of Tesla is above one point
three trillion. SpaceX's evaluation is now three hundred and fifty billion,
(04:59):
making it the most valuable private company in the world.
He is by far the wealthiest person, like wealthier than ever,
Like he's now above four hundred billion, and his companies
are doing well. And then aside from all that, he
basically is the de facto vice president. He helped elect
President Trump, he went all in, he campaigned for Trump
(05:19):
all across Pennsylvania. He's now basically enmeshed at mar A
Lago has the year of the president, has been tapped
to kind of lead this Doge Commission. Like he's at
that kind of height of his wealth, his political influence,
and his corporate power, because you know, this has also
been a year where a lot of his rivals have
had really crappy years. Boeing has had a horrible year.
(05:42):
General Motors just basically announced that they are no longer
pursuing their ROBOTAXI, like all of his competitors in the
business arena have had really hard years, and his businesses
are actually doing pretty well.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Dan, I had almost the same answer as I wrote, triumph,
maybe a little less. Elanie Sarah, you also so kind
of we're in the same zone right well.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
I picked the word political, and it also is a
reflection of just how I looked back on this Elon Inc.
Project when this started. When we were devising this podcast,
it was like around the time that everyone was so
surprised that the Starling satellites had become this tool in
the war in Ukraine and Musk had the power to
(06:25):
turn off or on the Internet in a war zone,
and that was kind of a moment for us realizing, Wow,
this guy is like, this guy's hands on the on
like the pulse of geopolitics right now, Like he can
really make things happen, and what does that mean? For
the richest man in the world, who owns a social network,
who owns you know, this satellite company and this very
(06:47):
influential car company, and the only means for the US
government to get to space. Like what does it mean
that he has this power? And I think that this
year is like, oh, it means he can help can
a president elected and then like sit with him at
every meeting as he's building his cabinet and you know,
basically shadow him in a typical Elon Musk launch mode.
(07:12):
So yeah, extremely political is what I would say about
Musks here.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
Okay, Ryan, what about you? I cheated light on me.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I put four words down. I believe I wrote exactly
let's see here, dumb and unfortunately successful.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Okay, so you cheated.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
But actually I'm intrigued by this answer, just because I
feel like you can successful as difficult to quibble with unfortunately,
like that's a question of opinion.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
But I'm curious, like why you said dumb. So I
sort of.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
See this whole year as a massive existential gamble for Musk,
both in terms of let's say, you know, let's say
if the Harris team had won, Like, is he looking
at a lot more scrutiny on his various businesses and
how they all interact. Is he looking at more sort
of crackdowns on X and how that operates all the
rest of it?
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Right, And it fell like.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You know, mask off this year of saying like I'm
going to endorse Donald Trump because he's always been this
sort of political chameleon. So in a lot of ways,
I sort of saw him putting all of his chips
on the table this year and saying I'm going to
get behind this. And I think if Trump had not won,
we'd be having a very different conversation about like his
perceived success this year, because I think there'd be more
questions about what might happen next.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
But Trump did win, and he won all seven swing states,
and they also won the Senate and Congress, so now
they've got a trifecta in the Supreme Court. So whether
it was dumb to put the chips all in or not,
it was like a big bet that has paid off
for musks so far. Like, are you saying that it's
dumb because it was just dumb to make such a
big bet, or that it's dumb because there are risks
(08:45):
to this bet that haven't played out yet.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I think that there are unknown risks. I also just
think much of what he does publicly is dumb, but
that's just my personal opinion, like the doge naming of
the Department of Government Efficiency and sort of his various
viral stunts that I think he uses to kind of
ask his political moves. This year, it felt like he
kind of aligned them all at once.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
I spent a lot of the.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Year, like Ryan, thinking that Elon was making mistakes and
that this was a huge This was like obviously a
big bet, but a bet with a lot of risk,
and I think there are still risks.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
And it's like very.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Easy now we can talk when we get to predictions,
we can talk about this. But like it's very easy
to see, you know, stock is at whatever, over four hundred.
