Elon, Inc.

Elon Musk has made more headlines than usual as he travels all over Pennsylvania, working to help Donald Trump win the state in the Nov. 5 presidential election. As usual, the right-wing billionaire (Musk in this case) has been doing things his way, behaving like Trump by pushing traditional boundaries for campaigning, while also potentially violating election laws. Musk’s latest gambit, to offer swing state residents the chance at winning a $1 million if they sign a petition promising they’ll support the First and Second Amendments (which, for the record, became law several hundred years ago) has a caught the eye of Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro (to qualify, one has to register to vote).

Shapiro has said that law enforcement should look at this practice, which has been criticized as yet another way to manipulate the election. On this week’s episode of Elon, Inc, host David Papadopoulos and Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Max Chafkin discuss Musk’s latest political exploit in the Keystone State.

But we also take a step back. How on Earth did we end up in this situation? What does it mean that the world’s richest person has been united with Trump, a twice-impeached, convicted felon who is the subject of multiple felony prosecutions? In the three part limited series Citizen Elon—hosted by Chafkin—we’ll explore how Musk’s politics have (and have not) changed over time; what the mercurial chief executive of a huge social network can do to tilt the political information war; how money (dark and light) provides the infrastructure for the 2024 presidential race; and finally, what’s at stake for Musk himself in this unprecedented dive headfirst into the political sphere. In today’s episode we run an excerpt from the first episode, “Flipping the Table.”

Citizen Elon will publish in the Elon, Inc. feed on Fridays, but Bloomberg.com subscribers get every episode early. Subscribe today at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer, and follow Elon, Inc. on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.

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Over the course of one weekend in July, the presidential election was turned on its head. This is when news organizations announced that Elon Musk was backing Donald Trump—and gave a real endorsement, something he said he’d never do. What does it mean that the world’s richest man has been united with not just any presidential candidate, but Trump? In this three-part series from Elon, Inc., we will explore how Musk’s politics have (and haven’t) changed over time; what the mercurial CEO of a huge social network can do to tilt the information war in presidential politics; how money, dark and light, provides the infrastructure for the 2024 presidential race; and finally, what is at stake for Musk himself in this unprecedented dive headfirst into the political sphere.

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When sports, business and culture collide, there’s often a deal to be made. Join Alex Rodriguez and Bloomberg correspondent Jason Kelly as they get the inside track from corporate titans, sports champions and game-changing entrepreneurs on investing, strategy, reinvention and the ones that got away. The Deal is a Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals series that’s passionate, relaxed, insightful and inspirational. If you think you know these icons, prepare to be surprised.

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In the wake of his disappointing “robotaxi” launch and Wall Street’s punishing response, Elon Musk had at least one reason to celebrate this past week: the successful deployment of a complicated rocket retrieval system. But that doesn’t mean we are done picking through the Robotaxi unveiling and how the Optimus robots weren’t really “robots.” To unpack these events, we have reporters Loren Grush and Dana Hull as well as Bloomberg Television correspondent Ed Ludlow. Then we feature reporter Kurt Wagner interviewing Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, co-authors of the recently published book, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. 

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It was a late night for Tesla fans, investors and journalists as the much-discussed unveiling of Elon Musk’s “cybercab” (or is it “robotaxi?”) was significantly delayed from its scheduled 10 pm ET start. And while the aesthetics of the vehicle got some rave reviews, details on production of a new wave of autonomous vehicles—let alone their potential deployment—were scant. 

To get a quick round-up of thoughts, David Papadopoulos jumped into the studio with Bloomberg editor Craig Trudell to discuss.

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This week was supposed to be all about Thursday’s big Tesla unveiling—but Elon Musk jumped (literally) on stage with his new best friend, Donald Trump, prompting all sorts of memes in a week when he may have revealed his real motivation for backing a convicted felon for president. On this episode of Elon, Inc., we preview what people can expect in a Robotaxi with Dana, Max and Bloomberg editor Craig Trudell, and dig into Musk’s rebirth as a Republican megadonor with a special guest—journalist Jacob Silverman, who is working on a book about tech’s move to the right.

