Please PLEASE *PLEASE* can we STOP SAYING that Elon Musk invented or created Tesla ???? He did no such thing. Two engineers did, Musk pushed them out of their own company and proceeded to take ALL the credit. No. I refuse to do so. Musk finds brilliant people, basically appropriates their ideas then flaunts them as his own. He's always been a narcissistic prick with the hugest Oedipus complex. Ps: his 'Valkyrie' move ? Disgusting. Like Kate said, it shows how interchangeable and disposable people are for him, even his own *children*
Is he even smart? Like does he have any creations or achievements that are actually his own? Seems like a rich idiot riding a right wing gift and like you said the work of others
There are many other, clearly false claims in this video. It's insane that a video critical of Musk is spewing propaganda of the Musk's PR deprtnment. To give you two examples from the very beginning of the video: "everyone said doing mass market electric vehicle would be impossible" - Who is that "everyone"? Kind reminder that Nissan Leaf existed and very much was the first mass-market BEV, before any Tesla's mass-market product. "people didn't think space sector could be privatized, Elon said I think it can" - What are she talking about? Space sector WAS ALL PRIVATE before SpaceX. SpaceX basically replace ULA as the sole monopolist for the US space launch market, but ULA, and its predecessors were all a private companies. "he was fairly bright" - there's zero proof that he has anything above average intelligence. You could argue there's more proof of him being below-average IQ, than to the opposite.
Elon never made anything. He didn't make PayPal, he didn't have anything to do with Tesla innovation or creation. He threw tantrums when he didn't get enough attention and was continually ousted for being impossible and nonsensical. He is just desperate to be liked. He would trade everything in for attention and someone to tell him he's a clever boy. The man has invested money and invented absolutely nothing, then stomped and threw his toys out when people dont say how smart and clever he is. You said it best, Matt- the world's richest man with the world's smallest existence.
He didn't design the charging port. He owned the company so he put the patent on his name. Hile didn't work on PayPal, he was the marketing guy. He has not actually designed a product that made it to production. He tells his engineers his weird ideas, they nod and say sure thing, then throw it all out and make actual things.@@walidoutaleb7121
13:42 - he comes from a white family out of apartheid South Africa and went to ivy league colleges. there is absolutely a reason that "emerald mines" are memed when he claims he couldn't afford an apartment when his first business was literally funded by his father. let's not pretend here.
what they meant there was that privilege alone doesnt (and hasn't) led to people becoming the richest person in the world. though whether it is luck, talent, delusion, confidence for him specifically... you can decide on it i guess
@@girokk3160But how many people become real “successes” (in the colonialist capitalist greed-o-licious meaning of the word) without at least some privilege(s) in their background? Nobody is saying privilege = guaranteed success, but just try being a success without leveraging some form of it.
@@girokk3160 we are, apologies if I came off like I was correcting you, I just wanted to present the most comprehensive “thing we’re saying” from the other direction. more for anyone else reading (hello, others!)
Elon was already posting 4chan edgy memes on Twitter long before he even dated Grimes. He went on Pewdiepie's "meme review" show, very close to the time of pewdiepie's "bridge" moment. I really hate this narrative that Elon was just a cool liberal guy before. He never was. And Grimes wasn't naive or unaware to any of this, either.
True, they are both lesswrong yudkowsky following wierdos. A passing interest in "AI" is an incredibly shallow interpretation of the ideology they both believe in.
never understood how people bough into his pr bs in the first place. he's a wealthy white south African man from a family in the mining business. are people stupid ?
Having secret babies with another woman that you don't even have an affair with while you and your wife are expecting another pair of children together is absolutely unhinged. Stealing a baby name idea from your wife-child to give to your secret child is DIABOLICAL. What is this man.
Yeah, that’s a HUGE red flag there. Just this story about his children and his intimate relationships with women proves this man is missing an empathy chip and sees himself above the morals of us lowly mortals🙄
I had a roommate like that for a year. Let me tell you, not fun, in any way. Push back on any little thing would end up spiralling him how whatever was "done to him" was driving him insane. Sorry babe, you're already solidly there. Interacting with him became so dysfunctional he got rehomed. Among other crazy shit, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't physically hurt me, for simply not wanting to talk to him any more than needed Was a crazy time
Another interesting point - I’m a mechanical engineer who started college in 2016. The musk fanboy population among baby engineers was extremely high. I respected Tesla and wanted to work there, until I learned they paid their engineers less than 100k in Palo Alto, just way below market rate for that area. They were notorious for burning out young engineers and replacing them with a new crop. The opinion I and my engineer friends had of musk started to sour around 2017-2018, and I remember when he and grimes started dating I was solidly anti-musk and it affected my view of her. Just some food for thought as far as how long he’s been like he is.
I remember the Elon bros from several years back. They kind of died down but ever since he bought twitter, seems like a new crop of Elon Bros has arisen. Only difference is they aren't mostly comprised of people in the tech industry or those with a background in engineering like before. This newer crop is mostly MAGA people. Seems like as soon as he starts losing favor with a particular group, he moves onto a new one. Kinda like how all his relationships have gone.
Yes this! i started college in physics in 2013 and saw a bunch of guys fall down the red pill pipeline. They always seemed to worship Musk. I didn't even have a good reason to not like Musk besides his edge lord, contrarian demeanor. Immediately disliked him. And yup. He ended up exactly where I though he would
@jacquelynsmale8079 I feel like it's very easy to redpill engineering and physics students because at least where I went we were stressed out and only hung out with other engineering students who were overwhelmingly white guys from upper middle class families who might have been bullied growing up for being nerdy. Once they get in an environment where being nerdy is cool, it's almost all people with the same background. It probably doesn't help that we had to take fewer humanities classes than other majors and some engineering students pride themselves on their lack of media literacy 😂
It's interesting that this is similar to how comp sci people felt about Steve Jobs and how he treated employees (at least according to a roommate who went to Caltech).
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z. Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew, Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher). R/grimeZs
I too block every religious ad (read christian, I'm getting no Islam ads) as well. I don't need to see that every 3 videos among my feed, not in front of my salad
MIDDLE to upper class? If your dad owns an emerald mine your not middle class! Also he hasn't invented or created anything. He has bought into other people's ideas and then taken the credit. He suppresses unions because has contempt for the middle class.
You are very low information. Also, union votes fail at his companies because he's made millionaires out of bolt turners and they are happy with things.
Working class. His biggest customers are the middle class. The middle class stopped fighting for unions a long time ago. The working class is taking the hit for that.
Yeah, these guests were far too kind to Elon. I don't think an impulse towards kindness is some horrible thing, but we're buying into the mythmaking a little hard here. Elon's skillset is that he's a salesman who knows how to outsource all the real, non-bullshitting work.
Every time anyone would speak positively about him, I was like, are we thinking of the same person, or are you talking about my bf who vaguely looks like him but is infinity less of a jackass? 😅
Btw they're not coparenting (like the journalist guy- sorry im so bad w names, said). Musk took their first born and ran off and disappeared to texas and grimes couldnt reach him. As far as i know this issue is even still ongoing and started like 2 years ago. Like Grimes was literally LOOKING for him.
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z. Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew, Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher). R/grimeZs
I'm sorry, but what contrarianism is Kate talking about at 9:28? What is so contrarian about building an empire using government subsidies. I get so frustrated with criticisms of Musk that concede is supposed contrarianism or genius. He's a conman. Period. Also, he did not build Tesla. He was an early investor and eventually won in court the right to call himself a founder.
Because at the time it felt contrarian. it was not of course, capitalism and all that but, a good business man is in all parts a good conman. And while musk is certainy not a genius, i think he is good in scheme ( and largely helped by the fact that capitalist america works this ways )
I feel like this episode gives Elon way too much credit…he did not invent tesla…and maybe I missed it but did we mention how he destroyed high speed rail in California before he went “anti-woke”? check out thunderf00t if you want to see all elons many idiotic failures. The truth is the interests of the billionaire class are inherently opposed to the average person. I think discussing Elons personal reasons for “shifting” to the right misses the point. He was always going to side with the political group that gave him more power. The democrats had no problem granting him that power, but now the republicans offer him and other billionaires even more power. Can we focus more on the systemic and not the personal psychology? Elon is not a special or unique case in any way, there are incentives for what he does that would affect anyone in his place.
I personally think we should not waste a lot of time trying to debunk the meritocracy claims...it does not really matter whether Musk or any other billionaire "made it" from whatever starting point. Even if they did, they are statistically irrelevant and make no good argument for why meritocracy would be a thing, or why we should hold it as an ideal. I rather avoid this conversation because we end up stuck on a discussion of where we draw the line of what is actual merit, while I refuse the ideal of meritocracy as a whole, regardless of the existence of exceptions. I think you are correct in pointing out that both Democrats and Republicans are aligned with corporate interests, and how the wealthy support one or the other depends on the specific business they have, alliances, and contexts. I do agree that most of Musk's actions can be explained by protecting his economic interests, but I don't think all of his actions can be explained this way. Many billionaires are wiser and choose not to be famous, while they quietly accrue more and more capital. Musk often acts in unhinged ways that have harmed his own wealth - maybe he is just dumb in the decisions to protect and grow his earnings, but I think there is more to it. And that is where what was discussed here is somewhat illuminating. He is not special or unique, but he behaves differently from many of his class, with intersections with weird and conflicting ideas (climate action, supporting a coal enthusiast, effective altruism, freedom of speech, whining about pronouns, complaining about overpopulation while encouraging white people to have more children, etc.). I think the lens of class is certainly useful, and the most important here, don't get me wrong - I just think there is more to it :)
I hate the guests on this episode, I can’t watch this capital friendly drek. Please watch the Common sense skeptic, Behind the Bastards and donoteat01 coverage on this loser!