It's like nearly twice what it was not too long ago,
and and and he's at the Year of Trump. But
like it could definitely fall apart. All right, But we're
segueing into pretty pretty nicely into the biggest story of
the year. And really there's only one answer, and I
(09:40):
think we had to listen to the answer before we
hear from all of us.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Elan, Eileen, Elon, Elan, Elon, Elon, Elan, Elan Elan.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And we all in one way or another brought up
something around Trump and Elon Musk, but ever had slightly
different ideas about what specifically, what part of this was
the biggest Sarah, why don't you lay your first one
on us?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
I think it was when he decided to form a
pack and donate millions to Trump, And in the beginning
he was sort of warm about it. He was like, yeah,
forty five million to Trump, and then he was like,
I didn't promise forty five million. We had this debate
is like is he actually going to spend that much?
And then you know it would turn out to be
upwards of two hundred and fifty million. He really went
(10:31):
all in and so deciding to get financially involved. Even
though that amount of money for him is like not
much when you've got four hundred billion, it was extremely
significant in the race. And he also used it in
a way that surprised us because he was going after
the base. He was targeting people who already were in
(10:53):
favor of Trump, just kind of a get out the
vote effort, which is very different than what a lot
of campaigns do in trying to like convince independence, convince
swing voters. It was like, yeah, you know, if you're
a white man, gets the polls.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I mean, I remember there was this whole thing in
the middle of the year where we weren't sure if
he really was giving money, and like the Wall Street
Journal in Bloomberg had reported forty five million dollars a
month and Elon was denying it. I mean, did you Ryan,
I'm curious, did you think he was going to go
like rewind to July or whatever when this reporting started
(11:31):
coming out.
Speaker 6 (11:32):
Do you think he was going to play such a
big role, like financially, I did not.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
The question that I've had about his political involvement all
year is would he have donated as much if X
was as socially powerful as Twitter used to be? And
so I sort of view it through that lens where
you know, a lot of his dealings with the pack
and the giveaways and sort of dumping money into the
Trump campaign. I do wonder if that was this sort
of kind of make up for the fact that like
(11:58):
X doesn't really have the reach it used to, and
so because he.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
Wanted to be a player.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
But I did not think it would be as extensive
as it was.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Maybe there are three aspects of this of his political
engagement this year, and like one of them Sarah just
mentioned is the money and this pack. Another one was
x which Ryan just brought up. And then there was
a third which was essentially his campaigning and Dana, that
was for you, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Wrote electing Trump because I think you know, in politics,
everyone always talks about the October surprise, and for me,
the October surprise was how publicly Elon campaigned for Trump.
And you look at the month of October, just look
at the calendar. He goes to Butler, the site of
the first assassination attempt, and is jumping around on stage.
He holds a series of town halls across Pennsylvania from
(12:53):
like Lancaster to Pittsburgh. He does this million dollar giveaway,
which is just basically a way to get free media.
The fact that he's doing this and gets people who
maybe wouldn't normally have signed his petition to sign his petition.
Then he uses that list to actually get people motivated
to go to the polls. And then you know, the
big coda of the month, Madison Square Garden, You and
(13:14):
I were sitting there together and there speaker after speaker
after speaker, and we were like, oh my god, when
is Elon gonna speak? And then it was like holy cow,
like JD. Vance speaks, and then there's like other speakers,
and then there's Elon, and then Elon introduces Milania and
then like Malania introduces her husband. Like he had top
billing at like the magifest of the year. He was
(13:35):
fully like the most powerful surrogate Trump could have asked
for in an election that largely hinged on voter frustration
about the economy and inflation and immigration. You have Musk
who has been sounding all of those same notes for
months now, like on the trail, like lending credence and
lending his personality and his vibe to the campaign. Like
(13:59):
it was just sort of the best thing that the
Trump campaign could have ever asked for, and it really
made a difference in all of those swing states. I mean,
his pack knocked on eleven million doors.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
I answered this question very similar to you.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I was like, my biggest thing was the Butler rally,
and really the rallies. And now as we're talking through this,
I don't know if I was actually answering it as
like Elon's biggest story or my biggest story was God
the Madison Square Garden rally, Like these these incredible shows
and the way that he put himself in the middle
of it and in the way, you know, we made
(14:30):
this mini series sit as an Elon and and talk.
