← Good Bad Billionaire
Good Bad Billionaire
Elon Musk: Money, memes and Mars
00:55:27
How Elon Musk became the richest person on the planet
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- [00:00]
Simon Jack
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
Ad Voice / Advertiser
Who drives the world forward? The one with the answers or the one asking the right questions? At Aramco, we start every day by asking how? How can innovation help deliver reliable energy to the world? How can technology help develop new materials to reshape cities? How can collaboration help us overcome the biggest challenges? To get to the answer, we first need to ask the right question. Search Aramco Powered by How Aramco is an energy and chemicals company with oil and gas production as its primary business.
- [00:36]
Simon Jack
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- [01:12]
It's 2022. We're in a giant gleaming foyer in downtown San Francisco, all polished stone and glass. In strolls a man. He's dressed casually in a gray T shirt and black jeans with a silver chain around his neck.
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Zing Singh
He he's got a huge grin on his face and in his hands he's carrying a full sized white porcelain sink. He's being filmed and smiles at the camera as he passes the reception which bears the logo of a blue bird.
- [01:38]
Simon Jack
Yes, this is Elon Musk and he's about to buy Twitter. And he quickly fires off a tweet on his phone entering Twitter hq. Let that sink in. Get it?
- [01:50]
Zing Singh
We certainly do well. Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money.
- [01:58]
Simon Jack
We take them from zero to their first million and then from a million onto a billion.
- [02:03]
Zing Singh
My name is Zing Singh and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.
- [02:06]
Simon Jack
And I'm Simon Jack. I'm the BBC's business editor. And this week it's the Grand Fromage.
- [02:10]
Zing Singh
The Big Kahuna, the Big Dog himself.
- [02:13]
Simon Jack
This is our most requested billionaire. Listeners from Paris to Kampala want to hear his story. As Ariel, our 11 year old listener from Hong Kong keenly observed, Elon is at the center of most news nowadays.
- [02:26]
Zing Singh
Elon Musk is the world's richest person. He is worth $485 billion at the time of recording. Bear in mind, it's also fluctuating all the time but he is up there all the time.
- [02:37]
Simon Jack
He sure is.
- [02:37]
Zing Singh
There is a lot of story here, from his early days in PayPal to Tesla and SpaceX, and more recently his purchase of Twitter, now known as X. And his involvement, let's not forget, with President Trump's government. I mean, just a single one of those stories would be enough to fill up one person's life. But Elon Musk is a man has lived several lifetimes. So we are going to have to give you the most important and most interesting details and we want to get.
- [03:02]
Simon Jack
Try and get under the skin of this extraordinary story. You know, what drives him? Why is he the richest person in the world? Why has he been so successful?
- [03:10]
Zing Singh
Why has he been so controversial and with so much controversy surrounding him? Is Elon Musk good, bad or just another billionaire? We want to know what you, our listeners, think. It's up to you to decide.
- [03:22]
Simon Jack
And we may even put together a special feedback episode with all your thoughts on Elon Musk. Listen to the end to find out how to get in touch. Now let's travel back in time to where it all started.
- [03:36]
So Elon Musk was born in 1971. Damn, that makes him younger than me. In Pretoria, South Africa.
- [03:42]
Zing Singh
No need to admit that.
- [03:43]
Simon Jack
So he grew up during the height of apartheid. He was the eldest of three children in his father Errol's first marriage. Like most things surrounding Elon Musk, his family's wealth is hotly debated. His father Errol, was involved in emerald mining and once claimed he had so much money he couldn't close the safe. But Elon himself has always been adamant his family was middle class and that he did not grow up rich.
- [04:07]
Zing Singh
Whatever his wealth was, it didn't seem like an idyllic childhood. His parents divorced when he was just eight and he initially moved in with his mother. He has said, I just had a housekeeper who was there to make sure I didn't break anything. I was raised by books, books and then my parents.
- [04:22]
Simon Jack
Now his mum noticed he could remember everything he read and called him Genius boy. He was particularly into science fiction. I think this is really important. He loved Isaac Asimov's foundation series, which a celebrated saga about a galactic empire on the brink of collapse. And the genius who works out how to preserve civilization across the stars. He was also an early engineer. He built rockets as a kid. Telltale sign there. And he gets into computers, of course, early. He says he taught himself to code, age 10. A couple of years later made a space themed computer game that he sold for $500 to a magazine. Elon has said that he has Asperger's syndrome.
- [05:00]
Zing Singh
Elon wasn't popular at school. In fact, he was viciously bullied. And in one particularly formative moment, he was thrown down some stairs and beaten so badly he was hospitalized for two weeks. He remembered that the hardest part of all of this was that they got my best friend, in his words, to lure me out of hiding so that they could beat me up. And that hurt.
- [05:21]
Simon Jack
Meanwhile, home was not the sanctuary it should have been. At age 10, he decided to move in with his father, explaining, he seemed very sad and lonely by himself, but I didn't really understand at the time what kind of person he was. It was not a good idea. Years later, Elon Musk actually cried when he described his father in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, saying, he was such a terrible human being. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done. Wow.
- [05:47]
Zing Singh
There have been many accusations made about Errol Musk, Elon Musk's father. He's been accused of abuse, including domestic abuse by his ex wife, all of which Eero has denied. But Errol told journalists how he shot and killed three intruders who broke into his home. He was charged with manslaughter, but was eventually acquitted, arguing self defense. And after the divorce from Elon's mum, Erol would go on to marry twice more, fathering many more children. So quite a few tortured childhood, I would describe it.
- [06:16]
Simon Jack
So perhaps not surprising then that Elon dreamt of escaping his hometown. And I think escapism is going to be one of the themes of this story. University was his way out. Two weeks before his 18th birthday, he boarded a plane to Toronto in Canada to study economics and physics at Queen's University. Although he would complete his degree at the University of Pennsylvania, Errol claims that.
- [06:38]
Zing Singh
Elon arrived with literal emeralds in his pockets, but Elon denies this. He says he actually arrived with $2,000 in Travelers ch his dad, plus 2 grand in cash from his mum.
- [06:50]
Simon Jack
We're going to do a little time travel. We're going to fast forward to the 1990s. The computer nerds are coalescing in Silicon Valley with their big ideas for new companies. We've covered many of them on this podcast. Elon wants to be one of them. He's come to Silicon Valley to do a PhD at Stanford, that university which has spawned so many billionaires, to do a PhD in energy storage technologies for electric vehicles.