@@walidoutaleb7121 Nope He did a hostile takeover of Tesla, buying majority stock, and took over from the original 2 founders He founded SpaceX, but he was not an engineer, at least not an aeronautic engineer or anything vital to rocket science.
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z. Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher. R/grimeZs
I've got to echo what some other commenters are saying about these guests and this episode. Its not quite up to par with other episodes. I don't know these two journalists but coming from NYT is very telling. They seem hesitant to say certain things and seem to push back against a few things which are reasonable to ask. Plus, you allowed them to casually espouse known myths about Musk, to do with his 'creation' of tesla and space-x along with the lack of actual indepth critical look at his past. Overall you are giving musk quite a bit of the benifit of the doupt, and being quite surface level with your takes. A little disappointed with this episode, but its not too bad tbh. Maybe next time it would be good to have someone on who isnt afraid of the word 'socialism'.
Yeah, I side-eyed the initial framing of Musk as this rebellious visionary by the lady at the beginning, but then there was apologia about Musk being wholly funded by apartheid money at 15 minutes in. He’s a venture capitalist. A very successful one, but a venture capitalist nonetheless. He’s not even a quasi industrialist like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or even Zuckerberg. Guys that personally created a product that took over an industry. Musk just buys companies and turns on the infinite money glitch, so it doesn’t matter if they continuously operate at a loss.
Agree. This episode is NOT IT. He doesn't deserve credit that this episode is falsely attributing to him. He's a rich boy with toys (companies) he bought. He's a successful venture capitalist AT BEST. I grew up in the bay. I know many who worked with him and called him unhinged. I know companies that refused to work with him ten years ago after their experiences. Engineers would tell other engineers not to work with him and that's saying something for the bay. He's unchanged despite the narrative this wants to paint.
It seems he sees women as baby making machines. Those women are not really part of his life, he does not see them as partners. He’s openly had multiple families at once. It’s so gross.
And he's idolized by engineers and there was already a lot more misogyny in engineering (at least manufacturing) workplaces than my naive engineering student self thought there would be.
I've seen other creators I like do interviews with this pair and they're always like this. I speculate their caginess is to do with not wanting to turn Elon fans away from buying their book or be sued, fired from their jobs etc but I agree they weirdly come across as extremely uncritical of Elon in areas where he's blatantly deserving of criticism, like spending so much time covering him has given them Stockholm syndrome or something aha
It just drives me insane that reporters are allergic to the word "socialism" unless it's in a negative context. In particular, these reporters didn't even say the word when it came to talking about what accountability for billionaires would look like. I get that they probably did it on purpose, but if they don't use the word, people will continue to dance around the issue. Let me be very clear: There is no accountability for people who own the means of production without socialism. The entire system of policing, judges, and government is expressly beholden to capitalist resource holders simply because of the way that they conduct their affairs. And it's been this way ever since the beginning of the United States--There was a short period of time from the 1930's to the 1970's where the government was actually somewhat interested in holding wealthy people accountable, but that was the exception rather than the rule. Outside of that time period, we have always been a nation of slaveholders and robber barons. It is literally the entire system that this country was built upon. So to have any discussion of accountability without the word "socialism" is disingenuous at best and incredibly ignorant at worst. We have to stop sugarcoating what the solutions to this problem will be and stop using euphemisms for wealth redistribution. Just say the damn word.
I don't think the influence of neofeudalists like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin on tech bros' politics in general can be emphasized enough. Especially on Musk. It's kinda wild that this is completely ignored by these journalists.
@@annaphallactic you’re 100% right. I truly have no ill will towards the journalists featured in the episode, but I found the understanding of the cultural topics around Elon Musk very lacking on all sides in this interview. Can we get a professor or actual expert to discuss matters like this? I don’t consider myself an expert in analyzing tech’s right-wing, eugenic, ethnofacist features (not tendencies, I mean it when I say features.) but I found myself in awe that it wasn’t even really mentioned. Why am I sitting here knowing that I know more about a topic than the person who’s supposedly an expert, or if not that, at least knowledgeable?
This. There’s some very scary nazi esque shit going on with that group of people over at silicon valley that even Grimes is involved with but people really never dive deep into this topic.
This isn't talked about enough. Grimes attended Yarvin's wedding a couple months ago as well. Our vice president is friends with Thiel as well as Musk...
After the mentioning of “Elon building Tesla and SpaceX to [do stuff with them]” around the 9:00 mark, does anyone intervene in the discussion to correct that myth? As in, Elon never made anything, but just bought it and then made it worse?
Yup. And my reply was censored. I don't know why. YT is also trying to censor speech. Why was I censored? Because I said that Grimes is not a good person either and you can verify this on the subreddit grimeZs.
I was pretty underwhelmed by this. I came away feeling like I didn’t learn anything I didn’t know before and it didn’t feel like the reporters had a strong perspective/theory on the question.
@curtiszyr yeah our overlords have successfully alienated us into dissociative individuation, even people who think they love each other have a hell of a time making it work. Apparently many of not most marriages fail because of money issues
Something that's probably not a large part but elon tried to get involved in the austin furry community and pretty quickly got shunned for being his normal creepy self which also probably made him pretty upset at the queer community but to be clear.
he sells paypal to ebay? no he was kicked off from paypal long before that, he had stakes though... he was a person nobody wanted to deal with from the start as he always wanted control everything.
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z. Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew, Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher). R/grimeZs
I'd say his speech is because of his trans child. I just want to quote Robert Evans of the podcast It Could Happen Here: "Musk's child is not in fact dead, but they have expressed an identity utterly separate from Elon, an identity he cannot understand because Musk can only see his children as an extension of himself and his ego. This is in fact worse than death. It is a threat to Musk's own life. This incidentally is why Musk and his fellow travelers see transgender kids as such a threat. Accepting a trans child, even if you don't fully understand how and why they feel the way they do, is one of the most radical acts of love imaginable. To do this means that you've accepted on a fundamental level that your children are autonomous beings. Not an extension of you, but something new, wonderful and unique. The essence of parental love is to give your children to the world. This means accepting that you are finite, that the world goes on without you. If you see all humanity as an extension of your own ego, nothing could be more frightening."
"everyone said doing mass market electric vehicle would be impossible" - Who is that "everyone"? Kind reminder that Nissan Leaf existed and very much was the first mass-market BEV, before any Tesla's mass-market product. "people didn't think space sector could be privatized, Elon said I think it can" - What are you talking about? Space sector WAS ALL PRIVATE before SpaceX. SpaceX basically replace ULA as the sole monopolist for the US space launch market, but ULA *is a private company.*
Honestly....Grimes dating Elon, and spending years spawning with him, is just a rather sad end to what she was building on her own terms up to that point. I was a massive Grimes fan since discovering her stuff around 2010 with her Darkbloom EP. Vanessa, Oblivion, Genesis, Realiti(the demo) all had me, rightly, convinced she was THE coolest new voice in left field pop music. Catchy creative alternative truly DIY pop music for a new century. She was doing really cool stuff. And then Elon entered the chat....and all that basically stopped. Or got put on hold...indefinitely. And now, even when she does do music related stuff, it's coming from an utterly alien perspective compared to back then. I'm all for artists changing and growing, but this is different. Grimes almost makes me long for the 90s proclivity to accuse artists of "selling out." It was definitely overused in the 90s. But Grimes alone has earned that moniker imo... She literally traded in a once in a lifetime creative journey...to become the manic pixie consort to the wealthiest human ever. Cool...
Yea I’ve heard people argue that she chose to change her brand on purpose when she got with Elon but I highly doubt that. I think she was seduced by power.
He usually makes great content. This video is bs… the same old lies are told about Musk… he didn’t invent any of the stuff and he also didn’t change… he was always like this
I think it’s crucial to recognize how much of this is performative propaganda with the express purpose of feeding the culture wars so that we don’t join together and start a class war.
Musk dating Grimes was never cool, always horrific. Fewer NYTimes reporters who overly identify with their horror show subjects. Also where was the coverage of the lawsuit employees won due to racism working for Tesla?
Yea I’m only 15 minutes in but it’s been mentioned casually multiple times that Elon “built 2 multi billion dollar businesses” and that’s just not true. The story of how Elon wormed his way into Tesla is well known. I’m not going to speak to space X as I don’t know much about it. But, he has always been a money guy with no real usable ideas. His companies have “thrived” mostly only in stock value, which is why he is considered the richest person on earth. And the successes that his companies have had seem to be in spite of him for the most part. I can’t believe Matt didn’t push back on this. And also, not to be the annoying leftist, but someone’s ability to make money at a company is not a quality that means anything when we are talking about their impact on society. He is an awful person whose ideas will hurt all of us in the long run. If he gets his dream of living on mars it will be because all of us have been broken and used to make it happen, we will all die on earth fighting over the last resources remaining.
@@isitatiger you are most likely correct. It’s worth noting though that he was only briefly CEO of what was PayPal and was actually ousted because he was trying to force it to be rebranded as X. Just like he ended up doing with twitter some 20 years later. So even at PayPal his bad ideas were hurting him. (I think it’s obvious that twitter is in the worst condition it’s ever been since the takeover, seemingly on purpose but still worth noting)
@@DakotaGray42That's the exact reason he needs population growth (and thereby his pipeline to the right wing). The moment he made that ridiculous statement that "humanity is actually in decline and our population has to reach 12bn or it will collapse" my ears pricked up. It's so obvious that he's simply aware of how much human life he'll need to sacrifice for the asinine goal of terraforming Mars. And how much MONEY is being pumped into that bs. It's unfathomable. Imagine what all that effort and investment could do for this other dinky little planet, we just happen to live on. Absolute god complex. But, you know ... anything but therapy.