We talked to this historian. We're asking him, like, what
what is different about Elon Musk versus other rich guys.
And the thing he said is like the campaigning, Like
like this is a guy who's doing it out in
the open rather than you know, like some like Shelle
Nagelson just writing a check and then essentially disappearing. Ryan,
(14:51):
you actually had sort of an out of the box
idea here for the biggest Elon story of the year.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, I mean I zeroed in on like the new
information that's currently come o out about Elon Musk's involvement
with RBG Pack, which was sort of this superback funding,
like a dark social campaign to kind of muddy the
waters around abortion rights. And it kind of comes back
to this idea that I had mentioned slightly earlier, which
is that I think this year part of Elon Musk's
big gamble and part of his like sort of like
(15:18):
push for a political power was making X feel valuable,
even though you know, anyone who has ever been on
it can tell you it's not nearly as powerful as
it used to be. And so my major question throughout
the entire election is, Okay, if the conversations aren't happening
on what used to be Twitter, where are they happening?
How are people getting informed about the election? Is Elon
(15:38):
Musk connected in any way to that? And it seems
like yes, he was. And I find that to be
very interesting that he is. He is clearly involved in
other ways that we weren't aware of, and so I
find that under reported and sort of a curiosity.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That's a really great point. And we also don't know
what other dark money is slashing around. I mean that's
the whole thing about dark money, Like it's not really traceable,
and thanks to Citizens United and so many other court cases, like,
he could have put way more money in in other
ways that we will never know.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
I think it's interesting too that you think that this
is kind of to make up for the irrelevance of X,
because in Elon's mind it probably still is quite relevant
because it's this like echo chamber for the things he
cares about.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
Yeah, I got to stop. Actually, I'm glad Sarah brought
that up. Like, do you think that Do you think
he thinks that it's successful? I think it is successful.
Do like, like I think that X is more relevant
than it was a year ago? Yeah? No, really, that's why.
And I guess the reason I would say that is
it never had huge reach Twitter. I'm never right and
(16:49):
and but what it has now.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And maybe there was a moment like in twenty eleven
or something when it was like you know, like when
the Arab Spring or whatever was playing out a next
where maybe that was a higher level of relevance than
it has today. But I mean it is at the
center of conservative politics. Like it is where like the
entire it's where conservative lawmakers are talking to supporters. It's
(17:14):
where like memes are bubbling up on the right. It's
like what it was in twenty ten or twenty eleven,
but just on the right. And I think that is actually,
in certain ways, like an achievement.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I don't disagree that it is clearly the new hub
for like America's right wing throwing stuff at the wall
and seeing what sticks as we saw with Springfield, Ohio. Right,
they're sort of using it as like a SNL writer's
room kind of thing. But I do question if it
can accomplish what most of I think Elon Musk's diehard
(17:46):
supporters want, which is to essentially invade and kind of
take over and influence what they understand as the media,
and that I think it has become actually less influential,
and I don't see the same sort of ability for
Twitter to put its thumb on American media and generate
millions of pieces like it could five or six years ago,
which is I think why Elon Musk bought it in
the first place. But I don't disagree with you about
(18:08):
it sort of it becoming this new right wing hob online.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I also don't think that it's going to be the
Trump megaphone that it was no in the first presidency.
