Elon, Inc.

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!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.