- [07:13]
Zing Singh
Yes, that might sound very familiar to you as time goes on, but. But in the meantime, he's working on a idea with his brother Kimbo. It's called zip2.com. Basically, it's an online business directory that's plotted out on an interactive map, sort of like a proto Google Maps. Elon thinks it's going to be huge, so he never actually starts that PhD at Stanford.
- [07:33]
Simon Jack
In Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk, who we'd like to thank for some of the material that we've used in this podcast, it's claimed that errol gave him $28,000 to start Zip2. Elon disputes this on Twitter, claiming that Zip2 has, with $2,000 from him, 5,000 from his brother, and a further 8,000 from their co founder, Greg Khoury. Although Elon does say it does admit that his father provided around $20,000, but that at a much later date anyway.
- [08:01]
Zing Singh
This is the classic tech startup hustle, right? So the brothers live in their tiny Palo Alto office in California with fast food wrappers everywhere. With the stress and the lack of sleep, tensions understandably run high. In another biography of Musk, which we've drawn from Walter Isaacson tells of how Elon tried to punch Kimball, his brother, who dodged and then bit Elon, which resulted in stitches and a tetanus shot.
- [08:26]
Simon Jack
Blimey, I've got three brothers and there have been some punches thrown in our life, but I don't think any of us have bit the other one.
- [08:33]
Zing Singh
No need for tetanus shots.
- [08:34]
Simon Jack
No. But their hard work paid off. In just a year, they'd secured $3.6 million of investment, plus a $30,000 bonus each to buy new cars. But there were strings attached to that money. The investors didn't think 25 year old Elon was experienced enough to run the company, so they insisted they bring in an outside chief executive. And when that person proposed merging Zip2 with another city guide, Elon tried to orchestrate a boardroom coup to prevent this from happening, plus get himself installed as the new boss. But this didn't get a plan and the board decided to sell the company.
- [09:10]
Zing Singh
So in 1999, Elon gets his very first windfall. Zip2 is sold, and Elon said, my bank account went from $5,000 to 22 million and $5,000. He's officially a millionaire. And one of the first things he buys after the sale is a McLaren Formula One supercar worth a cool $1 million.
- [09:41]
Simon Jack
So he's a millionaire a long ways yet to go. So Elon uses the windfall from selling Zip2 to start a new venture named after his favorite letter, X. The first iteration of X.com was an Internet banking system. At the time, the banking system was very analog. Digital banking was a very new revolutionary.
- [09:59]
Zing Singh
Idea, if you're old enough to remember it. This was also a time when I think people were quite scared of putting their bank details into the.
- [10:07]
Simon Jack
Yes, they were. That was seen to be risky.
- [10:09]
Zing Singh
Asking to be scammed.
- [10:11]
Simon Jack
Yeah.
- [10:11]
Zing Singh
So things like digital banking were very new ideas. But unfortunately, another tech startup called Confinity had the very same idea, which they called PayPal. And the CO founder of Confinity, Peter Thiel, was working out of the Same building as x.com Peter Thiel, who you.
- [10:26]
Simon Jack
Will remember from another episode, enormously influential in tech community. Two huge figures here meeting at this point. So in early 2000, with the bubble bursting, cash was getting tight. At that time, Elon and Peter Thiel decided to merge their two companies together to what would later become known as PayPal. But behind the scenes, Elon and Peter were battling for control. As I say, if you've heard our episode on Peter, you know what happens next. But this is Elon's episode, so let's hear it from his side.
- [10:56]
Zing Singh
After months of working like mad on the merged company, Elon still hasn't managed to take a honeymoon with his new wife, Justine Wilson, who's an aspiring fantasy novelist he'd met at Queen's University. This is an interesting aside. According to Justine, while dancing at their wedding, Elon told her, I am the alpha in this relationship. But they finally make it onto their honeymoon to Sydney for the 2000 Olympics. And in fact, this is Elon's first vacation in years. Although Elon has managed to squeeze in a fundus meeting while out there. So it's not all pleasure. But when his plane lands, he gets some bad news.
- [11:29]
Simon Jack
Yes, while on the flight to Australia, his colleagues behind his back have staged a boardroom coup. He remains the largest shareholder, but Elon has been ousted as CEO and replaced by Peter Thiel. He later jokes, that is the problem with vacations we're going to.
- [11:44]
Zing Singh
Now, fast forward two years because there's a lot of story to get through. PayPal is now sold to eBay for one and a half billion dollars. And Elon walks away with 175 million. He's a free agent. He's got money to spend. He's on the lookout for the next big opportunity and he knows he wants it to be in clean energy, because you might recall he's been obsessed with this since college. It's not just about business. He's been driven ideologically to tackle climate. And in 2004, he finds the golden opportunity.
- [12:14]
Simon Jack
Yes, Elon has heard about a brand new electric car startup called Tesla. Co founders Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpenning have a mission to build a 100% electric vehicle. @ the time, wildly ambitious electric cars have been considered a bit of a sideline, bit of a joke, in fact, for.
- [12:33]
Zing Singh
Decades. And the reason for that was because of the battery. Because the biggest problem with electric cars, no one had found out a way to store enough energy to keep the car running without constantly recharging. But this tiny startup, Tesla, had solved a problem that the car industry hadn't yet been able to. Tesla had built a lithium ion battery and cooling system that was lightweight, it was powerful, so you were in no danger of your car just kind of dying on you. So Elon's impressed. He buys in for $6.4 million in a series A funding round and he becomes Tesla's chairman. He'll go on to invest, by.
- [13:07]
Simon Jack
The way, millions more two years later. 2006. Now Tesla's first prototype is unveiled to a select crowd of wealthy car enthusiasts. You've got Arnold Schwarzenegger there, who was that time, the Governor of California. And this thing is called the roadster. It's got 248 horsepower, which is pretty handy. That's a lot of poke for a car. It does 0:60 in 4.6 seconds and can do 250 miles on a single charge. Now, I've never been in a Roadster. I have been in a later model Tesla. It's like being in a massive dodgym car. The acceleration is.
- [13:42]
Zing Singh
Extraordinary. The first thing that struck me, and I haven't been in a Roadster, but I have been like you in later Tesla models, is how quiet it is. Yeah, because there's no gas ignition like in a conventional car. It's all electric. So you kind of have this weird feeling like you're on a monorail version of a.