It was like a (fun) jumpscare every time someone else's face suddenly appeared for the first minute and a half of this video. A real "omg someone's been here the whole time" moment.
I recently rewatched Citizen Kane and it’s incredible just how similar the motivations of Charles Foster Kane in the film are to Musk’s: desperate need to be loved by everyone without the capacity to love anyone other than themselves. Orson Welles really was ahead of his time in so many ways.
don't wanna be the guy who mentions a bigger youtuber, but I've been thinking since like half a year that ContraPoints next video can not not be about Elon Musk 😂
I think then it's going to be more about wealth as a psychological vector of change, as opposed to an individual person. Although I guess "Opulence" is about Trump.
she's been saying on Patreon for a while that her next video that she's working on has "something to do with" the election, but isn't specifically about that, and before the election happened she was saying that her script would be affected by the outcome. So yeah, I think you're on the right track here!
I was today years old when I found out that Gwen is actually a devout catholic and released a cloying, conservative country music album recently. At least we have her last Coachella performance to remember her by. 😭😭😭
The people who act that way online were already like that, emotionally and intellectually immature. They just feel very comfortable ditching any filter online In theory it could be a nice venting place for their shitty thoughts, but when you can find dedicated communities online that agree with you on everything and more, that's obviously not how it works out
Thanks for an excellent podcast. One word that I didn't hear though was 'greed'. You don't get to be the richest person on the planet without also being the 'greediest' POS around. Americans don't talk enough about the insatiable greed of the rich.
I hate Elon and typically love this podcast but tbh the last thing I want to listen to is two NYT reporters psychoanalyze Elon Musk. (especially considering the role the NYT plays in denying genocide in Palestine)
@@WhiteToothedRat don’t bother. The reporters are actively spreading misinformation about musk’s involvement with his companies, playing into his own narratives. I couldn’t finish it.
Matt, I just wanted to say thank you for inspiring my lesson plans with my senior secondary school classes for the last couple of weeks! We're discussing Tyrants in Shakespeare (I teach English), and I'm tying stuff we see in Shakespeare to what we see with populists in the world today. As a Dutch person, I don't always follow everything that happens in the US, but your podcasts help me put some news in perspective for myself and my students ❤
Yay! Dutch schooling needs more awareness around populism in a contemporary context as in my experience (I graduated in 2017) the focus was generally in classes such as history, maatschappijleer/wetenschappen and English on historic context. So I commend you for going out of you way to find a way to include it!
Hi Matt, I really love your podcast! Is it possible to cover the political unity between the left and right on Luigi Mangione issue on the next episode? I feel like the media is going so hard to frame this as a left vs right issue, when in reality, many conservatives actually think of Luigi as an American hero. Ben Shapiro had 3 vids on the topic demonizing Luigi and under each of them his conservative audience is calling him out for being a corporate shill, and being a millionaire and not a blue collar worker. Same with other conservative UA-camrs, they are trying so hard to pit left and right against each other, because their rich sposors are seeing what's happening and they fear this unity!! I think this level of class solidarity between the left and right is unprecedented. I feel like it deserves to be highlighted and talked about
solidarity between left and right? Do you even understand what left is? It is there to fight the right. There should never be a solidarity between these two. And the right is definitely not for blue collar workers. That has always been a left movement. I feel like Americans are so extremely uneducated what left is, where it comes from and what it stands for. The right wants social classes, the left fights it.
i think its so funny that he thinks of himself as a contrarian, but when a democrat was president he presented as more socially liberal, and then the trump era comes around (and possibly validates some of his more veiled beliefs) and he takes a hard right turn. this man is a conformist
Could his affinity for Obama etc have been less about his values, or vibes, and more about getting big contracts by sucking up to power, perhaps? There’s something askew in parts of their framing…
Yes this, and the same is true for other tech execs. They aligned themselves with Democrats because that’s who was in power, they were never ideologically committed to liberal politics. The framing in this interview is grossly naive.
Exactly. The guests failed to mention that Tesla could only get off the ground through funding from the federal government and California. The Department of Energy gave Tesla a $465 million loan in 2013. California has given them $3 billion in subsidies and indirect market mechanisms. They benefit from California’s cap-and-trade program and EV tax rebates on top of support for EV charging infrastructure. SpaceX has only been able to succeed because NASA is a willing partner. Starlink is being deployed by the Department of Defense. Elon was and is perfectly happy to suck on the government teat. He just thinks no one else should. He wouldn’t be where he is without government funding and liberal policies.
Well, Grimes is a problematic person too. Quite a fan of Germany, especially between 1933 and 1945. And well, calling your kid Walkyrie is a really dark sign... Wagner, really?
Not a weird take at all. I've thought about this a lot, and it began in the late '70s through the 1980s with things like Revenge of the Nerds movies and the popularity of Star Trek and Star Wars. The change from "nerds are dumb" to "nerds will have the last laugh" correlates with the rise of computer use by the masses and pop culture embracing technology. Everyone became a nerd in a way, and professional nerds started making bank and thereby elevated their status in society.
And it didn't help that The Big Bang Theory had him an episode where they just glazed him up. The Simpsons and Rick and Morty are guilty of sanitizing him as well.
In 2012 I tattooed my hand with the exact same hand tattoo as Grimes had back then so I absolutely feel like I pay the price for Elon's midlife crisis too... :/
My boyfriend and I just sat down to watch the pod while we ate, and I expected to finish it later by myself but we absolutely got so invested we watched from start to finish. thank you!!! 🙏 🎉 Great episode
Matt! I have to tell you how important your channel is to me!! I have been trying my best to abstain from social media (successfully, too) for my mental health, but I know that important cultural and political news happen there, and I want to stay informed. Frankly, your filtering and analysis of online current events is a public service, and you do it with so well with great guests and humor. Thank you!
Most people "start on second base" while disconnected from "average life", arent so narcissistic and greedy to attempt to become the richest man in the world. Elon believes he should be at the top of humanity that's the driving force behind where he is now, and luck let his dumb ass fail upwards into it. He is desperate to as popular as, and to be seen as the real life version of Tony Stark, without the self relection to realise his actions and views run counter this, and so now has openly embrased the only side that will pat him on the head and say "good boy, you're just like iron man"
Idk if y'all are gonna mention it but Elon's father married his step daughter (edit i don't think they ever got martied but they have had a sexually intimate relationship as they lived together and had 2 kids together) and had a kid with her. Had some intense beliefs, as Elon does now, about "spreading his seed". A lot of people seem to miss that bit and it seems like it could have been pretty formative for him becoming who he is today, to me anyway it seems
Matt! Im so disappointed. You brought up Dorian Corey and her thoughts on leaving a mark in the world without even one mention of the fact that when she died they found the mummified remains of her ex lover stuffed into a suitcase in the back of her closet. Now that is leaving a mark!
For context he tried to kill her, she defended herself and didn't report it because she was black and trans. She would have died in jail before she even got to trial most likely.
Stop demonizing personality disorders. Mentally ill people are not bad people. You can be mentally ill and a bad person but its not because of the illness@@jennifershappyplace6938
Give Elon waaay more credit than is due for the companies he owns, namely that he didn't invent anything, he simply walks in after a company has already been founded and says something like "this all belongs to me now"
Really hits the pain points of this video towards the end where Ryan is talking about Elon buying things to "solve problems", and instead of recognising that Elon bought the presidency he switches up his wording before hitting the rule of 3 and says "works with trump".
Other thing that I think goes unspoken here is how his being shitty in relationships not only lines up with his daughter's account but his own. If you check out his older biography that came out in like 2016, there's a story of him telling his wife at the time, his first one, that, "If you were my employee I would fire you." at like a dance or some shit. He's always seen the people in his life as employees he manages, rather than equals in his community, and he treats them as such, including "firing" them when they no longer want to live in that role.
Elon Musk's villain era was accelerated by the line "Zuckerberg and Gates and Buffett/ amateurs can fucking suck it" in Bo Burnham's 2021 viral song "Bezos I." In this essay I will...
