Elon Musk Launches Into American Politics
28:46 Share

This podcast is supported by black rock.

Want to know what's happening in the markets? On the bit of podcast from black rock, we break down what's happening in the world of .

we see in people that develop economies. People just don't have the adequacy of savings to live in retirement individually the united states and explore .

the forces changing the economy and finance. We've never had such fantastic alignment around public policy and a technological innovation that we see an infrastructure right now subscribed to the bit .

wherever you get your pot .

from the york times. I'm Rachel abrams, and this is the daily.

After single handedly remaking the auto industry, social media and the global space race, elon musk e is now turning his attention and personal fortune to politics. Over the past few months, he became the single most influential figure in the race for president and now the emerging White house of donal trump. Today, my colleagues Christian grind and eric lipton on what exactly must wants from the new president and why he's so well boys to get IT. It's wednesday, november .

thirteenth.

curson. We spent the last few months watching as elon musk really became kind of the face of Donald trumps campaign for president. And in the day since he won, muss has only increased his proximity to president elect trump. And last night, of course, trump announced that musk would lead a new government agency. What will musk specific role in the trump administration be?

Late tuesday evening, Donald trump announced a bunch of new appointments to his new administration. And included in that was this role for elon mosque and what Donald trump s said is that elon mask will be leading up this completely new government department focused on efficiency. Efficiency is something that elon mosque has been obsessed with for years. And basically, it's just showing how much power elon musk is going to have in this administration and how much Donald trump respects his opinion. Person.

you've covered musk for years. Did any of the surprise you?

So i'm an investigative reporter who has written a lot about elon mask, and I have to say I could have never predicted this political transformation that has happened over the last year for him to become so involved in politics after really saying out of that for most of his life in career and being in the room with Donald trump election night is a minimal thesis I definitely was not prepared for.

How did we get from a guy you would never have expected to get into politics to someone who's about to potentially serve the White house?

The thing to understand about elon mosque is that he really believes his goal in life, in his mission, is to save humanity. He's made IT his focus and the focus of all of his companies to save the world. For example, he started space acts more than two decades ago with the goal of getting humanity to mars in case something happened to earth. He was an early investor in tesla and became at CEO because he was worried about fossil fuel.

and he's become the world's richest man by doing all of these ventures. But how do we go from that? And from him wanting to save humanity, possibly by colonizing mars, to basically becoming a key supporter and really a surrogate for trump?

It's a very unusual and unconventional transformation. For most of his early career, he had leaned democratic, but really, he just wasn't into politics at all. And for the most part, he stayed out a bit. But there's a few things that happened in the last four years that really started to shift his outlook. So let's start in twenty, the pandemic .

alive nia, this morning, now under .

a shelter in.

Tons of state home restrictions on residents and businesses, and most of elon masts company Operations were in california. And must speaks out against what's happening .

is the right to in prince upon people's rites. But what is happening right now.

he is extremely entire regulation, hates to have the government, or really anyone, tell him what to do.

This is, this is fascist.

And so the fact that he was going to have to close his tesla factories because of the pandemic made him so angry.

This was freedom. Give people back. They got me in freedom.

And finally, he threatened and then ultimately did move factories out of the state.

Wow, so this really pushed him over the edge. Would happen in .

california. IT really did. But then something happened the next year in twenty twenty one that was even more angering to him in which seems like a small thing, but has been something that he's like never been able to get over.

Please, everybody, sit down. Please, please, please.

The by an administration held this electric vehicle summit.

And I also wanted, thank the meters of the big three companies for bed here the day.

And they invited all the big car makers from all over the country to go .

when they make the first electric corbit. I get to drive IT.

right? Except for tesla. And you on mask .

you like biden held this eb summit.

ion was furious.

didn't mention as the ones, and praised gym and ford for leading the evy rest revolution.

To your pest.

this sound, maybe a little 的。

and he has never been able to let this go. This snub from the biden administration.

not the friendly of administration, to be controlled by the unions down. And basically .

IT created so much tension between tesla in the administration that, that also kind of set him on his political journey.