- [13:57]
Simon Jack
Car. Yeah. And crucially, this original Roadster looked good. It's a sports car, it's got a hundred thousand dollar price tag. Everyone from George Clooney to flee from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, they all put their name on a list to get one, even though they had to wait a year for its official release. But getting the Roadster to full production is not smooth.
- [14:18]
Zing Singh
Sailing. Behind the scenes, board members were getting worried because costs at Tesla were spiraling out of control. In April 2007, the Roadster was expected to cost $65,000 to produce. Just two months later, that number had ballooned to over $100,000. So that is more than the price tag. So their, in other words, would be absolutely.
- [14:41]
Simon Jack
Decimated. Zero profit.
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Zing Singh
Margin. And this wasn't the only problem. So production was also way behind. Their 2007 release date was delayed by a year. Keeping George Clooney waiting is not what I would.
- [14:52]
Simon Jack
Do. And tensions were brewing between Elon and Tesla's founders. By 2008, both the co founders left their company. But Martin Eberhard didn't go quietly. He filed a lawsuit against Elon accusing him of libel and slander. And he says Elon was wrongly claiming to be a company founder. Now this was eventually settled on condition that Elon could also claim the title of Tesla co founder. Elon's made chief exec. He's got big plans for Tesla. But let us pause there on the Tesla story, because Elon has a passion project he's been bankrolling at the same.
- [15:25]
Zing Singh
Time. Can you guess what that.
- [15:27]
Simon Jack
Is?
- [15:27]
Zing Singh
Rocketman. You are absolutely on the money because Elon is determined to go to Mars and we can actually listen to him tell us in his own words in an interview with the BBC from 2013 about wanting to go to.
- [15:39]
Simon Jack
Mars. History fundamentally bifurcates in one of two directions. Either we are a multi planet species and out there exploring the stars, or we are a single planet species waiting around for some eventual extinction event. You're going and setting up a base on Mars would just be the greatest adventure ever. Two remarkable things here I think. One is that this really is a sort of grown up kid in many ways who's fantasizing about stuff that he's read of in science fiction novels and is getting close to making that a reality at some point. That which is remarkable itself. The other thing that's amazing is that whilst this is going on, he's got a full on crisis at Tesla. He's battling with co founders, production is behind, he's working like Sting to try and get that. And meanwhile he's launching an interplanetary space expedition. How many hours in the day do you need to be able to do both of those things? And he famously said you're not gonna change the world on 40 hours a week. It's just the sheer ambition I think is just mind numbing here, which people would have laughed off. And bit by bit he's trying to make them a.
- [16:42]
Zing Singh
Reality. Also because of the fact he's very, very rich. If you've got the money to Pursue these wild ambitions and dreams, you'll get a lot of people saying yes to you as opposed to slamming the door in your.
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Simon Jack
Face. Yeah. This was then the birth of the company we now know as SpaceX. In 2002, he spends $100 million of his PayPal windfall to create that company. His. He was out of his mind, but he believed the mission would inspire people, it would attract the funding it needed. And just a little point I would make out here. I know a friend of mine knows the Musk family.
- [17:15]
Zing Singh
Well. Oh.
- [17:16]
Simon Jack
Juicy. And what he says to me, he said, whatever you think about Elon, he said, he's the greatest fundraiser of all time. He has this ability to get people to believe in what seem to be wildly ambitious projects. And obviously the PayPal thing helped because it gave him proof that he could actually make money. But very few people make loads of money in one thing and then go on and replicate that.
- [17:39]
Zing Singh
Success. And to be a fundraiser, I think you have to have a very specific type of personality, because I think that, you know, within tech circles, within those fundraising circles, Elon occupies a very different status to, I guess, the general perception of Elon that a lot of our listeners might have of this kind of almost kind of cringe guy who, like, tweets a lot and posts a lot. Because fundraisers need to be charismatic, they need to be confident. You need to sell people on your vision. And that seems to be what Elon can do within these very gilded.
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Simon Jack
Circles. They talk, talk in business circles about moonshot projects. He's going, one better Mars shot. So there we go. But first, SpaceX needed to build a rocket and launch it into space without it exploding on the launch Pad. His first three launches.
- [18:24]
Zing Singh
Failed. And this was in 2008, which is what Elon called the worst year of my life. On top of the failed launches, he was divorcing Justine. They had six children together. The first, they'd lost a sudden infant death, and then they'd had twins and then triplets. According to Justine, just six weeks after filing for divorce, he sent her a text to say he was engaged to a British actress named Tallulah Riley. And although Elon claims he only met Tallulah after filing for divorce, you know, either way, that is a very quick.
- [18:52]
Simon Jack
Turnaround. Anyway, back to the rocket. Elon had one more attempt at launching the rocket. If this failed, SpaceX was pretty much done. Fortunately for him, in September 2008, SpaceX made.
- [19:05]
Zing Singh
History. Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid field rocket to reach orbit. Just three months later, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract for 12 missions to the International Space.
- [19:18]
Simon Jack
Station. That is amazing. You get one good launch and they say here's $1.6 billion for the next 12 missions. That's quite a step. And this is the interesting bit because what he clearly saw, and frankly Jeff Bezos also saw, was that space was not just a kind of science fiction thing, it is a massive commercial opportunity. It' resource up to this point only national agencies, whether it be esa, the European Space Agency, NASA, you've got similar state owned things in China and what have you. Only they had the muscle, the finance, the scientists, the scientists to be able to do this stuff. So privatizing space in a way is a massive move. And if you look at the proliferation now of satellites in orbit, they're now launching thousands of them and most of them are going up now in rockets, either, either from Jeff Bezos or from Elon Musk. So this was the begin, beginning of a whole new development. Space is like a new frontier, you know, as James T. Kirk once.
- [20:16]
Zing Singh
Said. And also it's somewhere that has huge geopolitical potential, right? Because you know, if a satellite goes down and it supplies your country with the Internet, well, I mean that's your defense system down as.
- [20:27]
Simon Jack
Well. Well, in fact, look at Starlink, which is his satellite network. Look at its role in the Ukraine war, for example. They kept communications going when Russia invaded. So, you know, geopolitics in its rawest form. But let us come back to Earth for a second, back to terra firma, because Tesla is still in deep trouble. Their roadster sports car wasn't bringing enough revenue to keep the company afloat. Elon says he'll lay off about a quarter of the staff. One car blog even starts a Tesla death watch because by all accounts, Tesla was about to run out of money on Christmas Eve of this terrible year. This anus horribilis.