In 2020 there was a bloody coup in Bolivia that deposed the indigenous-led government which had announced the nationalization of lithium extraction and production weeks prior. Lithium batteries are essential to Tesla’s business, so it was no surprise that after the coup its actions skyrocketed to their highest value in history. After accusations of being benefitted (or involved) by the sanguinary endeavor, Musk twitted “We will coup whoever we want. Deal with it.” I understand that for this podcast lgbtq+ issues are central, but it would have been nice to have a slight mention of Musk’s involvement in South America’s far right turn in favor of US colonialism. As a south American myself, I suspect that most US viewers of this podcast are not even aware of operation condor in the 70s, and all the horror we have been enduring since. I hope these kind of topics inspire at least a few minutes of discussion in some future episodes. And thank you for the work :)
The current online right loves to talk about how they are “the new counterculture” or “the new punk.” It’s a brilliant shortcut for guys like Elon because they get to cosplay as brilliant maverick innovators but the innovation is just “conservatism” so they don’t actually have to come up with anything new.
how did you went through an hour of talking about musk and not mention the tweet about the coup in Bolivia in which hes says and i quote: "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it." his public politics align with the fact that he is a capitalist and the republicans simply offered a better deal to him as a car maker. also his story reminds me a lot of car makers in Germany in the 30s so you know there is that as well. the dude was a bad day away with siding with the nazis and that makes sense. his material conditions align with their wants. he is a capitalist and republicans are better at licking capitalist boots
when u call Vernon Unsworth "pedo guy" like that and not my his real legal name u reinforces this label that Elon put on him in one of his hissy fits. Please respect the man
Just wanted to add that he might actually does not feel empathy psychological (I think the term should be warm empathy) but this is no excuse to behave like he does. You can still learn (cold) empathy by teaching it yourself and how you should react to humans around you, kinda studying their behaviour. Just saying you dont have any is just a lazy excuse to act shitty.
yes, many people are not aware of this. there is not only one kind of empathy, and some of them are learnable, you do not need to be born with them. it is one of the reasons poor parenting results in unempathetic children and adults, they do not teach or model those kinds of empathy properly to their kids, so they do not learn it. it must be learned in adulthood where it is more difficult, but certainly not impossible
I like the way you talk about current events and figures in a way that is well-educated and calm with a few laughs to spare. My stress around these issues becomes more manageable because of what you do.
all due respect matt, at the 46 minute mark when you're talking about elon's trans child coming out radicalizing him against the trans community, you say that it seems like an uncommon reaction, i was really surprised by what you said cause so many people don't accept their trans kids & that does lead to parents being outspoken transphobes very often, maybe i'm misunderstanding and you mean in the context of like a celebrity? idk it just caught me off guard
no you're totally right! i was just referring specifically to the way that prior to his daughter coming out, elon had been this sort of outspoken ally, flaunted tesla pride, etc -- only to strip away all of that once faced with a queer child of his own, which is not something i've seen before. that's why i kept mentioning the more cynical view, which is that his allyship was only ever a corporate strategy. i hope this makes sense!
@@MattBernstein1 oh that does make a lot more sense to me, thank you for explaining! i was putting on my face this morning before heading to work while listening to the pod so i might've just not connected those dots there, anyways i enjoyed this video and the guests! thanks for the upload as always!
i have ZERO interest in humanizing elon musk. the fact that matt would make a video like this is really disappointing. he is not just a little guy who "fell down the conservative rabbithole".
He literally grew up in apartheid South Africa so it’s not surprising that he is a conservative
12 днів тому+5
This was such a great listen, and thank you so much for the in-depth reporting on this. I wanted to mention that some early criticism of Elon Musk came pre-”pedo guy”. His 1st wife Justine Musk wrote an excellent article “I Was a Starter Wife”: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce”, in Marie Claire in 2010. And you can see this behaviour in the article, but he was able to mask it behind progressive cred, but also importantly, he was able to do so because anytime someone tried to call him out early on social media, he effectively dogpiled them into silence (especially women journalists). By the “pedo comment”, he had developed a reputation among women journalists for his behaviour. In any case, love this channel, and thank you so much for the amazing listen and work!
That Dorian Corey clip made me tear up... "You don't have to bend the whole world... I think it's better to just enjoy it." Beautiful. musk is a small small man and no amount of money in the world will make history look kindly on him. Thank you for your incredible work!
I think ppl forget that Grimes is also very smart. she was a high achieving student in a neuroscience program. she dropped it when her music was taking off. she viewed him as a visionary.
Tesla is literally complicit in the Congo g-side. Just because they buy from Glencore and Glencore does the human rights violations doesn't mean that Tesla doesn't knowingly benefit from slavery, displacement, and colonial terror including mass grapings. I think though that the sleep depravation and stress that he has put himself through has probably made him a lot worse though.
Please PLEASE *PLEASE* can we STOP SAYING that Elon Musk invented or created Tesla ???? He did no such thing. Two engineers did, Musk pushed them out of their own company and proceeded to take ALL the credit. No. I refuse to do so. Musk finds brilliant people, basically appropriates their ideas then flaunts them as his own. He's always been a narcissistic prick with the hugest Oedipus complex.
Ps: his 'Valkyrie' move ? Disgusting. Like Kate said, it shows how interchangeable and disposable people are for him, even his own *children*
Is he even smart? Like does he have any creations or achievements that are actually his own? Seems like a rich idiot riding a right wing gift and like you said the work of others
It's like that in every big tech venture or even basic invention.
There are many other, clearly false claims in this video. It's insane that a video critical of Musk is spewing propaganda of the Musk's PR deprtnment.
To give you two examples from the very beginning of the video:
"everyone said doing mass market electric vehicle would be impossible" - Who is that "everyone"? Kind reminder that Nissan Leaf existed and very much was the first mass-market BEV, before any Tesla's mass-market product.
"people didn't think space sector could be privatized, Elon said I think it can" - What are she talking about? Space sector WAS ALL PRIVATE before SpaceX. SpaceX basically replace ULA as the sole monopolist for the US space launch market, but ULA, and its predecessors were all a private companies.
"he was fairly bright" - there's zero proof that he has anything above average intelligence. You could argue there's more proof of him being below-average IQ, than to the opposite.
THANK YOU I can’t believe no more me addressed that!!
It was mentioned in the beginning, somewhere
You are the only human being on this planet that could convince me to watch a one hour and twenty minute long video on Elon musk
Truly
no one cares
@@ville-c4uyou do since you have commented this 100 times already
honestly Some More News has some pretty great videos on him too. rly digs into all the specific ways he’s an awful loser
@@ville-c4u your mum
Elon Musk is what happens when too much money, a lifetime of undeserved confidence and crippling daddy issues does to a person
Blame hairplugs. They gave him too much power
no one cares😂😂
@@ville-c4uShoo, fly
@@ville-c4u that’s why you’re here right?
So many of us have undeserved confidence & crippling daddy issues…
Elon never made anything. He didn't make PayPal, he didn't have anything to do with Tesla innovation or creation. He threw tantrums when he didn't get enough attention and was continually ousted for being impossible and nonsensical. He is just desperate to be liked. He would trade everything in for attention and someone to tell him he's a clever boy. The man has invested money and invented absolutely nothing, then stomped and threw his toys out when people dont say how smart and clever he is. You said it best, Matt- the world's richest man with the world's smallest existence.
He has the money for the best PR, and gets his money's worth.
he made zip2 though... and was an engineer at both companies even holding patents to his name for the design of charging port of the model s.
He didn't design the charging port. He owned the company so he put the patent on his name. Hile didn't work on PayPal, he was the marketing guy. He has not actually designed a product that made it to production. He tells his engineers his weird ideas, they nod and say sure thing, then throw it all out and make actual things.@@walidoutaleb7121
He's done more than you have.
He is a Warren Buffet type but puts his brand in his purchases. A bit like Kardashian business model
13:42 - he comes from a white family out of apartheid South Africa and went to ivy league colleges. there is absolutely a reason that "emerald mines" are memed when he claims he couldn't afford an apartment when his first business was literally funded by his father. let's not pretend here.
what they meant there was that privilege alone doesnt (and hasn't) led to people becoming the richest person in the world. though whether it is luck, talent, delusion, confidence for him specifically... you can decide on it i guess
@@girokk3160But how many people become real “successes” (in the colonialist capitalist greed-o-licious meaning of the word) without at least some privilege(s) in their background? Nobody is saying privilege = guaranteed success, but just try being a success without leveraging some form of it.
@@chrislawuk yep. we are saying the same thing here! :)
@@girokk3160 we are, apologies if I came off like I was correcting you, I just wanted to present the most comprehensive “thing we’re saying” from the other direction. more for anyone else reading (hello, others!)
I don't know if it's unintentional or not, but the way Ryan talks about Elon often sounds very praising of him, and it's suss af
Elon was already posting 4chan edgy memes on Twitter long before he even dated Grimes. He went on Pewdiepie's "meme review" show, very close to the time of pewdiepie's "bridge" moment. I really hate this narrative that Elon was just a cool liberal guy before. He never was. And Grimes wasn't naive or unaware to any of this, either.
True, they are both lesswrong yudkowsky following wierdos. A passing interest in "AI" is an incredibly shallow interpretation of the ideology they both believe in.
never understood how people bough into his pr bs in the first place. he's a wealthy white south African man from a family in the mining business. are people stupid ?
Yeah Liberal presenting more like it
Just grifting to wherever he's most liked
@@vodkaboymost of the time, yes they are
YES, thank you. Facts.
Having secret babies with another woman that you don't even have an affair with while you and your wife are expecting another pair of children together is absolutely unhinged. Stealing a baby name idea from your wife-child to give to your secret child is DIABOLICAL. What is this man.
Exactly and men like him wonder why us women are rejecting this idea of the “happy family life” becuase we know better
he's a psycho, but he hides behind the money
He's a narc trailer park boy. But wealth brainwashes people into forgiving weird choices. Integrity is low in those spaces.
@@danidiaz23774b all the way
Yeah, that’s a HUGE red flag there. Just this story about his children and his intimate relationships with women proves this man is missing an empathy chip and sees himself above the morals of us lowly mortals🙄
Dude truly let his desire to be liked and the inevitability of not everyone liking him become everyone else's problem
I had a roommate like that for a year. Let me tell you, not fun, in any way.
Push back on any little thing would end up spiralling him how whatever was "done to him" was driving him insane. Sorry babe, you're already solidly there.
Interacting with him became so dysfunctional he got rehomed. Among other crazy shit, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't physically hurt me, for simply not wanting to talk to him any more than needed
Was a crazy time
I enjoyed reading this 3Xs. Spot on!
@ckyung1312 wasn't really for anyone's entertainment, but guess it wasn't completely wasted...
You mean Trump or Musk?