So IT sounds like the bite administration is on notice at this point, uh, that musk is really upset. And it's not just for a business reasons, it's really .

becoming kind of personnel, that's right. But IT also becomes ideological too, because remember, around twenty twenty two, he buys twitter ren ams at x and he basically says he buys IT to make IT a free speech platform. He especially thinks that conservatives had been censored on twitter.

Remember at this point, Donald trump had been kicked off twitter and other conservative voices, and he wants IT to be the sort of place for free speech of all kinds. And around this time, he really start to see a shift in what he is posting about on x. And IT becomes way more focus on what he's called the woke mind virus. What this basically means is, for example, diversity, equity and inclusion measures. Transgender rates pronounce all of that seems to be angering elon mask significantly on x and he starts posting about IT more and more.

The search is very possible for adults to manipulate children who have are having a nurse identity Prices into believing that they are the wrong gender.

And I want to bring up the other thing that to mean, really shows how far down this rabbit hole he had gone.

Why are you willing to make this an issue?

Do you think? I mean what the me.

which is that his daughter, Vivian, whose one of his oldest children had come out as transgender.

I was essentially tricked into a signing documents and and must .

claimed in an interview that he was tricked into signing these medical forms for Vivian and allowing her to do her transition when SHE was sixteen.

This is before I had really any understanding what was going on and put covered going on. So there was a lot of confusion .

that he had not been aware of. This basically course .

did naming for a reason.

And he said in this interview that he had been killed.

killed by the workmen virus. So I ve bought to destroy the the world, my virus after that. And we're making some progress.

SHE had some choice words back to him and also said that he was not tracked into signing those forms, but the whole incident just really showed how his thinking has changed and been radical zed over these last few years.

Another example of his ideological transformation is immigration. And that kind of ironic, because elon must himself is from south africa. But over the last couple years, he starts really focusing on illegal immigrants. And he keeps talking about how he feels the democratic party is allowing in these illegal immigrants so that they can get a majority and win the election.

So he's just to spouses this conspiratorial retorts right out in the open on his own platform.

That's right. And it's really this ideology that is so different from what you saw from him, even just a couple years.

Okay, so all that helps me understand how by twenty twenty four mosque is increasingly aligned with writing ideology. But when do he and Donald trump actually get together in some meaningful way?

So it's a little hard to tell because mosques world is very insulted. But you can kind of see why at this point, he and trump are so aligned. So the two people are so similar.

really like how.

I mean, they both have immense wealth and power, but they both act like outsiders and victims. I think this one is maybe the most important, which is that they both sort of think the system is broken, and they both really think that they are the ones to fix that, and they kind of refuse to stick with the status quo.

And so we know at one point earlier this year must met with some billionaire ds of his, one of whom was encouraging him to get involved in the campaign to donate, which would be pretty Normal for someone of his stature and wealth. And then we know at some point earlier this year, he did also meet with trump. And then by june, he had established a super pack ready to invest in trumps campaign.

So can you just break down for a second? What is that support .

actually look like? IT is above and beyond what a Normal donor would do that, for sure. So his super pack has donated more than one hundred million.

That would be a kind of Normal for a billionaire. Another donor perhaps. But what has been unusual is the super pack, which is called the amErica pack, with in pennsylvania knocking on doors. They knocked on eleven million doors in battleground states.

Come on up, people.

But the most amazing thing to me has been watching him at this ralles.

The energy in this is incredible.

Right up on stage, he was with trump.

AmErica is not not going just going to be great. AmErica is going to reach heights that that has has never seen before. The future is gonna to be amazing.

He was just right out there with him, almost like he was running for president.

You guys are awesome. onis.

But wasn't this man trying to run like six companies and colonized mars? How do you have time for all of this?

yes. Well, that's a very good question. He has a lot of good people running his companies. But meanwhile, to take IT back to his whole life score, which is to save humanity, that's actually exactly what he thinks he is doing here.