- [21:02]
Zing Singh
2008. And Christmas Eve rolls around. Elon is with Tallulah in Boulder, Colorado and it should be magical. There's thick sn, it's feeling very festive. But according to Tallulah, it was one of the bad Christmases. Elon, in fact has forgotten to.
- [21:18]
Simon Jack
Buy her a Christmas present because he spent the whole day trying to convince the Tesla board to give him one more chance to execute his plan. Now, looking back on that time, Elon described as like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death. But the board agrees to let Elon lead one more round of funding. One more, you know, whip round from investors and he breaks down in.
- [21:40]
Zing Singh
Tears. That night. He leaves the house barefoot and just his T shirt and shorts, digs through the snow and picks a bouquet of flowers as a Christmas present for Tallulah. Let's not get too excited about this because we're going to fast forward again. Four years by which time he's married and divorced Tallulah, but they'll be remarried soon. As she said, I think we got back together at the divorce filing. And it's in those four years that Elon has also turned Tesla's fortunes around. That round of funding that he's been allowed to embark on has worked.
- [22:08]
Simon Jack
Out in his favor because he was very successful in raising money. Remember I said people say that is his greatest talent. The Hunt. 120 year old German car giant Daimler bought 10% for around $50 million. There was a $465 million loan from the US Department of Energy. That's really interesting. And when Tesla went public, sold shares to the public, that IPO raised more money than expected. $226 million, even though the company was nowhere near a.
- [22:36]
Zing Singh
Profit. Why would that.
- [22:38]
Simon Jack
Be? Basically there are lots of companies, particularly in the technology area, which you back on their pro of making money many years in the.
- [22:48]
Zing Singh
Future. Right. It's sort of like investor fomo. You don't want to miss out on the next Apple or.
- [22:52]
Simon Jack
Microsoft. Well, yeah, all these people will be thinking, we don't want to miss out on what happened with PayPal. They made tons of money. And if Tesla does pull this off, you know, it is a revolutionary move in the multi trillion dollar car industry. If you can get a big slice of that, you're definitely going to make.
- [23:08]
Zing Singh
Money. Now in 2012, something crucial happened. Tesla announced a more affordable electric car, a seven seat SUV which made their stocks shoot. And just a month later, Forbes magazine included him on their billionaires list, estimating his combined wealth from Tesla and SpaceX at $2 billion. So he's officially entered the ranks of the billionaires, but he's nowhere near as rich as he is right.
- [23:33]
Simon Jack
Now. A long way to go in all sorts of directions. This is such an extraordinary.
- [23:38]
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- [23:54]
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Simon Jack
Business.
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Zing Singh
Darcy. You got a little Colin.
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Simon Jack
Firth. Okay, that's really sweet. I appreciate that, but are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr.
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Zing Singh
Bennett.
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Simon Jack
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Zing Singh
Podcasts.
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Hey, let's talk about your expense.
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Simon Jack
Report. I didn't submit an expense.
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Zing Singh
Report. You will. Custom saddles and dog training services are not within.
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Simon Jack
Policy. What are you talking.
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Zing Singh
About? SAP Concur uses advanced AI to audit and automatically detect out of policy expenses. It's the breakthrough I needed to focus more on our.
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Simon Jack
Future. These are my future.
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Zing Singh
Expenses? Yes. And self defense classes are out of.
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Simon Jack
Policy. I'll need self defense.
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Zing Singh
Classes. You.
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Simon Jack
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Zing Singh
What? It's a big.
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Simon Jack
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- [26:19]
Simon Jack
Here.
- [26:29]
So he's a billionaire. Fine. He's also pretty popular. The public have noticed him by.
- [26:33]
Zing Singh
Now. I remember watching the Iron man movie from the Marvel superhero comic book universe. And you might that Robert Downey Jr. S portrayal of Tony Stark is meant to be based on Elon Musk. But Elon Musk is actually in the film himself. He's one of the billionaires that Tony Stark is hobnobbing.
- [26:49]
Simon Jack
With. He's more than a business person now. He's a cultural pin up as well. I mean, Time magazine, among others, calls him a true visionary. And he's shaking up two enormous industries here. You know, cars. There's something symbolic, especially in the US about the Car industry. It means in the old days, they say what's good for General Motors is good for America. It gets right to the heart of the industrial n of a country. And he's a hero to environmentalists as well, because they think if he can decarbonize the car industry, then he's doing the planet a great favor as well. So he's being lauded in many, many.
- [27:22]
Zing Singh
Circles. Yeah. So, you know, Hollywood, he's got environmentalists and the eco left on his side. You couldn't ask for a better PR.
- [27:31]
Simon Jack
Profile. And, you know, he's not your typical business person. He's a bit.
- [27:34]
Zing Singh
Odd. You know, he's.
- [27:36]
Simon Jack
Idiosyncratic. Idiosyncratic. He talks in a way that business people don't usually talk. He talks in a much more interesting way about the future, about whatever. You know, he's riding high in 2012.
- [27:47]
Zing Singh
But. But not all is well behind the scenes at Tesla, because the company was seriously struggling to keep up with demand. Elon, however, is good at making wild promises and somehow pulling them off. And in what will become a signature move, he takes to.
- [28:02]
Simon Jack
Twitter. Now, over the past few years, by 2012, Twitter had become, you know, a very hot social media platform. It had 200 million user by 2012. President Obama took to Twitter to publicly declare victory in the US President election that year. And so now Elon takes to Twitter telling the public, Tesla will be profitable in Q1 2013. That means by the first three months of 2013. And he promises to deliver almost 5,000 cars. In reality, the second quarter of the year before, they delivered just 12 cars. So going from 12 to 5,000 in a year is quite the promise. Promise. Incredibly specific. Very rare in the business world to sort of make yourself a hostage to fortune like.
- [28:44]
Zing Singh
That. I mean, you must be wondering what his team were thinking of. They must have been tearing their hair out behind the scenes. But the thing is, Elon expects his employees to work just as hard as he does, and he makes something of an example of himself. His desk is in the middle of the Tesla factory floor, so he can make sure his team are working hard enough. He's even known for sleeping under his desk during these particularly brutal production pushes. Remember, at this point, he's a billionaire. He doesn't need to be doing this if he doesn't want to. He once told Bloomberg, I wanted my circumstances to be worse than anyone else at the company. Whenever they felt pain, I wanted mine to be.