And there’s BINGO! We have made Robotaxi bingo cards for people following along at home, with words we think Musk will say during the event. Go to https://www.bloomberg.com/eloninc for some of the cards to print out. 

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As we’ve previously discussed here on Elon, Inc., the billionaire’s posts on X have grown more and more political—and right wing—over time. This week, we have Bloomberg’s Jonathan Tirone with us to discuss how Elon Musk, and his platform, have brought the once-obscure, White nationalist term “remigration” back into US politics. Then, tech reporter Kurt Wagner talks to Jack Sweeney, the young man who made a flight tracking service Musk personally de-platformed. Plus: Tesla seems poised to uncork some good news about its sale numbers in front of next week’s big Robotaxi event. 

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Feuds. Can’t beat ‘em, can’t stop ‘em. At Elon, Inc., we’ve long covered Elon Musk’s penchant for a public feud at the end of episodes, but today feuds take center stage. David and Max talk to Bloomberg emerging markets reporter Julia Leite, who is based in Brazil, about Musk’s evolving legal situation there. Then Dana joins to talk about the Cybertruck situation in Chechnya.

We can't help ourselves. There's two extra feuds, both related to land-use disputes. First, the party game Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for allegedly trespassing on a swath of land that the company bought in 2017. Secondly, in the ongoing feud between prominent venture capitalist and Democrat donor Vinod Khosla, there has been a new chapter. In the course of trading insults on X, Musk mocked Khosla for a previous fight Khosla had had about beach access, and Khosla has asked him to apologize.

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As we chronicle every week on Elon, Inc., Elon Musk contains multitudes. He leads six companies, runs his own social-media platform and is now explicitly working to re-elect Donald Trump as president. This week, we talk about two very different kinds of Musk stories. One is about his behavior on X, and the rare tweet he took down. The other is about how his space company, SpaceX, is having a great run of late, with a successful space walk and a new deal with United Airlines. 

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Does Elon Musk consider all of his companies to be one giant company? That’s something that comes up in today’s episode as host David, Dana and Max consider a recent report on Tesla potentially giving up future revenue in exchange for access to Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI access. That brings up corporate governance issues. 

And then, Dana speaks to New York Times reporter Kirsten Grind about a story she wrote on Musk’s plans regarding Mars.

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After months of back and forth, Brazil finally did what it’s been threatening to do: ban X. This comes on the heels of government complaints from Britain and elsewhere about false information thriving on Elon Musk’s embattled social media platform—some of it from Musk himself. In this episode of Elon, Inc., we dig into Brazil’s action and also talk about the Android app launch of X TV, a way to watch video content from the former Twitter on your home TV screen. Our panel—David Papadopoulos, Max Chafkin and Kurt Wagner—have some ideas.

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Tesla is often heralded as Elon Musk’s premiere company, the business at the foundation of all his other businesses. But as Tesla has struggled and lost market share, it’s SpaceX that keeps surging ahead of the competition.

SpaceX is trying to add the first commercial spacewalk to its list of accomplishments, and is set to bail out embattled rival Boeing by retrieving astronauts stranded by its faulty Starliner. This week reporters Loren Grush and Bruce Einhorn sift through the developments and debate if there’s any competition left for SpaceX in this field.

Host David Papadopoulos is also joined by reporter Kurt Wagner and editor Sarah Frier to discuss the latest development over at X. Why is Donald Trump all of a sudden posting again on his richest fan’s troubled platform? Will the arrest of Telegram Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov have any consequences for Musk and X? And why did Diddy invest in Musk's takeover of X?

As always with Musk, there’s a lot to talk about.

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Reality TV stars are freezing their eggs on camera. Lawmakers in DC are debating federal protection for IVF. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in slick startups that market fertility treatments for all. But this rapid growth has revealed cracks in the system. Misconception, a new series from Bloomberg’s Prognosis, follows reporter Kristen V. Brown on her own intimate journey as she uncovers the business of fertility. Along the way, she finds a fractured industry — a profit-driven field of medicine that thrives on dueling messages of hope and fear as people gamble everything for a chance at a baby.