I think we're going to see a very different version
of it. And part of that is just like main
character theory, like you can only have one main character
on a social platform, and it was Trump and now
it's Elon And does Trump really want to play that game?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (18:33):
Their breakups could be spectacular.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I can't wait Okay, So let's move on to another category,
Sidekick at a Year. I've asked each of you before
we started taping to send me the name of your
nominee for the Sidekick of the Year, the person who
has been key to Elon Musk's success, who you think
of when you think of, who is sitting next to
Elon Musk and offering him support. We've gathered tape from
(18:56):
each one of these four sidekicks, and I'm going to
play the tape and the people who did not pick
that sidekick are gonna have to try to guess who
it is. And there's gonna be a scoring system, and
we're gonna carry this through across both shows. If you
get it right, you get two points. Okay, great, Okay,
I love points.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
All right?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
This is this first clip comes from a very own
Sarah Fryar. Let's hear the first nominee for Sidekick of
the Year, What should.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
I do save America? And how Trump? Okay?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Okay, Ryan, Am I identifying what sounds to be some
sort of toddler or baby talking or am identifying the
more adult voice in the clip?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You are identifying who in the clip is the side
is a nominee, A very credible nominee for Sidekick of
the Year. This is This is a hard one if
you're not following this closely, although I know that Dana
will steal this.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Is this one of his sons, the one that he
keeps the Daniel Plainview kind of kid he keeps bringing
around like they will be blood Like that's what we're
talking about. Let me hold on, let me mash my
computer keyboard and figure out what his name is. But yeah,
I can't remember. Is it Techno Maximus.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
His name is X.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
This is one of his children with Grimes and it
is the one that he definitely kind of trots around,
you know. I mean he brought this child to Capitol Hills.
It's kind of like take your dad to workday. And
so he has joined custody, so they'll be like week
one week off, so you'll see him a lot and
then you won't see him, and you'll see him a lot,
you won't see him.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
But yes, X has been to Auschwitz, he has been
to the US Capitol, He's been to the Rocket Factor.
Speaker 6 (20:28):
He's been a little boy's favorite thing and everywhere Elon goes.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
He was at Madison Square Garden yes, he was.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
All right, our next sidekick of the year. This is
Dana Hall's nominee. Let's listen to the tape.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
The thing is, I was at a three day fashion
conference in Mrrakish and I dare not talk politics among
fashion people, So I said, when I get back, I'm
ruin my modeling career, but I'll help you save America's
And that's why I was so so active in the
(21:04):
last week.
Speaker 6 (21:06):
Well, thanks, all right, Sarah Friar.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Oh, it's mom, it's May Musk.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
That's right, Dana. You want to refresh us rush our
memory of the context here.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, So, I mean, Elon has always been close to
his mom. His mom has always been a regular at
like Tesla events, but this was like the first year
that we saw May become like sort of a pundit
in her own night right, Like she went on Fox
News like talking about how she also used to be
a Democrat but was now voting for Trump. And then
this clip is actually from election day itself, when you know,
(21:42):
as Max will remember, like the polls are closing and
Elon is on his private jet flying from Texas to
Palm Beach to go to mar A Lago and he
hosts this like impromptu x spaces that hundreds of thousands
of people tune into, and then all of a sudden,
like May calls up and chimes in and is on
her son's Twitter spaces And.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
It was adorable. Honestly, it was really great.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
It's a fascinating dynamic.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
Getting some looks. You know. It's just I just thought
it was very relatable. When he and his you know,
audience of.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Twitter people were were sort of like talking about politics stuff.
Somehow they started talking about May Musk, and then all
of a sudden, you heard I'm here, and she just
jumped in. It was kind of like a like a
like an advertisement for the beautiful spontaneity that is x
spaces elon Musk's real time chat platform.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
She's my favorite SNL cast member.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
What can I say? I think she's great. I wish
my mom played political defense for me on Twitter.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
That would be great.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
She has an account, but I've told her to never tweet,
please do never tweet, So yeah, I support May Musk
doing that.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I guess all right, We've got two more clips and
the next one comes from me, so you all have
the opportunity to guess it.
Speaker 8 (22:49):
I get asked this question time was about like what
is that elong like in private? And I think the
main thing to understand is just kind of what you
see is what you get. Like the things he says
in public are the things is what he's saying in
private is just maybe you know, we'll hear them a
little sooner.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
Okay, Ryan, who's that is that? I'll give you him.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
He has a government job or he has been designated
to have a government job, assuming you know, Trump duly
takes office and nothing falls through.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
I was gonna guess the egg Mark and Dreeson, but
I can't. I can't place the voice. It's kind of
a huskier voice, isn't it. It's a great guess, Sarah,
what do you think is this?