- [29:18]
Simon Jack
Worse. It is amazing, I would imagine, what a pain reliever having billions of dollars actually is. Kind of takes a very, very powerful pain.
- [29:27]
Zing Singh
Relief. Yeah, if you can afford the private chauffeur to take you home after those all nighters, I assume it feels a lot better than having to drive yourself home to your wife and.
- [29:36]
Simon Jack
Children. But this kind of pressure, applied centrally from Elon, came at a cost. A 2017 report found that Tesla factory workers were seriously injured more than twice as often as the industry average. Tesla didn't even dispute those numbers. Their response was we're learning how to be a car company. What matters is the.
- [29:52]
Zing Singh
Future. But Elon makes good on his tweet because by the end of Q1 in 2013, Tesla delivered the promised 5,000 cars and it turned an $11 million profit. So for the first time in Tesla's 10 year history, their profit comfortable. Tesla's stock shoots up by four and a half times and that boosts Elon's wealth to no.
- [30:12]
Simon Jack
End. However, Elon's reputation as a boss goes beyond the grueling all nighters. It's worth taking a minute to look at some of the more serious allegations, and there are a few. In 2022, Business Insider revealed a sexual misconduct claim made against Elon in 2018 by a SpaceX flight attendant. She accused him of exposing himself and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for sex.
- [30:34]
Zing Singh
Acts. SpaceX ultimately paid her $250,000 to settle the claim, and it was reported she had to sign a non disclosure agreement. The BBC was unable to independently verify the report at the time, and Elon denied these allegations. He said, if I was inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely. The first time in my entire 30 year career that it comes to.
- [30:55]
Simon Jack
Light. But that wasn't all. The Wall Street Journal published a report detailing multiple allegations of Elon's inappropriate behavior at SpaceX, dating back as far as they claim he had sex with an employee and a former intern and asked a woman at his company to have his.
- [31:08]
Zing Singh
Babies. Elon didn't respond, but SpaceX's president and chief operating officer dismissed the report, calling the allegations untruths, mischaracterizations and revisionist history. She added that SpaceX takes harassment complaints seriously. A group of SpaceX employees wrote an open letter calling Elon a distraction and an.
- [31:27]
Simon Jack
Embarrassment. In some places you might want to reach out to those employees and listen to their grievances. The employees who wrote that letter were frankly fired. So the U.S. national Labor Relations Board accused the company of unlawful terminations. SpaceX denies this, and Elon sued the National Labor Relations Board in return. So far, he's won a temporary block on that.
- [31:48]
Zing Singh
Case. The group of former employees sued SpaceX and Elon, claiming that there was a toxic work culture where, in their words, he runs the company in the dark ages, treating women as sexual objects to be evaluated on their bra size and bombarding the workplace with lewd sexual.
- [32:04]
Simon Jack
Banter. SpaceX and Elon have denied wrongdoing and the case is.
- [32:09]
Zing Singh
Ongoing. But let's get back to Tesla. In 2018, they once again have production problems. This time they're missing even more delivery deadlines. Tesla's credit rating is downgraded to negative due to a significant shortfall in production. I think at this point, we probably have to explain what a credit rating.
- [32:25]
Simon Jack
Is. Well, it's just like individuals have a credit rating. Have you missed a payment on a couple of credit cards? Did you miss your mortgage payment? You've become seen as a riskier borrower. It's going to get harder to get a loan next.
- [32:36]
Zing Singh
Time. Get this as.
- [32:37]
Simon Jack
Well. And companies have exactly the same thing. So basically, Tesla's not delivering. Things aren't going that well. So Tesla's credit rating is downgraded, making it just that little bit more. More difficult, more expensive when you want to raise money in the future. And by August that year, Tesla reported its biggest ever loss. Just a week after Tesla's worst financial report, Elon sends a tweet. I am considering taking Tesla private at $420 funding.
- [33:06]
Zing Singh
Secured. What does that.
- [33:08]
Simon Jack
Mean? You can either be publicly listed, your shares on the stock exchange, or you can be privately owned. Sometimes companies like to be private because you don't have to hit quarterly targets. There's less transparency. So I think he's saying, I'm getting beaten up because I keep missing production targets. I'm just getting a lot of aggravation by being a public company. But what he said was, I'm considering taking Tesla private at 420. That was half higher than the share price was at the time. The really controversial bit here is he said, funding secured. And if you say something like that, it's a tantamount to saying, I am going to pay everyone $420 for their shares, which are worth less than that at the moment. And to do that on a tweet is going to impact the share price. And there are very strict rules about things that can influence the share price. It can be considered market manipulation. So Tesla shares went up 11%. The regulators, the financial police, the people called the securities and Exchange Commission get involved and they allege that the funding was not in fact, secured. So Elon's saying, I'm taking it private at 420. I've got the money to do this. And the big debate, I was like, do you really have the money to do this? And that's what the securities and Exchange Commission were looking into saying. You're actually telling something which isn't true. And Elon neither admitted nor denied those.
- [34:30]
Zing Singh
Allegations. Can I also add that 420 is a bit of a joke number in the sense that 420 or so of stat is the viral meme joke. Hashtag signifier for just weed, as in 4:20 day, is it? So I think that at the time that this tweet was made, there were people saying, is he just making a really silly joke about being.
- [34:50]
Simon Jack
Stoned? I did not know any of.
- [34:52]
Zing Singh
This. Well, I think this is the thing. As we'll discover later on with Elon's Twitter Persona, there's always a sense of, is he being for real here? Is he actually being serious? Well, either way, it landed him into hot.
- [35:03]
Simon Jack
Water. Well, yeah, I mean, if he isn't being serious and just doing some kind of, you know, meme joke, that'll make the financial police even more angry because you can't mess around with stuff like as serious as the financial.
- [35:15]
Zing Singh
Market. Yeah, I mean, the case was settled with Elon in the end. So Elon and Tesla each had to pay $20 million in fines and he was allowed to remain as Tesla CEO, but he has to step down as chairman for three years. So we are now officially entering Elon Musk's most infamous era, in which he is regularly make the headlines, and not just in the business news, and not just because he's being an eco warrior who's going to revolutionize the car.
- [35:40]
Simon Jack
Industry.
- [35:40]
Zing Singh
Yeah. Do you remember when 12 boys and their football coach were trapped underground in a Thai.
- [35:46]
Simon Jack
Cage? I really.