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Last week, X users might have noticed a new kind of artificial intelligence-generated image proliferating: strange visions of Elon Musk next to Disney characters carrying guns, or Donald Trump in all kinds of, well, weird situations. This was what followed a new release of Musk’s Grok AI tool, which can now make images—unsurprisingly with fewer guardrails than other image-creating machines out there.

On this episode we’ll talk about Grok’s new skillset and also get into the semiotics of the Cybertruck. Initially conceived of as a mass-market truck, it’s slid into another category: marker of a certain kind of right-wing flex, the kind Musk himself has engaged in on his struggling social network. Joining David to discuss is Davey Alba, a Bloomberg technology reporter, along with Max Chafkin and Dana Hull.

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Monday night, Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Elon Musk on Musk’s social media platform, X. An unfiltered conversation between two of the most influential figures of the last decade? It was no surprise that over one million people listened concurrently in as they meandered across topics ranging from electric vehicles and immigration, to a play-by-play of the assassination attempt Trump survived in Pennsylvania last month.

So what’s the significance of this interview, which produced very little news and was marred from the start by technical issues? On the latest episode of Elon, Inc., host David gathers Max and Dana to try and untangle it.

But wait there’s more. In the final installment of our summer conversation series, Papadopoulos speaks with Bethany Allen, head of program for China investigations and analysis at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Allen unpacks Musk’s business ventures in China and what his involvement with the country means for Tesla and the electric vehicle industry at large.

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As the world reacts to US Vice President Kamala Harris’s own vice-presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, our attention stays focused on Monday’s stock market selloff (though much was recovered on Tuesday). One of the big topics of conversation was, does the sudden dip represent a popping artificial intelligence bubble? And what would such a correction do to Elon Musk? On this week’s episode of Elon, Inc., Bloomberg Businessweek’s Max Chafkin, Bloomberg technology editor Sarah Frier and reporter Kurt Wagner discuss. Plus later on: a conversation between Chafkin and the New Yorker’s Rachel Monroe and journalist Chris Hooks on what Musk’s relocation to Texas has meant for the state.

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Presidential political news—and memes—continue to electrify the American public. And it seems they’ve had an effect on Elon Musk as well, seeing how the far-right GOP megadonor has been posting madly on his embattled social media platform. Among media shared by Musk—now a full-throated supporter of Donald Trump—has been a fake video of US Vice President Kamala Harris with the parody label removed.

Bloomberg technology editor Sarah Frier and reporter Kurt Wagner join Elon, Inc., to talk about this. Later on the episode, Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull interviews New York Times reporter Mike Isaac about Musk’s troubled relationship with California.

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When President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping his campaign for re-election, the news reached most people via the President's post to X. Some are calling that a win for Musk's beleaguered platform, but Musk himself seemed to be preoccupied with propping up former President Trump's campaign on X, a platform Trump himself won't even use. David and Max are joined by tech editor Sarah Frier to dig into how it all played out on X.Plus, the first installment of our Summer Conversation Series: Max Chafkin speaks with Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief of Electrek, about how the Venn diagram of Elon Musk fans and Tesla fans has evolved in parallel with the Elon Musk's political shift.

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The fortunes of Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been converging for the better part of the past year. But over the past week, the union became official. On Friday, Bloomberg broke the news of a significant donation to a Trump Super-PAC. Then on Saturday, immediately after an assassination attempt on Trump’s life, Musk tweeted out his endorsement of the former president. 

David, Max, and Dana are joined Bloomberg Businessweek editor Brad Stone, who sat down with Trump in Florida for this month’s cover story, to discuss what Trump and Musk have in common, what may come out of this union, and how big of a black eye for Musk a Trump loss would mean. All this, plus the disappearing Robotaxi.

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Bloomberg reporters Josh Eidelson and Loren Grush recently went deep on a tangle of lawsuits orbiting SpaceX, all related to toxic workplace allegations including sexual harassment and retaliation. They join the Elon, Inc., panel to tell us what they found. Also, Dana and Max discuss a new feud developing between Musk and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman while delivering some thoughts on the fate of those who short Tesla stock.