Another interesting point - I’m a mechanical engineer who started college in 2016. The musk fanboy population among baby engineers was extremely high. I respected Tesla and wanted to work there, until I learned they paid their engineers less than 100k in Palo Alto, just way below market rate for that area. They were notorious for burning out young engineers and replacing them with a new crop. The opinion I and my engineer friends had of musk started to sour around 2017-2018, and I remember when he and grimes started dating I was solidly anti-musk and it affected my view of her. Just some food for thought as far as how long he’s been like he is.
I remember the Elon bros from several years back. They kind of died down but ever since he bought twitter, seems like a new crop of Elon Bros has arisen. Only difference is they aren't mostly comprised of people in the tech industry or those with a background in engineering like before. This newer crop is mostly MAGA people. Seems like as soon as he starts losing favor with a particular group, he moves onto a new one. Kinda like how all his relationships have gone.
I started engineering school in 2015 and all of this is true. Tesla internships broke people.
Yes this! i started college in physics in 2013 and saw a bunch of guys fall down the red pill pipeline. They always seemed to worship Musk. I didn't even have a good reason to not like Musk besides his edge lord, contrarian demeanor. Immediately disliked him. And yup. He ended up exactly where I though he would
@jacquelynsmale8079 I feel like it's very easy to redpill engineering and physics students because at least where I went we were stressed out and only hung out with other engineering students who were overwhelmingly white guys from upper middle class families who might have been bullied growing up for being nerdy. Once they get in an environment where being nerdy is cool, it's almost all people with the same background. It probably doesn't help that we had to take fewer humanities classes than other majors and some engineering students pride themselves on their lack of media literacy 😂
It's interesting that this is similar to how comp sci people felt about Steve Jobs and how he treated employees (at least according to a roommate who went to Caltech).
I ain’t no Hallow App girl! I ain’t no Hallow App girl!
👏🏽 amazing
Underrated comment lmao
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z.
Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew, Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher). R/grimeZs
So glad you brought up that Gwen Stefani ad on UA-cam. I was very confused and trying to block the ad but I couldn’t.
no one cares😂😂
@@ville-c4ugirl move tf out here. wtf is wrong with you
i tried blocking matt walsh's movie ad so many times but it never worked smh
I too block every religious ad (read christian, I'm getting no Islam ads) as well. I don't need to see that every 3 videos among my feed, not in front of my salad
@ville-c4u same goes for this very comment 😂😂
MIDDLE to upper class? If your dad owns an emerald mine your not middle class! Also he hasn't invented or created anything. He has bought into other people's ideas and then taken the credit. He suppresses unions because has contempt for the middle class.
You are very low information. Also, union votes fail at his companies because he's made millionaires out of bolt turners and they are happy with things.
Working class. His biggest customers are the middle class. The middle class stopped fighting for unions a long time ago. The working class is taking the hit for that.
@@charisma-hornum-fries
No his biggest customer is the US government.
Yeah, these guests were far too kind to Elon. I don't think an impulse towards kindness is some horrible thing, but we're buying into the mythmaking a little hard here. Elon's skillset is that he's a salesman who knows how to outsource all the real, non-bullshitting work.
I started hating Elon way back in 2015 and have been hating continuously and strongly ever since and I have zero regrets
same
Every time anyone would speak positively about him, I was like, are we thinking of the same person, or are you talking about my bf who vaguely looks like him but is infinity less of a jackass? 😅
Agreed. Elon was never good. He was always a fraud and terrible disgrace to humanity. who we let get too much power.
@@439801RS its crazy how so many people I know don't know how insane that man is
Subreddit grimeZs tells the truth. And weird that YT is censoring this.
Btw they're not coparenting (like the journalist guy- sorry im so bad w names, said). Musk took their first born and ran off and disappeared to texas and grimes couldnt reach him. As far as i know this issue is even still ongoing and started like 2 years ago. Like Grimes was literally LOOKING for him.
That dude is the worst guest Matt has ever had
My replies are being censored. The subreddit grimeZs with a Z in it, EXPOSES Grimes and her evil stupidity.
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z.
Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew, Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher). R/grimeZs
Try to imagine knowing everything about him and still have 3 children with him. She's got to have anticipated that.
I'm sorry, but what contrarianism is Kate talking about at 9:28? What is so contrarian about building an empire using government subsidies. I get so frustrated with criticisms of Musk that concede is supposed contrarianism or genius. He's a conman. Period. Also, he did not build Tesla. He was an early investor and eventually won in court the right to call himself a founder.
Because at the time it felt contrarian. it was not of course, capitalism and all that but, a good business man is in all parts a good conman. And while musk is certainy not a genius, i think he is good in scheme ( and largely helped by the fact that capitalist america works this ways )
Grimes is evil like Elon. Check out the subreddit grimeZs. Seriously, she may be stupid but she appreciates Power.
I feel like this episode gives Elon way too much credit…he did not invent tesla…and maybe I missed it but did we mention how he destroyed high speed rail in California before he went “anti-woke”? check out thunderf00t if you want to see all elons many idiotic failures.
The truth is the interests of the billionaire class are inherently opposed to the average person. I think discussing Elons personal reasons for “shifting” to the right misses the point. He was always going to side with the political group that gave him more power. The democrats had no problem granting him that power, but now the republicans offer him and other billionaires even more power. Can we focus more on the systemic and not the personal psychology? Elon is not a special or unique case in any way, there are incentives for what he does that would affect anyone in his place.
I personally think we should not waste a lot of time trying to debunk the meritocracy claims...it does not really matter whether Musk or any other billionaire "made it" from whatever starting point. Even if they did, they are statistically irrelevant and make no good argument for why meritocracy would be a thing, or why we should hold it as an ideal. I rather avoid this conversation because we end up stuck on a discussion of where we draw the line of what is actual merit, while I refuse the ideal of meritocracy as a whole, regardless of the existence of exceptions.
I think you are correct in pointing out that both Democrats and Republicans are aligned with corporate interests, and how the wealthy support one or the other depends on the specific business they have, alliances, and contexts. I do agree that most of Musk's actions can be explained by protecting his economic interests, but I don't think all of his actions can be explained this way. Many billionaires are wiser and choose not to be famous, while they quietly accrue more and more capital. Musk often acts in unhinged ways that have harmed his own wealth - maybe he is just dumb in the decisions to protect and grow his earnings, but I think there is more to it. And that is where what was discussed here is somewhat illuminating. He is not special or unique, but he behaves differently from many of his class, with intersections with weird and conflicting ideas (climate action, supporting a coal enthusiast, effective altruism, freedom of speech, whining about pronouns, complaining about overpopulation while encouraging white people to have more children, etc.). I think the lens of class is certainly useful, and the most important here, don't get me wrong - I just think there is more to it :)
Okay but Elon didn’t really even make Tesla or SpaceX his engineers did. We still give him more credit than he deserves!! (Only 9.5 minutes in)
I hate the guests on this episode, I can’t watch this capital friendly drek. Please watch the Common sense skeptic, Behind the Bastards and donoteat01 coverage on this loser!
Common sense skeptic, Behind the Bastards, Donoteat01, some more news all have better coverage of Musk.
he was at some point an engineer in both companies
@@walidoutaleb7121 Nope
He did a hostile takeover of Tesla, buying majority stock, and took over from the original 2 founders
He founded SpaceX, but he was not an engineer, at least not an aeronautic engineer or anything vital to rocket science.
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z.
Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher. R/grimeZs
I've got to echo what some other commenters are saying about these guests and this episode. Its not quite up to par with other episodes. I don't know these two journalists but coming from NYT is very telling. They seem hesitant to say certain things and seem to push back against a few things which are reasonable to ask.
Plus, you allowed them to casually espouse known myths about Musk, to do with his 'creation' of tesla and space-x along with the lack of actual indepth critical look at his past.
Overall you are giving musk quite a bit of the benifit of the doupt, and being quite surface level with your takes.
A little disappointed with this episode, but its not too bad tbh. Maybe next time it would be good to have someone on who isnt afraid of the word 'socialism'.
Yeah, I side-eyed the initial framing of Musk as this rebellious visionary by the lady at the beginning, but then there was apologia about Musk being wholly funded by apartheid money at 15 minutes in.
He’s a venture capitalist. A very successful one, but a venture capitalist nonetheless. He’s not even a quasi industrialist like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or even Zuckerberg. Guys that personally created a product that took over an industry. Musk just buys companies and turns on the infinite money glitch, so it doesn’t matter if they continuously operate at a loss.
Fully agree
Agree. This episode is NOT IT. He doesn't deserve credit that this episode is falsely attributing to him. He's a rich boy with toys (companies) he bought. He's a successful venture capitalist AT BEST. I grew up in the bay. I know many who worked with him and called him unhinged. I know companies that refused to work with him ten years ago after their experiences. Engineers would tell other engineers not to work with him and that's saying something for the bay. He's unchanged despite the narrative this wants to paint.
The red rose is Soc Dem. Not socialist.
It seems he sees women as baby making machines. Those women are not really part of his life, he does not see them as partners. He’s openly had multiple families at once. It’s so gross.
Anything for his greatness right 🤡
Hey, he’s building a dystopian compound in Texas where all the families get their own compartment to live in. He’s a loving family man! 😂
And he's idolized by engineers and there was already a lot more misogyny in engineering (at least manufacturing) workplaces than my naive engineering student self thought there would be.
12 children
@@cobaltpterodactyl STEM in general has a lot of misogyny, though it’s not as bad as it used to be.