- [35:47]
Zing Singh
Do. Elon sends a submarine to rescue them, but a caving expert involved in the rescue dismisses this as a PR stunt, as a submarine was impractical. You don't usually send submarines into caves, I think. And he adds that Elon could, in his words, stick his submarine where it.
- [36:02]
Simon Jack
Hurts. Well, once again, Elon takes to Twitter calling him, with absolutely no evidence at all, a pedo guy. He later deletes the tweet, apologises, and ends up winning the defamation case that the caving expert files against him. But again, the court of public opinion, serious damage has been done there. He also goes, for example, onto the Joe Rogan podcast, one of our rivals of course.
- [36:28]
And casually smokes a joint. Hours later, two senior executives quit and Tesla's market value drops 6%. And because he also runs a rocket company, the federal government has to review his security clearance. And this, the fallout involves the introduction of random drug tests for him and SpaceX.
- [36:45]
Zing Singh
Employees. It also marks, I think, what you might describe as a shift in how freely Elon tweets out his thoughts and opinions. I think you could call him a Twitter addict, or at least an ex addict as it's now called. He literally cannot let a day pass without wading in to give his opinion, whether it's posting something he thinks or retweeting someone else's.
- [37:05]
Simon Jack
Thoughts. But I remember around this time people were talking about Tesla and they said, well, what's Tesla's share price? It all depends on what happens in the next five minutes on his.
- [37:13]
Zing Singh
Twitter. It does make you wonder if the Tesla shareholders rue the day Elon ever installed Twitter on his.
- [37:18]
Simon Jack
Smartphone. And in 2018, the securities and Exchange Commission forced Tesla to appoint a so called Twitter sitter. An in house lawyer who's basically supposed to supervise and vet tweets from.
- [37:28]
Zing Singh
Musk. Well, you can decide for yourself how successful that Twitter sitter has been. His personal life is also no less controversial because by this point, Tallulah and him have divorced for a second time. And in the early 2000s he's in this on again, off again relationship with Grimes. I don't know if you know who Grimes.
- [37:45]
Simon Jack
Is. I've heard of Grimes. Tell me.
- [37:47]
Zing Singh
More. So she's a Canadian electronic musician. She was basically a critical darling of a lot of the indie music establishment of platforms like Pitchfork. I myself loved Grimes when she first came out. Interestingly, she's also very into science fiction and tech and this is how she and Elon first bonded. However, it's not all smooth sailing for Grimes and Elon Musk, because news then breaks that Elon has secretly fathered twice through IVF with an executive at one of his companies. Except he'd also forgotten to mention this to Grimes, who says that she only found out about the twins when everyone else.
- [38:22]
Simon Jack
Did. Well, his. His response to the headlines was predictably, maybe a tweet. Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far. And this is interesting. This pronatalism stance is quite a big feature of Elon Musk. To date, he's fathered at least 14 children with four.
- [38:42]
Zing Singh
Women. You could also do an entire podcast, I think, on how pronatalism has kind of spread around Silicon Valley because Elon Musk, I don't think, is the only tech bro who's interested in pro NATO policies like.
- [38:55]
Simon Jack
This. Well, I think that. And it is true that basically the birth rate in most developed countries has fallen quite precipitously and in many countries is below what they call the replacement rate. How many kids you need to have to keep the population where it is at the moment. And he thinks this is a bad idea. Remember, this is a person who is intent on saving civilization and making it a multi planetary species. If you're going to populate all these planets, need plenty.
- [39:16]
Zing Singh
People. Although I think most people would agree you shouldn't personally be responsible for populating those two with your children. He's estranged from one of his children. Last year he posted the Woke Mind Virus Killed My Son, referring to his estranged but very much alive trans daughter Vivian, who later spoke to NBC News. She's described her father as cold, he's very quick to anger, he's uncaring and.
- [39:40]
Simon Jack
Narcissistic. But all this controversy and making headlines is not hurting Elon Musk's bank balance. In January 2021, he officially became the richest person in the world, surpassing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Tesla had sorted out a lot of its production issues and was doing really well. And the world was really ready for electric vehicles at this time. Stock prices skyrocketed and this increased Elon's net worth to over $185 billion. Jeff Bezos was 184 at that time, so he's top of.
- [40:11]
Zing Singh
The.
- [40:15]
And what does he do now? Elon decides he doesn't just want to use Twitter like the rest of us. Nope. He wants to own it. And this move will become absolutely fundamental to everything that has happened to his life.
- [40:27]
Simon Jack
Since. Yeah, and I suppose owning a social media website gives you a massive platform, a massive megaphone on the world.
- [40:35]
Zing Singh
Stage. Well, it's kind of like all those Gilded Age tycoons and barons, right? They all wanted to own a.
- [40:40]
Simon Jack
Newspaper, like William Randolph Hearst, for example. Rupert Murdoch, of.
- [40:44]
Zing Singh
Course. Although I think at the time Twitter wasn't even a particularly. I mean, Twitter was falling behind its rivals right at the time. It was never really on the same level as Facebook or Instagram, for instance. So this was kind of seen as a sort of a bad bet.
- [40:58]
Simon Jack
For Elon and also one he probably regretted. It was a very chaotic, very public battle. He went from offering to buy the platform for $44 billion, and a lot of people thought this was just a rush of blood to the head. So he actually tries to back out of it. And then eventually, through lawyers and what have you, he was forced into doing the deal because otherwise he could get one of those other things where basically, I offered this and now I don't mean it. You're making the share price go up and down like a yo yo. So they say you have to go through with what you originally.
- [41:30]
Zing Singh
Offered. So he goes through with it, and then he walks into Twitter's headquarters with that sync that we were talking about at the beginning of the episode. And once he takes over at Twitter, this is when the real drama begins. So he lays off 50% of the workforce, and then he tells the remaining staff they need to commit to an extremely hardcore, in his words, work schedule or take a severance package. And in a move that many marketing experts would probably advise against, he changed a globally recognized name from Twitter to X. And under Elon, the platform has changed significantly.
- [42:03]
Simon Jack
Right? Completely. I mean, for example, under Elon, one of the first things they did was scrap its Covid misinformation policy. It disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, which was to advise on content moderation, for.
- [42:15]
Zing Singh
Example. And also, don't forget, he reinstated accounts also linked to neon.
- [42:18]
Simon Jack
Nazis.