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Tuesday was a big day in the world of Tesla, which reported its second-quarter sales numbers. After a disastrous start to 2024, and despite year-over-year sales being down, the numbers weren’t that bad.  David, Dana and Max talk it out with Bloomberg senior editor for autos Craig Trudell. Plus we have a lot of SpaceX and X news. 

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Why is Elon Musk so obsessed with birth rates? And what is he doing about it? Those questions are at the heart of today’s episode, as well as the Bloomberg Businessweek feature by Sophie Alexander and Dana Hull. They join David Papadopoulos to talk about their reporting (and their scoop on Musk’s twelfth known child). Plus, what’s happening at X? Falling revenues have led to a high-level shake-up, as Kurt Wagner comes aboard to discuss.

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Last week, we wondered whether Elon Musk would get his pay package approved in a shareholder vote—and we got our answer. According to Musk and Tesla, over 70% of shareholders voted to approve his record-setting deal. But what does this mean? To help answer that question, Elon, Inc. has convened its regular panelists, in the form of Max and Dana, as well as Delaware courts reporter Jef Feeley. And later on, Kurt Wagner comes on to talk about his scoop about X’s plans to become a payment service, and Max Read, of the Read Max newsletter, shares his thoughts on why X has decided to hide its “likes.”

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Max and Dana recently joined Ashlee Vance as guests on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast for a special Elon Musk episode. The wide ranging discussion covered a plethora of subjects, like Starlink's influence on the amateur night sky photographer community, Elon's leadership style and whether all his efforts really is just a combined effort to take humans to Mars. Dana seems to think so.It was such a good time, we can't help but share it with you today. So click play, enjoy, and then go subscribe to Odd Lots.

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On Thursday, Tesla—and Elon Musk—will face a vote of great emotional (if not legal) import: will shareholders approve, among other things, a measure to restore his $56 billion pay package? The one a Delaware judge threw out earlier this year? To get into what the vote means, we have Dana, Max and reporter Esha Day, who stuck around to tell us what’s happening with Tesla’s share price. It had flatlined earlier this year—but now it’s a bit more “boring.” 

Plus, a multifaceted feud watch! After Apple unveiled artificial intelligence integrations Monday, Musk took to X to rip the announcement, saying that if OpenAI were to go into Apple’s operating system, he would not let his employees bring iPhones to work. We shall see if he makes good on this!

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Foundering: The OpenAI Story is a narrative podcast that examines the rise of Sam Altman, from the time he was a 19-year-old startup founder, then the head of Y Combinator, and now the billionaire king of this AI boom.

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In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s felony conviction for fraud, his followers scrambled to be first to reaffirm their fealty to the twice-impeached Republican. But for some reason, Trump’s new status as a convict also was accompanied by a resurgence of stories about another right-wing figure—Elon Musk—and their warming relationship. 

Bloomberg has reported on how Musk is advising the presumptive GOP presidential candidate on all things crypto (maybe Dogecoin?), and the Wall Street Journal has related details about their time together in Florida—as well as the Tesla chief executive’s potential role in a second Trump administration. Bloomberg’s national politics correspondent Nancy Cook joins Max Chafkin and Kurt Wagner to talk about all of this. Also, the panel looked at some recent legal issues. 

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Elon Musk has an interesting entourage (to say the least) and a penchant for bringing executives from one of his companies to another—often at the same time. In this special bonus episode of Elon, Inc., accompanying this Bloomberg feature, we turn to our panel of Max Chafkin, Dana Hull and Kurt Wagner, as well as special guest Katie Notopoulos, who covers tech culture for Business Insider. Together, they grapple with Musk’s cast of adjutants and why it’s important to know who they are.

Then we play a game we’re calling, “Elon High.” If we were going to give high school superlatives to these people (think most likely to succeed, class clown, biggest flirt), what would they be? Stick around for the categories invented by the panelists themselves. 

