Elon, Inc.

This week, the crew is joined by Bloomberg tech reporter Davey Alba to discuss how Musk is increasingly engaging with memes and misinformation favored by Donald Trump and his supporters. In recent months, Musk has shown an openness to Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol was a not a failed insurrection, but instead a government conspiracy. He’s also promoted the idea that white people are under threat from Black people and immigrants—popular fixations among Trump’s supporters.

We also break down the current drama over at Tesla. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Were we talking about almost any other executive, the report by the Wall Street Journal over the weekend about Elon Musk’s alleged drug use would have qualified as a bombshell. The article contends the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla has used a collection of substances. This, according to the Journal’s unidentified sources, has caused consternation within Musk’s companies, with Tesla board members and SpaceX executives privately expressing concerns that the alleged drug use may be making Musk unreliable and erratic.

But it’s not clear that many people, either inside or outside Musk’s companies, are genuinely worried. Musk mostly laughed off the report, offering a jokey response suggesting that  any drugs he was taking should be seen as performance enhancers and noting that he’d passed government-mandated drug tests “after that one puff on Rogan”—a reference to a 2018 interview with Joe Rogan during which he smoked marijuana. Investors have been largely unmoved by all of this, partly because during the period that Musk is alleged to have indulged in illicit substances, he also made them a great deal of money. And Musk has mostly gone back to his regular schedule of boosting conspiracy theories proffered by election deniers, white nationalists and other assorted right wing influencers.

On this episode, we are joined by Loren Grush, a Bloomberg aerospace reporter and author of the NASA history, The Six, to discuss why these drug allegations haven’t hurt Musk and why a labor dispute involving SpaceX employees might be a bigger threat in the long run.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the past decade, Elon Musk’s car company has transformed itself from a niche brand with a novelty product into a major automotive manufacturer and clear market leader. And yet, Tesla Inc.’s leadership position in electric cars is slipping. On Jan. 2, the company reported it delivered almost 485,000 vehicles to customers. The figure was in line with Wall Street expectations, but slightly less than that reported by China’s BYD Co., which delivered roughly 526,000 electric cars. On the latest episode, our panel discusses how BYD became Tesla’s most important competitor, even though it doesn’t sell cars in the US.

Also: in another setback for Musk, his social media platform’s value continues to fall. The asset manager Fidelity again wrote down X’s valuation, according to a news report. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in late 2022; its value has since fallen by more than 70%. Lots to talk about.

Finally, we offer predictions for 2024, including the prospect of further Musk feuds with the US government, his potential impact on the 2024 election and his new friendship with far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For better or worse, 2023 was the Year of Elon.

The world’s richest man entered the year humbled: Tesla’s stock had fallen precipitously over the previous 12 months, Musk had been forced by a Delaware judge to buy Twitter (since renamed X) at what looked like an inflated price (one he’d set himself, in what now looks like the world’s most misguided attempt at a weed joke), and he’d been booed by an arena full of Dave Chappelle fans. (Musk claimed, limply, that the crowd was mostly cheering “except during the quiet periods.”)

You can say a lot about what Musk has said and done in the months since then, but no one would argue he’s been marginalized. Surveys suggest that Musk’s reputation has taken a hit amid his amplification of right wing conspiracy theories, his endorsement of antisemitism, and his suggestion that the chief executive of one of the world’s most beloved companies “go f--- yourself.” And yet: Musk has put himself at the center of the news and has managed to stabilize his business empire. To make sense of this turn of events, the Elon Inc. crew invited PJ Vogt, the host of the Search Engine podcast, which earlier this year went deep down the Elon Musk rabbit hole to understand how, exactly, one of the world’s most admired technologists turned into a trolling, right wing memelord.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Elon Musk announced his new AI chatbot “Grok” last month, almost everything about it looked like a publicity stunt or a vanity project or both. The product was seemingly built over a matter of months, it was only available to a small group of X users and its chief selling point was Musk’s promise it wouldn’t be constrained by the “woke mind virus.” He boasted that Grok’s chatbot was “based”—a slang term meaning unapologetically right wing—and posted fratty memes meant to emphasize Grok’s dominance over market-leading competitor ChatGPT.

None of this inspired confidence. But with Grok now available to paying users of Musk’s social media platform, the reviews are coming in. And they’re surprisingly positive. This week we are joined by Bloomberg reporter Shirin Ghaffary, who has been testing out the new chatbot and comparing it ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbot.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years, Elon Musk has fended off efforts by the United Auto Workers to unionize his factory in Fremont, California, where Tesla Inc. employs roughly 20,000 workers.

But in recent weeks, Musk has struggled to contend with a seemingly less formidable threat: a tiny contingent of Scandinavian mechanics. This determined group is creating serious problems for the company across northern Europe. Bloomberg News editor Craig Trudell joins us this week to talk about a recent strike by employees at Swedish Tesla service centers, one which has led to work stoppages and blockades in neighboring countries.

The strikes may reflect Musk’s increasingly polarizing personal brand, which took an even more right-wing turn this weekend when he participated in a live call-in show with a well-known far-right conspiracy theorist and an accused human trafficker.

Also: the X holiday gift guide.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This time we assess the aftermath of an especially gonzo week in the life of Elon Musk—one in which the billionaire CEO delivered the first production units of his company’s latest vehicle (the Cybertruck), weighed in on his preferred candidates for the 2024 election (neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden) and offered a message to the chief executive of one of America’s most beloved brands (“Go f— yourself”).

Such trash talk and worse has left Musk somewhat isolated, with advertisers like Disney still avoiding his social media platform over his endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first shipments of Tesla Inc.’s long awaited Cybertruck are expected on Thursday—a momentous event given the years of anticipation. Bloomberg senior reporter Dana Hull joins this episode of Elon, Inc. to discuss the futuristic truck and its four years of engineering and development delays. But first, we speak with reporter Marissa Newman about Elon Musk’s recent trip to the Israel-Gaza border.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been about a week since X-owner Elon Musk ignited a firestorm by endorsing antisemitic and racist posts on his social media platform. Since then, X Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino has been scrambling to contain the fallout as major advertisers like IBM, Sony, Discovery, Apple and CBS stopped or paused spending on the site. We take a look at what has happened.

Also, how does the OpenAI mess impact Musk?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emergency pod! We are back in the studio for a second time this week to discuss the fallout of recent X posts by Elon Musk. Musk—who often posts controversial material—has taken things a step further in recent days, openly praising racist and antisemitic posts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.