And in fact, he is said recently that he still really do not want to get into politics, but that he had to because civilization was on the line. So that again is why he is out there. And on election night, there's a big family photo with trump, their kids, their grandkids and there's elon musk just right beside them.

And in a few days since the election, he's basically been camped out at mora logo. He was reportedly on this phone call with the ukrainian president vlad ameres elenchi and trump. He's been advising trump on cabinet positions.

And then as we know, on tuesday night, he got his own position appointed. And we've just never seen anything like that. This super billionaire, elon mask, suddenly, with all this potential power in the federal government.

After the break, I talked to my colleague, eric litton, about what musk stands again from the trump White house.

This podcast is supported by black rock.

I want to know what's happening in the markets on the bid, a podcast from like rock. We break down what's happening in the world of investing.

We see in so many that developed economies he brings just don't have the adequacy of savings to live in retirement and specifically the united and .

explore the force changing the economy and finance. We've never had such fantastic alignment around public policy and technological innovation that we see an infrastructure right now. Subscribe to the bid wherever you get your podcast.

Okay, i'm opening the new york times up the APP ads so much more .

than you might expect.

The way the tops are at the top with all of the different sections is just easier to navigate that way. There is something for everyone.

When I open the youtube, I get a short list of articles that are more related to me.

Ten stories pick for you day.

able to add sections that interest you.

That's really handy. There are some individuals in here. I can add paul crook like him.

the lifestyle tab. The photos are just phenomenal. It's kind like a class I am, grow over to the games page, play word all or connections, and then swipe over to read today's headlined.

There's an article next to recipe, next to games, and easy to get everything in one place. And before you know you can be late to work.

the new york times, all of the times, all in one place.

downloaded now at anyone.

times dog com slash APP.

So eric, we just heard from her a colleague, current grind, that IT has not taken elon mosque very long to insert himself into this emerging trump presidency in a way that feels without precedent, Frankly. And you've been looking into exactly what must could stand to gain from access to a trump White house. But first, can you just remind us what is elan musk current relationship with the federal government?

I think it's underappreciated. The extent to which elan musk has relied on the federal government to help build his own wealth and the size of his companies, he has at least one hundred different contracts pending with the federal government, with seventeen different agencies. The majority that work is with space ex, which has really owed its existence largely to the federal government.

NASA kicked IT off by giving space ex the money that he needed to build a falcon nine rocket, which now puts almost all of the world's cargo into orbit each year, more than every other nation in the world combined. H wow. And space sex alone has gotten ten billion dollars worth of contracts from the final government over the last five years to deliver stuff to space that includes cargo to the space station after not to the space station, space satellites, missile defense systems and dozens of other items for the federal government. And it's unlike any other commercial space company in the history of the united states in ternes of the extent of its dominance and the money that's going to IT to provide those services to the federal government.

So government contracts really made musk in away, like he's clearly been very successful under the status quote. So that sort of big the question of what more is there for him to gain.

I mean, since must create space x back in two thousand and two, he's been completely fixated with getting humans to mars. And one of the things that incredibly frustrated tes him is when he encounters paperwork requirements and regulatory slowdowns, he often comments about how he can build this rockets faster than federal bureaucrats can move paper from one side that are desks to the other.

IT just totally burned him up, and that's in part what has motivated him to get more involved in politics. He thinks that might give him the power to help define them and to limit their power, and to reduce what he considers to be redundant or ridiculous requirements to help wipe away some of this slow est that really frustrates him. And mosque was clear during the presidential campaign that he wanted to be named to opposition in the future trump government that would give him the power to help oversee significantly cutting back on federal lations, federal employees and federal spending.

He liked to jokingly call us the department of government efficiency, nicknamed doge, which is the same name of one of his favorite encrypt to coins. Moss has attended to love little names like that, that he can repeat, that are insider jokes. And he would be, sort of, the superpowers are overseeing the reach of federal government Operations and looking for ways to eliminate what he considers redundant federal regulations and cutting as much as two trillion dollars in federal spending, which is a crazy and really unachievable 过。 But that's what he says he wants to do.

which is basically the position that trump just announced for him with this new government department that's in charge of making all kinds of cuts across the government, kind of spiritually similar to what must did with twitter.