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Recently, a Democratic pollster surveyed the value of celebrity endorsement on the presidential race—looking at a sample of younger voters. The upshot was that Zendaya was the most influential celebrity—but Elon's name came up, too. He was one of the celebrities whose endorsement sends people running the other way. Call him an anti-influencer.

Today on Elon, Inc., our panel of regulars—Max Chafkin, Dana Hull and host David Papadopoulos—are joined by Bloomberg political writer Joshua Green to talk about the state of Musk’s political life, as well as a grab bag of other news.

Also: Feud Watch returns!

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Last week, Bloomberg Businessweek published an exclusive look at Noland Arbaugh, the first person to get Elon Musk’s Neuralink technology implanted in his head. Our own Ashlee Vance spent time with Arbaugh, who lives with his parents and (as you’ll hear) some vocal farm animals. Vance joins us to talk about what he learned from the first patient in Neuralink’s inaugural clinical trial. He is joined by Bloomberg’s Sarah McBride to give a full picture on what it all means. Plus, we talk to markets reporter Kiel Porter and space reporter Loren Grush about all of the action around SpaceX stock—which is kind of interesting since it’s still a private company. 

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We’re taking The Big Take to Asia. Each week, Bloomberg’s Oanh Ha tells a story from the home of the world's most dynamic economies - and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive the ever-shifting region. 

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Last week, Elon, Inc. held a live taping at Bloomberg’s Tech Summit. Like many of the conversations that day, it focused on artificial intelligence. Host David Papadopoulos was joined by Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Max Chafkin, Bloomberg Musk reporter Dana Hull and a special guest, Bloomberg Businessweek editor Brad Stone. Together, we broke down how Elon Musk has (and hasn’t) innovated in this crucial industry. 

Also, the crew tested Brad on whether he could differentiate between Grok and other chatbots in a game called “School of Grok.” 

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Last week, the news broke that Tesla had terminated most of its supercharging team (along with summer interns) as part of a broader mass dismissal. Even with all the frantic efforts to bolster profits, this came as a surprise. Perhaps less of a surprise? White supremacist Nick Fuentes being allowed back on Musk’s X, where he promptly held a Sunday night Spaces broadcast with, as of Tuesday afternoon, 2.1 million viewers. The biggest surprise this week in Elon-world though had to be his new role as social media etiquette adviser, as he attempted to school J.K. Rowling on the best ways to post (remember the positive!).

David, Dana and Max are joined by Bloomberg tech reporter Kurt Wagner to unpack all of this, and then some.

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Before last week’s Tesla earnings, Elon Musk was scheduled to go to India—but didn’t. This weekend, though, news broke that he had in fact gone to China, to try to negotiate regulatory acceptance for his FSD (full self-driving) system. (It’s not actually full self-driving.) The Elon, Inc. panel—reporters Dana Hull and Max Chafkin—ponder that trip, and then delve into the second anniversary of Elon’s joke-y offer to buy Twitter, now X. Plus: A long simmering feud begins to boil over.

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This week David, Dana and Max are joined by Bloomberg Technology co-host Ed Ludlow to take a deep dive into all things Tesla, in advance of today’s fateful earnings report. Things are looking increasingly bleak for the company and we'll soon know if the numbers match the mood set by last week's layoffs. Also discussed: BINGO! And then, is Elon Musk feuding with Tucker Carlson? Max seems to think so, Dana is not so sure.

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We here at Elon, Inc wanted to introduce you to Matt Levine's Money Stuff: The Podcast - especially since he spoke about Elon in the latest episode. Please enjoy this excerpt, and subscribe to their feed if you like what you hear!

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For the past week, Tesla has been in the news—badly. Tesla announced the largest company-wide terminations in its history—laying off 10% of its global workforce, or thousands of people. At the same time, two top executives are leaving. And that’s just the latest. So what gives? We explain. Plus, David, Dana and Max  are joined by national security reporter Dan Flatley to talk about Musk’s upcoming trip to India.