Every time Kate's screen was shown i was just staring at her dog, so i appreciate the zoom in
me too!
was looking for this comment lmao
Same🐕
her loving expression, her little peering eyes... 🐶✨
I've seen other creators I like do interviews with this pair and they're always like this. I speculate their caginess is to do with not wanting to turn Elon fans away from buying their book or be sued, fired from their jobs etc but I agree they weirdly come across as extremely uncritical of Elon in areas where he's blatantly deserving of criticism, like spending so much time covering him has given them Stockholm syndrome or something aha
9:15 first of all I think she should mention that elon never made anything like telsa, he bought it after it was already made.
It just drives me insane that reporters are allergic to the word "socialism" unless it's in a negative context. In particular, these reporters didn't even say the word when it came to talking about what accountability for billionaires would look like. I get that they probably did it on purpose, but if they don't use the word, people will continue to dance around the issue.
Let me be very clear: There is no accountability for people who own the means of production without socialism. The entire system of policing, judges, and government is expressly beholden to capitalist resource holders simply because of the way that they conduct their affairs. And it's been this way ever since the beginning of the United States--There was a short period of time from the 1930's to the 1970's where the government was actually somewhat interested in holding wealthy people accountable, but that was the exception rather than the rule. Outside of that time period, we have always been a nation of slaveholders and robber barons. It is literally the entire system that this country was built upon. So to have any discussion of accountability without the word "socialism" is disingenuous at best and incredibly ignorant at worst. We have to stop sugarcoating what the solutions to this problem will be and stop using euphemisms for wealth redistribution. Just say the damn word.
Very expected of Journalists who work at the new york times….
I Love that word, socialism yaaaaasssss sounds so powerful 💜
Absolutely ❤
I don't think the influence of neofeudalists like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin on tech bros' politics in general can be emphasized enough. Especially on Musk. It's kinda wild that this is completely ignored by these journalists.
@@annaphallactic you’re 100% right. I truly have no ill will towards the journalists featured in the episode, but I found the understanding of the cultural topics around Elon Musk very lacking on all sides in this interview. Can we get a professor or actual expert to discuss matters like this? I don’t consider myself an expert in analyzing tech’s right-wing, eugenic, ethnofacist features (not tendencies, I mean it when I say features.) but I found myself in awe that it wasn’t even really mentioned. Why am I sitting here knowing that I know more about a topic than the person who’s supposedly an expert, or if not that, at least knowledgeable?
The podcast Behind the Bastards covered both of them this year
This. There’s some very scary nazi esque shit going on with that group of people over at silicon valley that even Grimes is involved with but people really never dive deep into this topic.
This isn't talked about enough. Grimes attended Yarvin's wedding a couple months ago as well. Our vice president is friends with Thiel as well as Musk...
After the mentioning of “Elon building Tesla and SpaceX to [do stuff with them]” around the 9:00 mark, does anyone intervene in the discussion to correct that myth?
As in, Elon never made anything, but just bought it and then made it worse?
nope. this video still reinforces the same bs.
I am so mad at this ! They are supposed to be experts how do they not know this ?? Or at least mention it
This totally should have been mentioned! Also, buying things and making them worse is his entire resume.
I'm thankful people in the comments are pointing this out, and I wish Matt was able to push back a little but on these statements a bit more.
it is mentioned that he didn't start Tesla, not sure where but they do say that he finds the engineers and invests in them
Gotta say, this conversation is shaping up to heavily reaffirm why I tend not to care for the New York Times. 🙃
Yup. And my reply was censored. I don't know why. YT is also trying to censor speech. Why was I censored? Because I said that Grimes is not a good person either and you can verify this on the subreddit grimeZs.
agreed, I love Matt but what the hell 😭 these people glossed over the most important details and straight up lied "middle to upper class" my ass...
I was pretty underwhelmed by this. I came away feeling like I didn’t learn anything I didn’t know before and it didn’t feel like the reporters had a strong perspective/theory on the question.
I didn’t know half of these things I feel very entertained
i mean i get it, i knew nearly everything they were talking about but the question was answered how it was supposed to, don’t you think?
Elon is so very divorced that everyone thinks Grimes married him and divorced him lol
Divorce is more popular than marriage in America
@curtiszyr yeah our overlords have successfully alienated us into dissociative individuation, even people who think they love each other have a hell of a time making it work. Apparently many of not most marriages fail because of money issues
@@curtiszyrNo it’s actually not
Something that's probably not a large part but elon tried to get involved in the austin furry community and pretty quickly got shunned for being his normal creepy self which also probably made him pretty upset at the queer community but to be clear.
No way, that's so funny. Furries rock
I have to verify this. It's too comical. 😂😂
is this for real?? the furries dodged a bullet
We must protect the furries at all costs
he sells paypal to ebay? no he was kicked off from paypal long before that, he had stakes though... he was a person nobody wanted to deal with from the start as he always wanted control everything.
I just want to add here that Grimes is not a good person. Go to the subreddit r/grimeZs, that Grimes with a Z.
Grimes did an interview for Vanity Fair and she said that Elon would have the boy and she will have the girl. This interview revealed her daughter. Grimes wants to be Mitochondrial Eve of Mars and stated that her firstborn son X is like Paul Atreides. Grimes is OBSESSED with Dune while Elon is obsessed with Ghengis Khan (Grimes outed this about Elon too). Grimes also tweets about loving being manipulated and the patriarchy and white culture (dog whistle alert for the last one!). Grimes hangs out with the Thiel/Palladium crew, Aella, Liv Boree, Yarvin (Thiel's evil dark Enlightenment philosopher). R/grimeZs
Omg I had no idea he had a trans child. That makes all of his hate speech re trans individuals so much more heartbreaking.
Yes, his daughter is actually really cool, you can find her on Threads under @vivllainous
That’s why people have been saying “as long as he keeps deadnaming his trans daughter, I’ll keep deadnaming Twitter”.
I'd say his speech is because of his trans child. I just want to quote Robert Evans of the podcast It Could Happen Here:
"Musk's child is not in fact dead, but they have expressed an identity utterly separate from Elon, an identity he cannot understand because Musk can only see his children as an extension of himself and his ego. This is in fact worse than death. It is a threat to Musk's own life. This incidentally is why Musk and his fellow travelers see transgender kids as such a threat. Accepting a trans child, even if you don't fully understand how and why they feel the way they do, is one of the most radical acts of love imaginable. To do this means that you've accepted on a fundamental level that your children are autonomous beings. Not an extension of you, but something new, wonderful and unique. The essence of parental love is to give your children to the world. This means accepting that you are finite, that the world goes on without you. If you see all humanity as an extension of your own ego, nothing could be more frightening."
Wow. My comment was censored. All because I said that all of Grimes evil stupidity can be viewed on the subreddit grimeZs. I wonder why?!?!
@janeydoe7417 I just read it. It's still there. I commented on the same thread.
"everyone said doing mass market electric vehicle would be impossible" - Who is that "everyone"? Kind reminder that Nissan Leaf existed and very much was the first mass-market BEV, before any Tesla's mass-market product.
"people didn't think space sector could be privatized, Elon said I think it can" - What are you talking about? Space sector WAS ALL PRIVATE before SpaceX. SpaceX basically replace ULA as the sole monopolist for the US space launch market, but ULA *is a private company.*
The other side of that coin could be to talk about Boeing.
As an Australian, the pedo guy tweet was what disillusioned me to his "brilliance".
SAME!
Seconded.
Same. But in Canadian.
@valolafson6035 haha. Hey, Commonwealth cousin! 👋
Thank you for zooming in on the dog at 1:02:01 🐶❤️
was looking for this comment. I tend to just listen while gaming, happened to look over and see the pup right before the zoom in lol perfect
Honestly....Grimes dating Elon, and spending years spawning with him, is just a rather sad end to what she was building on her own terms up to that point.
I was a massive Grimes fan since discovering her stuff around 2010 with her Darkbloom EP. Vanessa, Oblivion, Genesis, Realiti(the demo) all had me, rightly, convinced she was THE coolest new voice in left field pop music. Catchy creative alternative truly DIY pop music for a new century. She was doing really cool stuff.
And then Elon entered the chat....and all that basically stopped. Or got put on hold...indefinitely. And now, even when she does do music related stuff, it's coming from an utterly alien perspective compared to back then. I'm all for artists changing and growing, but this is different. Grimes almost makes me long for the 90s proclivity to accuse artists of "selling out." It was definitely overused in the 90s. But Grimes alone has earned that moniker imo... She literally traded in a once in a lifetime creative journey...to become the manic pixie consort to the wealthiest human ever. Cool...
i would suggest listening to a genre of music that isnt utter shite, like slam
Holy sh..t consort is such a good choice of word! Yes, a consort to one of the most insane emperors we've ever had to endure.
She will always be my favorite artist tho
Yea I’ve heard people argue that she chose to change her brand on purpose when she got with Elon but I highly doubt that. I think she was seduced by power.
@@extremetrollface avoid utter shite genres like slam, got it.
Ok but first of all, can we get a tutorial for your eye makeup bc it's GLORIOUS.
i truly cannot believe that you give this high level of content for free - thank you
He usually makes great content. This video is bs… the same old lies are told about Musk… he didn’t invent any of the stuff and he also didn’t change… he was always like this
I think it’s crucial to recognize how much of this is performative propaganda with the express purpose of feeding the culture wars so that we don’t join together and start a class war.
Musk dating Grimes was never cool, always horrific. Fewer NYTimes reporters who overly identify with their horror show subjects. Also where was the coverage of the lawsuit employees won due to racism working for Tesla?