Yeah, trump likes to tell us that he's super impressed with what mosque was able to do. At twitter. He jokingly called him cutter and chief.

He sees musk s as having a incredible capacity to find ways to reduce cost and get rid of waste. And in fact, at twitter, when he bought IT, musk, of course, cut something like two thirds of its staff, and it's a bit bumpy. But x does function without more than two thirds of the people that had had when he purchased the company. So trump has confidence that musk is the guy that he needs to actually really significantly cut federal regulations in spending.

But a text unity works a lot differently, obviously, than a government agency like he doesn't really seem feasible ble that he could just go in slash a bunch of jobs overnight like what he did with twitter and have that work the same way yeah.

And the level of reduction in spending and regulations that has never been achieved before in the history the united states. And when IT comes to actually cutting federal regulations and laying off federal employees and cutting federal spending, this is a process that obviously congress participates in. And IT is a very hard thing to do. There is a constituency for every little agency out there. And so IT is a lot harder than simply announcing one day they are laying off thousands of people at a private company that you own.

How do you think all of this is actually gna play out?

We don't know what elan must first targets would be, but there's a couple of examples that frustrate him in terms of conflict cities had with federal gulati probably the best examples with space ex and what he's trying to do down and broke a cheek a texas near the mexican border where they're testing out the starship rocket. And they have repeatedly because some environmental damage in that area, and it's right on the edge of a national wildlife refuge and a state park. And as they were developing the rocket, they were repeatedly disregarding what the fish and wildlife service and the interior department said was the limits on their Operations.

What exactly were those limits?

I mean, for example, recently on one of their launches, there's so much power that comes out of these rockets. IT sent sand and rocks flying into the nearby state park, and IT destroyed a bunch of nesting areas for the local bird population and ripped up in the eggs and destroyed the nest of the birds that were there. I saw that right out of the launch.

I walked out into the area once they cleared IT for the public, and the eye was there staining the ground. And that's another matter of this. Being investigated by fish and wildlife service for potentially harming migratory birds is something that frustrates tes him. And he thought that our coverage of IT was so offensive, he said he would restrain from having homeless ts for several days as he was. So he thought he was so ridiculous that we were even worried about these nests that were destroyed by his launch.

So you can imagine that the E. P, A would be the first target on his efficiency to do list.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the first places that he goes. And he looks to try to roll back some of the regulatory powers that, that has, but that certain ly would not be the only agency that he would go after. I mean, all you have to do is look at tesla.

And he is being currently are recently investigated our suit by really an acronym soup of federal agencies, the equal opportunity commission, the national labor relations board, the securities exchange commission, the national highway traffic safety administration, the department of justice, of course, the epa. All of them are looking at tesla and suggesting that IT has overstepped the law. I mean, most importantly, there is concerned about the autonomists driving tools on his cars and whether or not they're been involved in fatal accidents.

But there there are everything having to do with you disrupting union activities who he hires at his auto factories and whether not he's properly treating refugees and people who have asylum. I mean, he is the subject of so many different simultaneous investigations. IT really frustrates him. And that's another part of the reason that he's active with trump as he wants to crush investigations, and it's likely that many of them will now be shut down.

So everything you'd laid out so far, eric IT, helps us understand why musk own personal business interest could benefit from the regulatory environment that he's potentially going to be reshaping. But is this illegal like IT seems to me that what about line could be a major conflict of interest.

It's going to create a conflict of interest that really has few presidents in american history. Here's a guy who has ten billion dollars or more of ongoing federal contracts. He has a couple dozen pending federal investigations and lawsuits that he's targeted in.

And of course, there are federal conflict interest laws that prohibit just this kind of mixing of duties, and violating them could be a federal fence. So how is that possible that elon mus. Could simultaneously play the role of trying to cut back on federal regulations if he is himself being regulated. And the innocent tly soft on trump on tuesday night actually sort of hints that they recognize that there's this clash and they're attempting to sidestep IT by suggesting that must would somehow be the leader of this new federal department of government efficiency, but he would do IT while remaining, quote, outside of the government.