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On Friday, Elon promised an August 8 unveiling of a new robotaxi and replied to a post on X suggesting that Tesla was “shifting more resources” to the category.

Meanwhile, Musk’s in a standoff with Brazil’s Supreme Court over what he sees as the country’s heavy-handed regulation of misinformation. The battle could force X out of one of its key markets.

We discuss his legal challenges in Brazil with Sasha Issenberg, author of The Lie Detectives, and Bloomberg social media reporter Kurt Wagner (author of Battle for the Bird). And then chat through the implications of Musk’s turn to a technology that remains unproven with Elon, Inc. regulars Max Chafkin and Dana Hull.

Finally, a brand new segment: Enchantment of the Week, where we analyze the a potential alliance between Elon and investor Nelson Peltz.

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If you think you’ve been seeing more X-rated content on X lately, you’re not alone. Elon's social media platform has long been permissive about suggestive material, but as Musk cut his content moderation teams, there seems to be more of the stuff floating around—and in more prominent places. This week, John Herrman of New York magazine, who recently published a story about a strange, particularly viral type of post, joins the Elon, Inc. panel to talk about X and porn. But first, Tesla sales numbers. They are not good. Not good at all. 

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In a collaboration with the Bloomberg’s Big Take podcast, we present a story on SpaceX's Starlink satellite program. It touts itself as a source of reliable internet in hard-to-reach places. But there are some countries where Starlink’s services aren’t licensed, or where the company can’t do business because of US sanctions. And a Bloomberg investigation has found that Starlink kits are appearing in many of those markets anyway – with geopolitical consequences.

Before we unpack that reporting, David, Max and Dana discuss new rules for selling Teslas, a tossed lawsuit and a report alleging that X has been profiting from selling data to governments and police departments, via a third-party data broker, even as it fights a lawsuit related to government surveillance.

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The Big Take from Bloomberg News brings you inside what’s shaping the world's economies with the smartest and most informed business reporters around the world. The context you need on the stories that can move markets. Every afternoon.

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In January, former CNN anchor Don Lemon announced that he’d had found a new patron who promised not to rein him in: Elon Musk. The new Don Lemon Show would air on X, Musk’s social media network. Lemon described the app formerly known as Twitter as “the biggest space for free speech in the world.” He promised “a place for honest debate and discussion without the hall monitors.”

The partnership, which X chief executive Linda Yaccarino, had also enthusiastically touted, didn’t survive the first episode, which featured an extremely awkward interview with Lemon’s would-be patron. The relationship died before the interview even aired.

To break down the breakdown of what had been one of Musk’s highest profile content deals, and to discuss what it means for his struggling social network, we speak with Bloomberg social media reporter Kurt Wagner and Bloomberg’s Musk correspondent Dana Hull.

But first we sift through the laundry list of other Musk news this week.

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There’s a very old saying in Texas—“all hat and no cattle”—meaning essentially all talk, no action. Does this describe Musk, the state’s richest resident? Elon, Inc. went to Austin for a live taping at the South by Southwest festival to talk about Elon Musk’s influence on his newly adopted home, and also, its influence on him. David Papadopoulos was joined by Bloomberg Businessweek’s Max Chafkin and Rachel Monroe, who covers Texas and the Southwest for the New Yorker, as well as Sewell Chan, editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune. 

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This week on Elon, Inc., Businessweek senior reporter and editor Max Chafkin talks to Joshua Green, Businessweek’s political correspondent, about a recent meeting (or is it meetings?) of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Elon has said that he won’t be donating to either US presidential candidate but — as recent X posts make clear — he is firmly in Trump’s political territory. Will Trump and Elon put aside past differences to somehow merge? We discuss.

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Elon Musk is mad at Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI. Musk has many grievances with the nonprofit research lab, some of which he has brought up repeatedly on podcasts, during television interviews and in social media posts. Among them: Musk thinks ChatGPT, the company’s AI chatbot, is insufficiently conservative (“WokeGPT,” he likes to call it), worries it might somehow lead to the end of the world if the chatbots get out of control and seems to be very frustrated about receiving insufficient credit for OpenAI’s achievements. (“I am the reason OpenAI exists,” he claimed on CNBC last year.)