Yea I’m only 15 minutes in but it’s been mentioned casually multiple times that Elon “built 2 multi billion dollar businesses” and that’s just not true. The story of how Elon wormed his way into Tesla is well known. I’m not going to speak to space X as I don’t know much about it. But, he has always been a money guy with no real usable ideas. His companies have “thrived” mostly only in stock value, which is why he is considered the richest person on earth. And the successes that his companies have had seem to be in spite of him for the most part. I can’t believe Matt didn’t push back on this.
And also, not to be the annoying leftist, but someone’s ability to make money at a company is not a quality that means anything when we are talking about their impact on society. He is an awful person whose ideas will hurt all of us in the long run. If he gets his dream of living on mars it will be because all of us have been broken and used to make it happen, we will all die on earth fighting over the last resources remaining.
@@DakotaGray42 I'm not defending Musk but they mean PayPal.
@@isitatiger you are most likely correct. It’s worth noting though that he was only briefly CEO of what was PayPal and was actually ousted because he was trying to force it to be rebranded as X. Just like he ended up doing with twitter some 20 years later. So even at PayPal his bad ideas were hurting him. (I think it’s obvious that twitter is in the worst condition it’s ever been since the takeover, seemingly on purpose but still worth noting)
@@DakotaGray42That's the exact reason he needs population growth (and thereby his pipeline to the right wing). The moment he made that ridiculous statement that "humanity is actually in decline and our population has to reach 12bn or it will collapse" my ears pricked up. It's so obvious that he's simply aware of how much human life he'll need to sacrifice for the asinine goal of terraforming Mars. And how much MONEY is being pumped into that bs.
It's unfathomable. Imagine what all that effort and investment could do for this other dinky little planet, we just happen to live on. Absolute god complex.
But, you know ... anything but therapy.
even matt is whitewashing his shit now. unbelievable
The blake shelton dec*ntification of gwen stefani deserves its own epsiode, that intro had me screaming
It was like a (fun) jumpscare every time someone else's face suddenly appeared for the first minute and a half of this video. A real "omg someone's been here the whole time" moment.
38:02 absolutely cackling at “is that A$AP Rocky?” at Travis Scott. If you know you know
I recently rewatched Citizen Kane and it’s incredible just how similar the motivations of Charles Foster Kane in the film are to Musk’s: desperate need to be loved by everyone without the capacity to love anyone other than themselves. Orson Welles really was ahead of his time in so many ways.
No, Elon's pathology just isn't original in the slightest. He's a modern day Pharaoh.
Rosebud!!!!
don't wanna be the guy who mentions a bigger youtuber, but I've been thinking since like half a year that ContraPoints next video can not not be about Elon Musk 😂
Seeing as how Matt mentions Natalie around 6:34 and have done multiple videos with her, I wouldn't feel too bad mentioning her.
I think then it's going to be more about wealth as a psychological vector of change, as opposed to an individual person.
Although I guess "Opulence" is about Trump.
she's been saying on Patreon for a while that her next video that she's working on has "something to do with" the election, but isn't specifically about that, and before the election happened she was saying that her script would be affected by the outcome. So yeah, I think you're on the right track here!
@@PygmyGoat3Love her! I call her Philosophy Mom 😂❤
Gwen Stefani, no 😭
I clicked on the video to get some Elon lore but ended up getting my heart broken wtf 😭 😭
I do think it’s just her trying to get through hard times and keep her family together.
@@PolarTurtle6401she went very conservative once she started looking like every rich conservative generic woman and lost all her personality
I honestly thought it was Ariana Grande for a second 🤣
I was today years old when I found out that Gwen is actually a devout catholic and released a cloying, conservative country music album recently. At least we have her last Coachella performance to remember her by. 😭😭😭
you can not be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Fiscal justice is a social cause.
Elon Musk needs to spend less time online. He is on the internet too much. The internet is causing Gen X to act like teenagers.
They have always been spoiled brats
Half of Gen X at best. The vocal minority distorts actual reality
The people who act that way online were already like that, emotionally and intellectually immature. They just feel very comfortable ditching any filter online
In theory it could be a nice venting place for their shitty thoughts, but when you can find dedicated communities online that agree with you on everything and more, that's obviously not how it works out
Thanks for an excellent podcast. One word that I didn't hear though was 'greed'. You don't get to be the richest person on the planet without also being the 'greediest' POS around. Americans don't talk enough about the insatiable greed of the rich.
I hate Elon and typically love this podcast but tbh the last thing I want to listen to is two NYT reporters psychoanalyze Elon Musk. (especially considering the role the NYT plays in denying genocide in Palestine)
@@WhiteToothedRat don’t bother. The reporters are actively spreading misinformation about musk’s involvement with his companies, playing into his own narratives. I couldn’t finish it.
Thisssss
The lack of differentiation between building a company and repeatedly buying in the forcing others out is disappointing.
Matt, I just wanted to say thank you for inspiring my lesson plans with my senior secondary school classes for the last couple of weeks! We're discussing Tyrants in Shakespeare (I teach English), and I'm tying stuff we see in Shakespeare to what we see with populists in the world today. As a Dutch person, I don't always follow everything that happens in the US, but your podcasts help me put some news in perspective for myself and my students ❤
Yay! Dutch schooling needs more awareness around populism in a contemporary context as in my experience (I graduated in 2017) the focus was generally in classes such as history, maatschappijleer/wetenschappen and English on historic context. So I commend you for going out of you way to find a way to include it!
Hi Matt, I really love your podcast! Is it possible to cover the political unity between the left and right on Luigi Mangione issue on the next episode?
I feel like the media is going so hard to frame this as a left vs right issue, when in reality, many conservatives actually think of Luigi as an American hero. Ben Shapiro had 3 vids on the topic demonizing Luigi and under each of them his conservative audience is calling him out for being a corporate shill, and being a millionaire and not a blue collar worker. Same with other conservative UA-camrs, they are trying so hard to pit left and right against each other, because their rich sposors are seeing what's happening and they fear this unity!! I think this level of class solidarity between the left and right is unprecedented. I feel like it deserves to be highlighted and talked about
solidarity between left and right? Do you even understand what left is? It is there to fight the right. There should never be a solidarity between these two. And the right is definitely not for blue collar workers. That has always been a left movement. I feel like Americans are so extremely uneducated what left is, where it comes from and what it stands for. The right wants social classes, the left fights it.
do i have good news for you
i think its so funny that he thinks of himself as a contrarian, but when a democrat was president he presented as more socially liberal, and then the trump era comes around (and possibly validates some of his more veiled beliefs) and he takes a hard right turn. this man is a conformist
Could his affinity for Obama etc have been less about his values, or vibes, and more about getting big contracts by sucking up to power, perhaps? There’s something askew in parts of their framing…
Elon was not much before grants from the American tax payers. the irony of him being born outside the country is sending me in the context.
Yes this, and the same is true for other tech execs. They aligned themselves with Democrats because that’s who was in power, they were never ideologically committed to liberal politics. The framing in this interview is grossly naive.
Exactly. The guests failed to mention that Tesla could only get off the ground through funding from the federal government and California.
The Department of Energy gave Tesla a $465 million loan in 2013. California has given them $3 billion in subsidies and indirect market mechanisms. They benefit from California’s cap-and-trade program and EV tax rebates on top of support for EV charging infrastructure.
SpaceX has only been able to succeed because NASA is a willing partner. Starlink is being deployed by the Department of Defense.
Elon was and is perfectly happy to suck on the government teat. He just thinks no one else should. He wouldn’t be where he is without government funding and liberal policies.
Well, Grimes is a problematic person too. Quite a fan of Germany, especially between 1933 and 1945. And well, calling your kid Walkyrie is a really dark sign... Wagner, really?
Love the tf2 scout fit
oh my god you’re right,,, scout if he slayed
Why have you done this to me?
Can’t unsee it now
We should jump on a server…
Most underrated comment
Some weird take I have is that the popularity of the big bang theory (the tv show) plays a role in elons upcoming and how ppl see "nerds" like him
Not a weird take at all. I've thought about this a lot, and it began in the late '70s through the 1980s with things like Revenge of the Nerds movies and the popularity of Star Trek and Star Wars. The change from "nerds are dumb" to "nerds will have the last laugh" correlates with the rise of computer use by the masses and pop culture embracing technology. Everyone became a nerd in a way, and professional nerds started making bank and thereby elevated their status in society.
And it didn't help that The Big Bang Theory had him an episode where they just glazed him up. The Simpsons and Rick and Morty are guilty of sanitizing him as well.
Saying Elon grew up living an upper middle-class lifestyle while showing a picture of what appears to be a damn mansion is hilariously out of touch.
In 2012 I tattooed my hand with the exact same hand tattoo as Grimes had back then so I absolutely feel like I pay the price for Elon's midlife crisis too... :/
Copying someone's tattoo seems like a poor decision in general ngl
@@439801RSKinda agreed not to be mean
My boyfriend and I just sat down to watch the pod while we ate, and I expected to finish it later by myself but we absolutely got so invested we watched from start to finish. thank you!!! 🙏 🎉 Great episode
Can we start talking about the Trump mind virus? Cause that feels way more accurate to what is actually happening to the US
Yesss, or the red pill mind virus.
I would download the prayer app but I ain’t no hallowback girl, I ain’t no hallowback girl.
Matt! I have to tell you how important your channel is to me!! I have been trying my best to abstain from social media (successfully, too) for my mental health, but I know that important cultural and political news happen there, and I want to stay informed. Frankly, your filtering and analysis of online current events is a public service, and you do it with so well with great guests and humor. Thank you!
gwen stefani, while always beautiful, is unrecognizable from the person who sang, "i'm just a girl". DAE?
she looks like she went to the same plastic surgeon as caitlyn jenner lowkey they’re looking like sisters
i think it was marrying a country singer, just my opinion
People tend to change over the course of 30 years
@@439801RS their whole face?!