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Is this?
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
The vic?
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Oh? No, wrong way too husky of a voice. Dan,
I'm stumped.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I can't. I can't pick David Sacks.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
Can you put Oh David Sacks? Did you say all
In is a tease for that? No?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
No, I said he has He's he not David Sacks,
co host of the All In Podcast. Okay, guys, I
really the fact that no one knows David Sacks's voice,
A famous podcaster future cryptos are you know, obviously, the
White House Press Office has a lot of work to
do in the coming weeks. All right, we have one
more clip that I feel like we're gonna all get instantly,
(24:04):
but we'll still be interesting.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Just consider this, our parents and grandparents they went to Mars,
or excuse me, they went to the moon with pocket calculators.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
And slide rulers.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Americans can't even build enough housing for our citizens. Now,
I think that suggests something fundamentally broken.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
And what I like about Elon.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Musks is that he reminds us that America is a
nation of great ambitions, of great dreams. And I believe
that it is the solemn obligation of the American civilization
to conquer the stars.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
We are meant for great things in the.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
United States of America.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
And Elon reminds us of that. All right, Sarah Fryar,
this is an easy one, but I'm giving it to you.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Oh man, I'm the worst of voices. This is jd Vance.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yes, it is jd Vance. And Ryan tell us why
you picked Vance?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Okay, So obviously I was thinking about Vivek because he
is literally Elon Musk psychic right now, But there's really nothing,
and keeping Vivek involved because like Dojes doesn't exist, it's
not real, and he can just fire him if he
wants to.
Speaker 6 (25:05):
He can't really get rid of jade Vance.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
But jade Vance has like obviously lowered his status in
the operation enough that he's posting AI generated photos of
him as Trump's wife. I don't know if you've seen that,
where it's like a photo and he like photoshopped his
face over the wife next to Trump's like clearly in
his mind, like he has already accepted the second fiddle role.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
So I don't know if you're.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Familiar with like Batman lore, but like oftentimes there's like
an older Robin and a younger Robin, and I kind
of see it like that. So it's like Elon's in
the middle there, and then jade Vance is already accepted
that he's.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
Like underneath the Elon.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
Yeah, I thought about this quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
It's very clear to me that Elon is the de
facto vice president because he is he is going to
Capitol Hill, he is, you know, meeting with the lawmakers.
He is weigh in on these cabinet picks at mar
A Lago, like we haven't really seen jad Vance that much,
and when we have seen him, he's gotten like the
worst jobs, like it was cheating dance to like basically
dogwak Matt Gates around the Hill. If I'm not mistaken,
(26:02):
I think it was like the very that same very
day he withdrew his nomination for the for the attorney
general role. So he's getting like the crappy jobs. And
I mean, to be fair, of being vice president is
kind of a crappy job. Like it's like you have
to do all the gruntwork and all the bad things.
You get the portfolio that nobody wants, which is the
challenge that Vice President Harris has. But like, so yeah,
(26:23):
I don't know, Musk isn't really it's like de facto
vice president sounds wrong because vice president isn't even that powerful.
He's more of like the consigliere or the first buddy.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's funny because I've had a lot of people say, like, oh,
jd Vance and Elon Musk they must hate each other,
right because clearly on the drama Because yeah, because you know,
like Danna said when we were at Madison Square Garden,
you know, jd Vance is kind of buried between like
doctor Phil and like a painter. I mean, you know,
like really like he's in the bowels of the program.
Elon Musk has like a really good spot. And it's
(26:54):
that that's kind of played out over and over again,
and I think that is like totally wrong because Elon
is like Jade Vance's best friend. It is like it
like this the Batman Robin thing, I think is right.
Like jd Vance. First of all, when your vice president
Dana hit It hit on this like you don't get
to do important stuff. You're kind of cast aside. What
you really need to do is stay out of trouble,
(27:16):
avoid getting caught in too many scandals, and just kind
of coast to the next nomination.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
And that's basically where Jade Vance is headed.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He's he's gonna be the front runner to be the
next Republican candidate, and as long as he stays close
to Elon Musk, who, as far as we know based
on reporting and and such, they have a good relationship.
