This week Haje Jan Kamps, stepping in for Darrell, talks with Dominic-Madori Davis about how conservative VCs are shaping the startup landscape and, by extension, the world. He also talked with Taylor Hatmaker about all things Elon, from his cringey tweets to his most recent flip-flopping on will-he-or-won’t he buy Twitter. And as always, we’ll catch you up on the tech news you may have missed this week.

TechCrunch Disrupt is coming up on October 18-20, live in San Francisco. We’ll be hearing from guests like Dylan Field, Serena Williams, and Kevin Hart. Use code TCPOD all one word to get 15% Off Passes. 

Articles from the episode:

• It’s official, Elon Musk is buying Twitter
• Here are some of the cringiest revelations in the Elon Musk text dump
• Just before Musk backtracked, a judge said Twitter could hunt for secret chats with whistleblower
• Conservative capitalists are funding their vision of the future 

Other news from the week:

• Let’s not defend Kim Kardashian for shilling crypto
• Kim Kardashian charged by SEC for pushing crypto, reaches $1.26M settlement
• Tesla’s robot is a real robot now, not just a guy in a suit
• Spotify cancels 11 original podcasts, lays off under 5% of podcast staff

Credits: The TechCrunch Podcast is produced by Maggie Stamets, hosted by Darrell Etherington, and edited by Kell.