- [42:19]
Zing Singh
Yeah. Anti Semitic tweets doubled from June 2022 to February 2023, according to research from the Institute of strategic dialogue. An EU Commission report in 2023 found that x had the highest levels of Russian disinformation among all major social platforms. And understandably, many advertisers fled. Fewer people were using it as their social platform of.
- [42:40]
Simon Jack
Choice. And I remember this because by 2024, X had lost 71% of its value. So for a man known as building Billion Dol, X looks like, or looked like at that time, one of his biggest business flops. But of course, there are other advantages. Have we discussed owning a social media.
- [42:57]
Zing Singh
Platform? Yes, of course. One of Elon's first moves at Twitter was to reinstate Donald Trump's account. Elon then donated what's reported to be hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump's reelection campaign. And during a speech celebrating his inauguration, Elon caused controversy when he made a one armed gesture, twice that many, interpreted as a Nazi salute. And in context, this is also following Elon's public support of some far right parties and figures in places like Germany. Elon had quite an interesting response to all of.
- [43:28]
Simon Jack
This. Yeah, he said, frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The everyone is Hitler attack is so.
- [43:34]
Zing Singh
Tired. So up until now, we've Been discussing Elon the tech guy, Elon the businessman, Elon the social media owner. But now we're about to see Elon make a very interesting move into.
- [43:45]
Simon Jack
Politics. So he and Trump have a close relationship. At this point. Elon's actually personally taken credit for having helped get Trump elected as.
- [43:52]
Zing Singh
President. And if you look at how much money he spent on Twitter and it's given him this kind of avenue of political power, many people say, oh, it's worth.
- [44:01]
Simon Jack
It. Yeah, maybe. I mean, you know, if you're being close to the President United States, maybe that's money well spent. Because once Trump is president, he makes Elon a special government employee heading up a new body tasked with reducing US Government spending and cutting jobs. It's called the Department of Government Efficiency, or doge. And that acronym is a nod to cryptocurrency called dogecoin, which Elon was particularly fond.
- [44:26]
Zing Singh
Of. And during this time, Trump publicly endorses Tesla. He actually sits in one with Elon on the lawn outside the White House. And Elon Musk even joins Trump's cause with Ukrainian President Volodymyr.
- [44:37]
Simon Jack
Zelensky. I remember that bit where they basically have all the Teslas parked outside on the White House.
- [44:42]
Zing Singh
Lawn. Quite the image at the.
- [44:44]
Simon Jack
Time. Quite the image. Anyway, it was quite short lived. After 130 days, Elon stepped down from DOGE. In that time, DOGE shuttered government agencies, defunded programs like DEI, that's diversity, equity and inclusion, and made mass layoffs. What he did received both huge praise and huge criticism. So yeah, I mean, it was a pretty crazy time that he was in the White House. I mean, he was there with his famous chainsaw. You remember that picture of him.
- [45:09]
Zing Singh
Brandishing a chainsaw inspired by Argentina President Javier.
- [45:12]
Simon Jack
Milei. Yeah. And also there have been executives in the past who are called chainsaw Al, whatever. It's synonymous with those people who make massive cuts.
- [45:20]
Zing Singh
Basically. But and this is the interesting thing because many claim that despite all of this, he simply did not get the job done. He failed to reach savings anywhere near his stated goals. So he originally pledged to cut at least $2 trillion, but subsequently halved this target. And there are still huge questions over the claims of the savings.
- [45:38]
Simon Jack
Made. And a lot of people said with two characters like Musk and Trump, it's only a matter of time before sparks begin to fly and this bromance hits the rocks. And turned out in June of this year, Elon posted on X about Trump's tax cut and spending bill. The budget often referred by Trump to one big beautiful bill. He called it doesn't pull his punches here, a disgusting abomination. And Elon believed that the bill would undermine all the efficiencies he'd made. And it also threatened Tesla's profits in a very interesting.
- [46:14]
Zing Singh
Way. Over the next few hours, the pair threw insults and threats at each other publicly. Everyone is, including myself, was absolutely glued by this, glued to the screen. Probably the highest levels of engagement exit had in quite a while. Trump threatened to revoke billions of dollars in government contracts for Elon's companies. Elon threatened to decommission the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that NASA used. Trump called Elon crazy, all caps. It continued to escalate, but eventually Elon backtracked. Six days later he posted on X. I regret some of my posts about President Trump last week. They went too.
- [46:48]
Simon Jack
Far. And actually this spat with the President started affecting his bank balance in one day, particularly after that bit, when Trump threatened to revoke billions of dollars in government contracts for Elon's companies. Tesla shares plummeted 14%, which knocked nearly $10 billion off Musk's total net worth. I remember doing the 10 o' clock news about this on this day. I figured out that since Trump had taken office, Elon Musk's net worth had at one point declined by $100.
- [47:22]
Zing Singh
Billion.
- [47:23]
Simon Jack
Wow. So he had lost more money for his political machinations than almost anyone has ever made in history. Yeah, because there's only a few who are centi billionaires, Right, that we've.
- [47:34]
Zing Singh
Covered. Then some world economies.
- [47:36]
Simon Jack
Even. Yeah. But in the long run, Elon's wealth is still skyrocketing, rocketing as we speak here. Right now he's worth nearly $500 billion, 485 billion. And that's up from 195 last year, according to.
- [47:51]
Zing Singh
Forbes. Now I think at this point, most listeners will be going, but oh my God, Elon is the guy who walks around with a chainsaw who tweets all this stuff. How is he worth this much more money? Okay, so we'll explain it to you. SpaceX is now worth $400 billion. But that's not the only thing that makes up his.
- [48:09]
Simon Jack
Wealth. Right. He's still got a massive chunk in Tesla, whose fortunes have re because they're now pivoting into robotics, like humanoid type robots, which everyone's very excited about. And he's getting into what is the biggest gold rush possibly in history, which is artificial intelligence. And this is where Xai comes in. Elon had founded this AI company Xai in 2023, Xai then bought social media company X, which threatens to make him even.
- [48:36]
Zing Singh
Richer. Yeah, it really has. And this is to do with trust. Trump and Elon appearing to kiss and make up. They reconnected at Charlie Kirk's funeral in September. Kirk was the right wing activist who was shot and killed during a campus speaking tour. And a few days after that, the Trump administration signed a deal with XAI that would allow it to be used widely across.