Elon Musk was advocating for Jdvance. So Jade Vance goes
into you know, twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, as
people start thinking about who the next person is, as
(27:45):
you know, vice president, immediate qualification and good friends with
the number one donor, So like, I think he's going
to be in a great position as long as he
can just bring himself, you know, to deal with the
constant you know, potential humiliations that come with being vice
especially vice president in this administration.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Sarah might have more thoughts on this, but I feel
like Elon Musk and JD. Vance are very important for
each other because they're both the closest articulation we've seen
of this sort of like reactionary tech CEO wing of
the Republican Party, and like they're very aligned that way.
Like Vance from as I sort of have read and understand,
it was sort of groomed to be this guy that
(28:23):
could represent the Silicon Valley dark Enlightenment guys in Washington,
and Elon Musk has never like totally aligned with those guys,
but he likes enough of the same stuff that it
feels like they can help each other kind of define
what Republicanism is after Trump can't run anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
So just a quick recap on the scoring. Right now,
we have Sarah with two points, Dana with three points,
and Ryan back but still.
Speaker 6 (28:47):
In contention with one point.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I split the points on that on the X one
you each got one. All right, let's move on to
most underrated story of the year. And Ryan, I want
to start with you tell us what the most underrated
story of the year for Elon Musk was in twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Okay, I have to say that this is totally unconfirmed.
It's an internet rumor. I want to stand that we're
in a serious journalistic institution right now, but I'm gonna
just I'm gonna go for it. There is a rumor
that Elon Musk is not actually playing Diablo all the time,
and that he has hired a ghost player to keep
his score at number one. I have nothing, guys.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
You need to break that story.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
You need to confirm that if there's anyone listening here
who can give me the details, I need to lock
this thing down. My email is Ryan at garbage date
dot email and.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Do me a favor and cc Elon ain't get Bloomers
because this, yeah, this just might be a collaboration. I mean,
Dan and Sarah, what do you think about this? The
Ryan's right, very little evidence except for the general thing
that like this guy is running six companies. He's you know,
first buddy, he's has an precedented political influence.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
He's a parent. Where like, where would he possibly find
the time.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Well, he doesn't really sleep, and he plays video games
to wind down or when he's on his plane. Right,
You'll notice that his tweet storms are often when he's
in the air, and I think maybe he games when
he's on the air too, And I think he games
a lot. But I love the idea of a ghost player,
Like how I didn't even know that that was a job,
Like I've heard of ghost writer, but a ghost player
that would be that would be amazing. We thought he
(30:28):
was training X to take over the business, and maybe
he's training X to maintain his Diapolis store score once
he's old enough.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I think this is like the thing that I yeah,
he's playing those games.
Speaker 6 (30:40):
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I just think like this would be such a weird
thing to fake. I mean, it's part of why would
be such an amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
So that's why he would fake it. I don't know.
I like conspiracies part of being an online person.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I wish that way I had known that we could
just we could put out rumors because I have great
I mean, I have a great room, uncut, unsubstantiated rumors, dish.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Let's go all right, let's let's let's move to Sarah.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Sarah, what was your most underrated Elon Musk's story of
twenty twenty four?
Speaker 4 (31:12):
So I really liked Dan and Sophie's big piece on
Elon Musk's fertility obsession and how he's basically trying to
make more babies in the world, and he's talked about
that quite a bit on the Internet. So I like that,
But I think that maybe the most surprisingly underrated piece
where like this this news broke and then like within
(31:36):
an hour, like nobody really talked about it anymore, was
Elon's regular contact with Vladimir Putin, and it was just like,
you know, the journal had that story and people were like, Wow,
what a big story, and then like, what have you
guys heard anyone talk about it in the week since,
like he can get away with anything.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
He's teflon Elon.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
What's important to about it to me is just that
he's like as tied in with the Trump administration as
he is. He's a private citizen, right, he can do
whatever he wants. He's a business owner, and he can
do things. He can talk to China as a business owner,
and he can talk to Russia as a business owner.
