Speaker 1: Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter and the majority owner of Tesla, I mean, at
this point, he's I don't even really know he didn't create Tesla.
I don't know what the right word is for what we describe as Elon Musk being with regard
to Tesla.
That guy, Elon Musk, delivered a bizarre interview to CNBC reporter David Faber, a guy who I
used to really like, and this interview is a little shaky for Faber, but we'll talk about
that.
Elon Musk was asked what are some pretty reasonable questions about?
Listen, of course you can believe what you want to believe about anything, but does it
really make sense to be making these political statements that are turning off huge swaths
of the population?
Because don't you want everybody to be buying Tesla?
Don't you want everybody to be on Twitter?
Isn't this what you need?
And Elon Musk taking the approach of I don't really care if it costs me any money.
Let's listen to the first clip.
This is really just weird.
And I think it is important for us to say Elon Musk has said he is autistic.
And I think we need to be respectful.
We we don't want to just say the strange things.
Elon Musk of the strange things that are coming out of Elon Musk's mouth are merely because
he's autistic.
I don't think that that's accurate and I don't think that makes sense.
It also is not often discussed that he said he's autistic and maybe to some degree that
does impact the way that he relates to interviewers during these interviews.
I don't know.
It's a question that I guess should be should be asked.
David Faber asks Elon Musk about, you know, you're tweeting about George Soros, you're
getting into conspiracy stuff, even anti-Semitic stuff, arguably.
And Elon Musk says he is pro Semite or pro Salmon Knight, maybe, as Trump might say it.
Okay.
Speaker 3: Also softly.
But I mean, you know what?
You were but you basically reminds.
Speaker 4: Me of my media.
This is like, you know, calm down people.
It's it's not like I can put you out of your sleep.
Speaker 3: Now, you said he wants to erode the very fabric of civilization, and Soros
hates humanity.
Like when you do something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's true.
That's my.
Speaker 3: Opinion.
Okay, But why share it?
My share it especially.
I mean, why share when people who buy Teslas may not agree with you, advertisers on Twitter
may not agree with you.
Why not just say, hey, I think this you can tell me we can talk about it over there.
You can tell your friends, but why share it widely?
Speaker 4: I mean, this is freedom of speech.
I a lot of say whatever you.
Speaker 3: Absolutely are, but I'm trying to understand why you do, because you have
to know.
It's got to it puts you in a in the middle of the partizan divide in the country.
It makes you a.
Speaker 1: Lightning.
Speaker 3: Rod for criticism.
I mean, do you like that?
You know, people today saying he's an anti-Semite?
I don't think you are.
Speaker 4: No, I'm definitely not.
I'm like I'm like a pro Semite.
If anything.
Speaker 3: I believe that probably is the case.
Why would you even introduce the idea of that?
That would be the case.
Speaker 4: I mean, it looks we don't make this a George Soros interview.
Speaker 1: No.
Well, I mean, but nobody forced him to talk about George Soros either.
So this has a little bit of a ring to like the whole I love the Jews.
They're great business people.
Thing that we once heard from Donald Trump in front of some Republican Jewish group.
So I don't know.
I mean, it's kind of a weird thing.
David Faber, who's the interviewer, happens to be Jewish and he says he believes that
Elon Musk is pro Semite, which is an interesting thing to say.
I think that.
I am less interested in the particulars of what Elon Musk believes versus what he says
to get a rise out of people than I am about the real questions as to what impact this
all in particular the Twitter ownership is going to have on the discourse and dialog
in the United States.
Musk also doubled down during the interview about his claim that there was no evidence
that the alleged Texas shooter was a white supremacist.
Of course.
The guy had swastikas tattooed on his body.
But Elon Musk, I guess, defends having spread that conspiracy theory.
Speaker 3: But I mean, when you when you when you link to somebody who's talking about the
guy who killed children in a mall and now in Texas, you say something like it might
be a bad psyop.
I'm not quite sure what you meant, but oh.
Speaker 4: In that particular case, there was a somehow that that's not not not that
the that the group of people killed but the but it was I think incorrectly ascribed to
a white supremacist action.
Speaker 1: Which it seems to have been.
Speaker 4: And the evidence for that was some obscure Russian website that nobody's ever
heard of that had no followers and the like.
The company that was found.
This is Bellingcat, right?
Helicopters, PSYOPS.
Speaker 3: Right.
I couldn't really even follow exactly what it was you were trying to express there so
that nobody could.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Part why?
I was curious, but.
Speaker 4: I'm saying that I thought ascribing it to white supremacist was beyond.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: And and that the information for.
Speaker 1: All right so anyway we've since learned you know the shooter had Nazi tattoos
swastikas all over his body.
So let me address one other thing related to Elon Musk.
People wrote to me after my Lex Friedman interview and said, David, why are you so soft on Elon
Musk?
Is it because you own Tesla stock?
Is it because you drive a Tesla?
We've addressed this so many times.
I. First of all, on the facts.
I've sold 95% of my Tesla stock and I've sold it a while ago now.
And I said that, and even when I had the stock, it did not influence the things I said about
Elon Musk.
Number two, I'm sort of done with Tesla.
In fact, when my current lease is up, I think we're going to be moving on to something very
different.
But but all of that being said, I think my my thing with Elon Musk is there are lots
of people falling into the cult of personality debate with Elon Musk, whether he's this incredible
savior or the greatest right wing evil in the world.
Yes, he's saying wild, dangerous right wing things.
I don't deny that.
I think where I kind of stop short with Elon Musk is I don't think he knows what the hell
he's talking about.
And I think he's basically been captured by the people he's been hanging around in Texas,
you know, Greg Abbott and whoever else.
I just don't know that it's worth putting that much stock into the importance of Elon
Musk in this particular way.
Let's focus more on Twitter policy, for example, than the things that Elon Musk says.
I find them deplorable, there's no doubt about it.
I also think he's done an incredible thing in how he's pushed forward electric vehicle
and battery technology.
Both can be true.
There's no secret.
There's no there's there's no reason I'm discussing Musk the way I do.
It's not because of the fact that I had Tesla stock for a while or that I have a little
while left on a Tesla lease.
So you can you can stop emailing me with that stuff.
But a bizarre interview and investors, I can only imagine not exactly rejoicing after this
extremely strange exchange on CNBC.
All right.
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