None of these are necessarily grounds for a legal complaint, which may be why the lawsuit he filed against OpenAI last week focuses on a related, but somewhat different grievance: Musk says he donated money to what he thought was a philanthropic research lab, only to discover it was Silicon Valley’s hottest startup, with an $86 billion valuation and ambitions for a whole lot more.

To analyze the suit, and the feud between two of tech’s most powerful figures, Elon, Inc. called in Bloomberg’s official Elon Musk correspondent, Dana Hull, along with Bloomberg’s  unofficial one, Money Stuff author Matt Levine. We are also joined by tech reporter Shirin Ghaffary (and author of the Q&AI newsletter) for a discussion about the merits (or lack thereof) of Musk’s argument and the competitive state of play. We also cover Musk’s fight over pay in Delaware and the new (new?) Tesla Roadster.

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The Deal, hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, features intimate conversations with business titans, sports champions and game-changing entrepreneurs who reveal their investment philosophies, pivotal career moves and the ones that got away. From Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals, The Deal is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Bloomberg Carplay, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch The Deal on Bloomberg Television, and Bloomberg Originals on YouTube.

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What happens when Elon's formula for success goes wrong? In this episode we explored the failings of the Boring Company, Musk’s tunneling venture, with Bloomberg startups reporter Sarah McBride. When Musk started the company, in 2016, he did so with wild promises about super fast “hyperloop” travel, advanced tunnel boring machines, and dramatically lowered costs. But, as Bloomberg Businessweek reported yesterday, Boring Company workers say that Musk has achieved little in the way of actual innovations and has mostly focused on cutting corners, often at their expense.

Also, Hannah Elliott, co-host of the Hot Pursuit! podcast, reviews the Cybertruck. Hannah had been skeptical of Musk’s weird retro-futuristic pickup, but she mostly liked it! With some important caveats, one being the surprising celebrity-like status of the driver.

Finally, we dive into a feud with a possible happy ending.

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In this bonus episode, Max Chafkin sits down with Bloomberg social media reporter Kurt Wagner to talk about Wagner’s new book Battle for the Bird: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and the $44 Billion Fight for Twitter’s Soul.

So why DID Elon buy Twitter? Max and Kurt explore three theories, including that Musk bought Twitter to confound a guy tracking his private jet, in an attempt to answer that—and many other—questions.

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Over the past year or so, Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system has become increasingly important—and along with that, valuable. It’s been in the news recently because Ukrainian officials said that Russia was using Starlink to help their military operations in occupied parts of Ukraine—something Musk himself has denied. At the same time, though, Musk has been vocal about his opinion that the US should not continue funding Ukraine in their fight against Russia, an opinion shared by many rightwing Republican politicians. Starlink has also been approved to work in another conflict zone, as Israel gave permission for a Starlink terminal to be parked in a field hospital in Gaza. 

With all of the attention on Starlink’s role in conflict comes another, related question: how financially important is the product to Musk’s overall business empire? To talk about these questions, Elon, Inc. welcomed two Bloomberg experts to the panel: Marc Champion, a Bloomberg Opinion writer who has written about Musk’s role for both Ukraine and Russia, and Ed Ludlow, Bloomberg Technology reporter and TV host. 

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Following a Superbowl attack ad, this week’s episode sees the crew discussing the challenges (and opportunities posed by) Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. 

Then they welcome Barry Ritholtz, host of the podcast Masters in Business and the founder of Ritholtz Wealth Management, to the studio for a wide-ranging conversation about Musk’s prowess as a manager and as a marketer.

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Lately, Tesla has been one of the stock market’s biggest losers. Since the beginning of the year, the company has dropped about $200 billion in market capitalization, making it the single-worst performing stock on the S&P 500. The spiral has come amid a storm of negative headlines—especially regarding slowing growth in electric vehicle purchases—a category Tesla has long dominated. Worse for Tesla, some of the most negative headlines were ones caused by Musk’s own erratic decisionmaking.