So basically he can have the year of the president but not have the formal government position and all the conflict of interest headaches that come with IT.

Yeah, it's a lot more attractive, but this is a very monkey arrangement. And all of this assumes that trump and mosque are gonna stay on good terms. There are two personalities that have a history of exploding with people that they have been close with, with business partners and and even some of their most trusted employees. And so their guys that also hold grudges and are a bit impulse sive. So there's no guarantee that this is a relationship that's gonna last.

So after all of this, your investigation and how IT revealed the various ways that musk potential reshaping of the government could benefit him. What does your big take away?

I think to think this is really fascinating and that we at any time you're going to be watching closely is the extent to which this new administration is one that's gonna be defined by the desires of billionaire and the first trump administration was really more focused on things like the oil and gas industry and the Christian right wanting to sea more appointments to the supreme court.

But the array of economic interest being pushed by billionaire donors to trump in this second term is much broader. And their buddy relationship with trump is much tighter. I mean, it's the cypher industry, it's artificial intelligence, it's the tech industry and the anti trust approach that the government has to the tech industry.

There's a bunch of players that have surrounded the trump and elon mosque is at the center of the screw. Many these folks are friends of mosque and he is sort of the ring leader of the whole group. And I think that they are going na have much more in what happens in the White house and across the federal government in the next four years.

great. I mean, billionaire have always had some sort of influence in government, but we just haven't really seen the proximity that you've outlined between this incredibly rich and powerful man, the world's richest man and president of the united states.

Yeah I think that it's just a different set of players at the table this time around who have such vested interest in so many sectors of the economy that reach in a really across the plane field. Oligarch is too strong of a word, but we are entering a period where people with immense wealth are interacting with a president who is known and has a history of being extremely transactional. And these are folks that now helped trump get a second term and are expecting to see a return on that investment.

Eric, thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll be .

right back.

This podcast is supported by black rock.

Want to know what's happening in the markets on the bid, a podd cast from black rock. We break down what's .

happening in the world of investing. We see and develop economies. People just don't have the adequacy savings to live in retirement in the gate, specifically the united states.

and explore the force of changing the economy and finance. We've never had such fantastic alignment around public policy and a technological innovation that we see an infrastructure right describe to the bid wherever you get your .

podcast after the movie free Willy became a hit, word got out that the star of the film, a killer in cao was sick and still living in a tiny pool in a mexican musement park. Fans were outraged, demanded his release in a gone from serial productions in the new york times comes the goodwill ale, a story about the wildly ambitious science experiment to return k go to the ocean, listen to new episodes on thursdays. One early access to the whole show subscribed to the times at N Y. Times that com slash podcast to listen on apple podcast and spotify.

Here's what else you need to know today. President elect Donald trump has nominated military veteran and fox news host pete teg eth as a defense secretary, but his lack of relevant experience has already generated push back.

Peg eh is one of several political appoints trump has picked in recent days, including south to coto governor Christine noe for secretary of blind's security and house representative at least to phonic for ambassador to the other nations. Trump is expected to meet with president biden at the White house later today is part of a london ding tradition of the outgoing president greeting the new one. Today's episode was produced by working of that ski oliba, an apt robb co. And luke venter blue IT was edited by mj Davis slye random clinkin berg with help from Chris haxo, contains original music by deposed and roman emo, and was engineered by Chris wood. Our theme music is by je rn berg and bendle ensberg of wonderly.

That's IT for the daily i'm raco labors see tomorrow.

This podcast is supported by black rock.

Want to know what's happening in the markets on the bid a podcast from black rock, we break down what's happening in the world .

of we see in somebody that develop economies, people just don't have the adequacy of savings to live in retirement, specifically the united states.

and explore the forces changing the economy and finance. We've never had such fantastic alignment around public policy and a technological innovation that we see an infrastructure right now. Subscribe to the bid wherever you get your podcast.