I agree and it's sad
Most people "start on second base" while disconnected from "average life", arent so narcissistic and greedy to attempt to become the richest man in the world.
Elon believes he should be at the top of humanity that's the driving force behind where he is now, and luck let his dumb ass fail upwards into it.
He is desperate to as popular as, and to be seen as the real life version of Tony Stark, without the self relection to realise his actions and views run counter this, and so now has openly embrased the only side that will pat him on the head and say "good boy, you're just like iron man"
Having money to hire the best experts in the field you wanna succeed in helps too. It's not just dumb luck, but dumb does fit in there somewhere
Elon was born like that. Emerald Mine money and a dad complex
There was no "emerald mine" money. Musk has said that several times.
@@marsnr1lol. Yea just like he said the cyber truck had bulletproof/shatterproof windows
Matt not knowing about the “p*do guy” controversy is kinda wild lol, I bet that was some fruitful lore
Idk if y'all are gonna mention it but Elon's father married his step daughter (edit i don't think they ever got martied but they have had a sexually intimate relationship as they lived together and had 2 kids together) and had a kid with her. Had some intense beliefs, as Elon does now, about "spreading his seed". A lot of people seem to miss that bit and it seems like it could have been pretty formative for him becoming who he is today, to me anyway it seems
looking at Matt's cute glasses really took the edge off of thinking about Elon for over an hour
Matt! Im so disappointed. You brought up Dorian Corey and her thoughts on leaving a mark in the world without even one mention of the fact that when she died they found the mummified remains of her ex lover stuffed into a suitcase in the back of her closet. Now that is leaving a mark!
For context he tried to kill her, she defended herself and didn't report it because she was black and trans. She would have died in jail before she even got to trial most likely.
As an autistic person, I and we do not claim him.
As a gay guy I don’t claim the narrator on this channel.
@@jakeforrest Then why be here?
@@valolafson6035 “Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer”
Yeah, I think the Narcissists and Sociopaths have a much stronger claim on him.
Stop demonizing personality disorders. Mentally ill people are not bad people. You can be mentally ill and a bad person but its not because of the illness@@jennifershappyplace6938
ngl this one felt dry but it wasn't your fault :') wish contra was a permanent fixture of this pod, just bc you guys vibe so well
Give Elon waaay more credit than is due for the companies he owns, namely that he didn't invent anything, he simply walks in after a company has already been founded and says something like "this all belongs to me now"
stop spreading lies
"are you coming to bed"
Hold on babe Matt posted a 1:20:19 video about Elon Musk
Really hits the pain points of this video towards the end where Ryan is talking about Elon buying things to "solve problems", and instead of recognising that Elon bought the presidency he switches up his wording before hitting the rule of 3 and says "works with trump".
Other thing that I think goes unspoken here is how his being shitty in relationships not only lines up with his daughter's account but his own. If you check out his older biography that came out in like 2016, there's a story of him telling his wife at the time, his first one, that, "If you were my employee I would fire you." at like a dance or some shit. He's always seen the people in his life as employees he manages, rather than equals in his community, and he treats them as such, including "firing" them when they no longer want to live in that role.
Equals ? Expecting such from a person that ambitious hahahah
Why do people forget that this guy was born and raised in apartheid SA? This is him growing into his Boer identity.
Elon Musk's villain era was accelerated by the line "Zuckerberg and Gates and Buffett/ amateurs can fucking suck it" in Bo Burnham's 2021 viral song "Bezos I." In this essay I will...
The evangelicals are discovering Advent and they’re not even doing it right! (It’s not the 25 days before Christmas, it’s the 4 Sundays before it)
This year it's 25 days.
For what it's worth, Gwen Stefani actually is Catholic
In 2020 there was a bloody coup in Bolivia that deposed the indigenous-led government which had announced the nationalization of lithium extraction and production weeks prior. Lithium batteries are essential to Tesla’s business, so it was no surprise that after the coup its actions skyrocketed to their highest value in history. After accusations of being benefitted (or involved) by the sanguinary endeavor, Musk twitted “We will coup whoever we want. Deal with it.”
I understand that for this podcast lgbtq+ issues are central, but it would have been nice to have a slight mention of Musk’s involvement in South America’s far right turn in favor of US colonialism. As a south American myself, I suspect that most US viewers of this podcast are not even aware of operation condor in the 70s, and all the horror we have been enduring since. I hope these kind of topics inspire at least a few minutes of discussion in some future episodes. And thank you for the work :)
that's such an important aspect i wasn't even aware of. Thanks for adding that and in such a considerate and informative way too!
The current online right loves to talk about how they are “the new counterculture” or “the new punk.”
It’s a brilliant shortcut for guys like Elon because they get to cosplay as brilliant maverick innovators but the innovation is just “conservatism” so they don’t actually have to come up with anything new.
The title of the book, “Character Limit” is ~mwah~ chef’s kiss! Incredibly clever!
how did you went through an hour of talking about musk and not mention the tweet about the coup in Bolivia in which hes says and i quote:
"We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it."
his public politics align with the fact that he is a capitalist and the republicans simply offered a better deal to him as a car maker. also his story reminds me a lot of car makers in Germany in the 30s so you know there is that as well.
the dude was a bad day away with siding with the nazis and that makes sense. his material conditions align with their wants. he is a capitalist and republicans are better at licking capitalist boots
including that paris is burning clip was crazy why am i crying over an elon musk podcast episode rn
when u call Vernon Unsworth "pedo guy" like that and not my his real legal name u reinforces this label that Elon put on him in one of his hissy fits. Please respect the man
That was very well done. So glad to find this pod!
Just wanted to add that he might actually does not feel empathy psychological (I think the term should be warm empathy) but this is no excuse to behave like he does. You can still learn (cold) empathy by teaching it yourself and how you should react to humans around you, kinda studying their behaviour. Just saying you dont have any is just a lazy excuse to act shitty.
yes, many people are not aware of this. there is not only one kind of empathy, and some of them are learnable, you do not need to be born with them. it is one of the reasons poor parenting results in unempathetic children and adults, they do not teach or model those kinds of empathy properly to their kids, so they do not learn it. it must be learned in adulthood where it is more difficult, but certainly not impossible
I like the way you talk about current events and figures in a way that is well-educated and calm with a few laughs to spare. My stress around these issues becomes more manageable because of what you do.
As far as Musk's childhood has influenced him... "The oppressed love the oppressor and cannot wait to follow their example."
This is a great podcast but I'm so happy you zoomed in on the dog. They just wanted to be included in the conversation!!
all due respect matt, at the 46 minute mark when you're talking about elon's trans child coming out radicalizing him against the trans community, you say that it seems like an uncommon reaction, i was really surprised by what you said cause so many people don't accept their trans kids & that does lead to parents being outspoken transphobes very often, maybe i'm misunderstanding and you mean in the context of like a celebrity? idk it just caught me off guard
no you're totally right! i was just referring specifically to the way that prior to his daughter coming out, elon had been this sort of outspoken ally, flaunted tesla pride, etc -- only to strip away all of that once faced with a queer child of his own, which is not something i've seen before. that's why i kept mentioning the more cynical view, which is that his allyship was only ever a corporate strategy. i hope this makes sense!
@@MattBernstein1 oh that does make a lot more sense to me, thank you for explaining! i was putting on my face this morning before heading to work while listening to the pod so i might've just not connected those dots there, anyways i enjoyed this video and the guests! thanks for the upload as always!
that scene from paris is burning. i gotta watch it
i have ZERO interest in humanizing elon musk. the fact that matt would make a video like this is really disappointing. he is not just a little guy who "fell down the conservative rabbithole".
Humans do evil things, reality isn't a cartoon where the villain is unquestionably bad for no reason other than they're the villain
@@Tiglopoon glad you learned a lot in kindergarten, but this is not a profound point to make
He literally grew up in apartheid South Africa so it’s not surprising that he is a conservative
This was such a great listen, and thank you so much for the in-depth reporting on this. I wanted to mention that some early criticism of Elon Musk came pre-”pedo guy”. His 1st wife Justine Musk wrote an excellent article “I Was a Starter Wife”: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce”, in Marie Claire in 2010. And you can see this behaviour in the article, but he was able to mask it behind progressive cred, but also importantly, he was able to do so because anytime someone tried to call him out early on social media, he effectively dogpiled them into silence (especially women journalists). By the “pedo comment”, he had developed a reputation among women journalists for his behaviour.
In any case, love this channel, and thank you so much for the amazing listen and work!
The ultimate Elo tweet is when he said he thought chess was too much for his intellectual prowess...
*too easy
That Dorian Corey clip made me tear up... "You don't have to bend the whole world... I think it's better to just enjoy it." Beautiful. musk is a small small man and no amount of money in the world will make history look kindly on him. Thank you for your incredible work!
I’m so glad you zoomed in on the dog. (I was attentively listening to the whole episode I promise!) ….but the pupper, tho….
matt your show is so cozy and warm idk how else to describe it
As I consider myself one of Elon Musk's most dedicated haters, I appreciate this video.
I think ppl forget that Grimes is also very smart. she was a high achieving student in a neuroscience program. she dropped it when her music was taking off. she viewed him as a visionary.
Tesla is literally complicit in the Congo g-side. Just because they buy from Glencore and Glencore does the human rights violations doesn't mean that Tesla doesn't knowingly benefit from slavery, displacement, and colonial terror including mass grapings. I think though that the sleep depravation and stress that he has put himself through has probably made him a lot worse though.