To discuss why Tesla’s stock is falling and what it might mean for Musk’s larger empire, we brought in senior reporter Esha Dey, who covers stocks for Bloomberg.

We also return to Elon’s alleged drug use. A necessary ingredient in his success to some, but insiders’ fear that Elon has become self-destructive and could eventually cause investors to rethink their beliefs.

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Yesterday’s Delaware court ruling could cost Elon Musk more than just $55 billion. The scathing, 200-page decision—by the same judge who presided over a case that led to Musk paying $44 billion for Twitter—called out the billionaire CEO for failing to disclose his sway over supposedly independent board members. She went on to characterize the pay package as unfair to shareholders and voided it.

To analyze what this means for Tesla and Musk’s other companies, Elon, Inc. called together long-time Tesla reporter Dana Hull, Businessweek's Max Chafkin, and legal reporter Jef Feeley, who has covered Delaware’s Chancery Court for three decades, for an emergency podcast.

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Since 2019, Musk has promised that his company Neuralink, which is developing computer chips to be implanted in people’s brains, was close to performing an experimental surgery on it first human subject. And yesterday he could at last announce: “The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well”  Having finally delivered on his prediction, Musk used the occasion to tease a proposed product name, Telepathy. To discuss Neuralink’s achievement, Bloomberg tech reporter Sarah McBride joins the crew. 

Also, Kurt Wagner analyzes X’s recent struggles with AI-powered revenge porn, and Dana Hull follows up on last week's Tesla earnings bingo.

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For years, Tesla fans and critics alike have produced mock bingo cards ahead of Tesla earnings calls. And so, in honor of Tesla’s next call, which will be held Jan. 24 after markets close, the Elon Inc. crew produced our own bingo game. This week we preview Tesla’s Q4 2023 earnings and introduce our picks for which Muskisms will carry the day. You can download a PDF of this quarter’s bingo card here.

In this episode we also recap the other major events from the week: A visit to Auschwitz, a farewell to a former political ally and a paltry attempt at feud of the week.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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On Friday, SpaceX is scheduled to launch its Starship spacecraft for the second time. The first time yielded… mixed results. It was detonated within minutes of launch. In this episode we look back at what went wrong the first time, look ahead to the coming launch, and figure out what’s so difficult about space travel anyway. We also take a look at some recent statements from Elon on things like OpenAI and freedom of speech.

This episode is hosted by Bloomberg executive editor David Papadopoulos, who is joined by Bloomberg Businessweek senior reporter Max Chafkin, Bloomberg editor Sarah Frier and space reporter Loren Grush.

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Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink wants to implant a tiny chip in people’s brains, and it’s looking for a volunteer for its first clinical trial.

Ashlee Vance, a Musk biographer and Bloomberg Businessweek contributor, made nearly a dozen visits to Neuralink facilities over the past three years for this week’s cover story on Neuralink. He’s reported on a robot brain-surgeon, an impatient Musk and a surreal scenes of smoothie-sipping, brain-chipped monkeys.

Musk has reshaped an entire industry, and this one could be the most transformative of all. This bonus episode of Elon, Inc. is hosted by David Papadopoulos. He’s joined by Vance and technology reporter Sarah McBride. Read the cover story here. 

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In our inaugural episode, we take a close look at the latest industry Musk wants to disrupt: artificial intelligence. We also discuss something that might disrupt Elon: after scoring big union wins in Detroit, UAW's Shawn Fain has set his eyes on Tesla.

This episode is hosted by Bloomberg executive editor David Papadopoulos, who is joined by Bloomberg Businessweek senior reporter Max Chafkin, Bloomberg editor Sarah Frier and senior reporter Dana Hull.

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At Bloomberg, we’re always talking about the biggest business stories, and no one is bigger than Elon Musk.

In this new chat weekly show, host David Papadopoulos and a panel of guests including Businessweek’s Max Chafkin, Tesla reporter Dana Hull, Big Tech editor Sarah Frier, and more, will break down the most important stories on Musk and his empire. Coming November 7th.

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