And in you know, no one's gonna brief him or
(32:19):
stop him or make him an ambassador to the United States,
but other countries will see him as a representative of
the US. So it's good to be tricky, right.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
He was at Notre Dam Sarah.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I've never been convinced that this was like such a
like a huge scandal or something, but also it does
seem like there's a lot here and it's something that
we that no one really like has explored. Dana over
to you your underrated story of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So this is a story that was broken by Laura
Kaladney at CNBC, who is a friend of mine and
a fierce competitor. But she had a great piece about
how you know, Elon basically had ordered these in Vidio
chips and he they were supposed to be for Tesla,
but he diverted them to x dot Ai, his ai startup,
and he sort of poop pooed it away like oh well,
(33:14):
like the Tesla factory wasn't really ready and couldn't accommodate
these chips, So why have them just sit around when
they could go to work. But it was just yet
another example of how like his companies are not really independent,
they're all fused together. They have overlapping people involved, overlapping
engineers like and Elon will Rob Peter to pay Paul
and like move resources around as needed. And this was
(33:34):
just sort of an example of him kind of moving
around the resources. Like there's been nothing in Tesla's proxy
or any filings about this conflict or potential conflict.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
All right, I have two underrated stories that I want
to offer. The first one is sort of more serious,
second one is less serious. So the first one is
and I can't canna can't believe no one brought this up.
But like Elon put a chip in some guy's braw Yeah,
that guy, okay, And now listen, let's be fair.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
There have been some problems with this chip. There's a
lot to talk about here. But he's like playing chess
with his thoughts.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And that just happened like at the beginning of the year,
and and like it's not like we've all forgotten about it.
It's just so many other things happen that that it.
Speaker 6 (34:16):
It's it's just weird.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I genuinely did forget it about that's that's actually wild.
Speaker 6 (34:21):
What a year.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Now catch up, you'll see that there have been and
we've talked about this on the podcast. The threads, it's
a little bit I don't gnarley like the threads from
the device popped out a little bit. It's it's definitely
still an experimental technology, but I mean it is a thing,
and and and they're looking to put more chips and
more people's brains. This is gonna be a thing I
think that we're gonna talk about in twenty twenty five.
(34:43):
The second one, and this is a very specific moment
from the Madison Square Garden event that I have a
little tape to play for all of you.
Speaker 7 (34:50):
USA us said usa usay.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Usa, Ryan, I think you're the one who suggested this
or that I encountered this first. But the mispronunciation of
the USA chan is fascinating.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah, the only way you can interpret that is that
he's never tried it before. He's maybe never heard it before,
but like it's ussa Usa, but he can't get the
inflection right.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
And uh yeah, fascinating to watch. Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
For the first part of our year end special, Ryan, Sarah, Dana,
Happy holidays, thanks for coming, Bye.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Bye bye, Happy Holidays.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
But listeners, don't worry. This trio is coming back in
a week for more games. And you're not gonna believe this,
but the scores already accrued on the sidekick portion of
the game will carry over and we're gonna make some
predictions for twenty five. It's gonna be a really good
time and we will see you then. This episode was
(35:56):
produced by Stacy Wong. Anna Maserakis is our editor and
Rayhan Harmansi our senior editor, and if you believe it,
the idea for this show also came from Rayhan. Blake
Maples handles engineering, and Emma Sanchez fact checks.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Our supervising producer.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Is Magnus Hendrickson. The e Linink theme is written and
performed by Taka Yazuzawa and Alex Sagierra. Brendan Francis Newnham
is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is the.
Speaker 6 (36:21):
Head of Bloomberg Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
A big thanks to our supporters Joel Weber and Brad Stone.
I'm Max Schaffkin. If you have a minute, rate and
review our show. It'll help other listeners find us, and
we will see you next week. Happy twenty twenty five.
Thanks for listening to the ELONN podcast. If you never
want to miss a story, become a bloomberg dot com
subscriber today. Check out our special intro offer right now
(36:45):
at bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast Offer or click in
the link on the show notes. You'll also unlock deep
reporting data and analysis from reporters all around the world.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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