- [48:57]
Simon Jack
Government. This year alone, Xai has raised $20 billion with one key investor saying, I think this is really important harks back to something I said earlier. Almost everything that Elon Musk part of, you really want to be part of as well. People don't want to miss out on Elon's next brainwave and next fortune making idea. And as I say that, you know, he's got this reputation as being the greatest fundraiser, almost like a sort of prophet of the next big thing. And people will follow him and are very, very loyal to.
- [49:27]
Zing Singh
Him. Yeah. So where he goes, people with deep pockets will.
- [49:30]
Simon Jack
Follow. So now we get to that section of the podcast where we score our billionaires on a number of categories. Things like wealth, controversy, philanthropy, power and legacy. We mark them for from 1 to 10 and then we're going to ask you whether you think they're good, bad, or just another.
- [49:45]
Zing Singh
Billionaire. And if you're new to the podcast, this is always just us having a little bit of fun. I'm not actually sure how good we are with this marking.
- [49:51]
Simon Jack
Business. Yeah, this is definitely a reason why neither of us became teachers. But let us start with wealth. This is easy. Do we have to even go through? Okay, currently the richest person, $485 billion. And in fact, Elon's wealth temporarily crossed the half trillion 500 billion mark before dropping back again. In November of this year, Tesla board voted that elon should receive $1 trillion if and when he meets certain targets. He's got to raise Tesla's market value to 8 and a half trillion from 1.4 trillion at the time of recording. He's got to deliver tons of robots and millions of cars. And then he'll be rewarded with over 400 million new shares, which could be worth nearly $1.
- [50:33]
Zing Singh
Trillion. And that would make him the first ever trillionaire in human history. History for.
- [50:39]
Simon Jack
People. We need a new category. We need a new.
- [50:41]
Zing Singh
Podcast. Now this is really interesting because I think it's also important to note that Elon describes himself as cash poor. In 2020, he tweeted, I am Selling almost all physical possessions will own no.
- [50:54]
Simon Jack
House. I think that's.
- [50:55]
Zing Singh
Changed. It's funny though, I think in Silicon Valley there's a fetishization of being cash poor in the sense that I don't need worldly possessions, I just need my big beautiful brain and I'll make billions.
- [51:06]
Simon Jack
More. It's kind of like the estate aesthetics. Aesthetics of like monkness, you know, it's just like all I need, you know, Monasticism. Monasticism in pursuit of ideas that are going to change the world. And if I get rich along the way, well, I don't really notice.
- [51:20]
Zing Singh
That that's not what it's all.
- [51:21]
Simon Jack
About. I put that to one of a tech bro who I know personally as a friend and he said, oh, don't believe that rubbish. It's all about the.
- [51:27]
Zing Singh
Money. Well, if it is all about the money, I think I'm gonna have to score him a 10 out of.
- [51:33]
Simon Jack
10. Can we give him an 11? Can we do a spinal tap? 11 on.
- [51:35]
Zing Singh
This? Okay. He'll be the first billionaire to get.
- [51:38]
Simon Jack
11. 10 on wealth controversy. Well, there's no shortage of this either, is.
- [51:43]
Zing Singh
There? No. I mean, even just putting aside the number of people he's fallen out with, the co founders of Tesla, the number of boardroom coups he's been involved with, those romantic entanglements, the enormous number of children he said to have fathered, obviously the Nazi salute.
- [51:58]
Simon Jack
Accusations. Yeah, which he denies, of course. And you know, the claims of sexual misconduct, again, which he denied. He's right at the center of the free speech debate across the entire world. You know, in terms of platforming, some people that some people don't think should be platforming. It's 10 from.
- [52:12]
Zing Singh
Me. Yeah, I think it's a 10 from.
- [52:15]
Simon Jack
Me. And while we're on the subject, let's have a word from him. He's defended his controversial use of social media and he says this. Look, I know sometimes I say or post strange things, but that's just how my brain works. To anyone who's been offended, I just want to say I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill normal.
- [52:34]
Zing Singh
Dude? I couldn't have put it better myself. Elon Musk. Not a chill normal.
- [52:38]
Simon Jack
Dude. Giving back, you know, philanthropy, putting some money back into the.
- [52:42]
Zing Singh
Community. We always have to be conscious that there may be charitable giving that isn't in the public domain. So we can only really give a mark based on what's public and.
- [52:50]
Simon Jack
What'S been reported he signed the Giving Pledge, which has come up before in our podcasts, which promises to give away More than 50% of your wealth in your lifetime. Each year, Forbes assigns what they call a philanthropy score based on certain billionaires known charitable giving. But as of 2024, Forbes found he'd given away less than 1%. So he's got some catching up to do on that.
- [53:11]
Zing Singh
Front. That truly is quite a puny amount. And just for context, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have both given away more than him, and they are also tech billionaires. So I don't know what's keeping Elon.
- [53:21]
Simon Jack
Musk. Yeah, I think Jeff Bezos scored pretty low on this front as well. So I think based on that work by Forbes and what's in the public domain, it's a one from.
- [53:30]
Zing Singh
Me. Okay, I'll give him a zero.
- [53:31]
Simon Jack
For giving back Power and legacy. Gosh. So if attention equals. Equals power in the attention economy, then, gosh, he's got a score highly in this one as.
- [53:44]
Zing Singh
Well. It's funny because we have profiled some billionaires who would rather die than be in the public spotlight at.
- [53:50]
Simon Jack
All.
- [53:50]
Zing Singh
Okay. But I think Elon likes it. He likes the power it gives.
- [53:54]
Simon Jack
Him. We sometimes run a quick test, thought experiment, don't we? Like, you know, if this person called the White House, would the person pick up the phone? He lived in the White House for months. Pretty much. He was.
- [54:05]
Zing Singh
There. He brought his son to the.
- [54:06]
Simon Jack
White House, of the White House. He couldn't have been more powerful, both in political terms, in social media clout, owning his own platform. He claims to have got Trump elected and with some justification. He certainly had an influence. He gave him a couple hundred million dollars and plastered Trump all over to his ex followers, saying, it's gotta be Trump. He said that a lot in the run up to the.
- [54:27]
Zing Singh
Election. Yeah, I know some tech skeptics who have said, you know, Elon is a great publicity person for himself, but when you look at what he's actually done, you know, he didn't invent the lithium ion battery, but he gives a very impression of being the guy who.
- [54:41]
Simon Jack
Did. Yeah. His great skill, as we've talked about before, is raising the kind of sums of money necessary to go for these crazy moonshot type or Mars shot type experiments. And that's why he is unparalleled, I think, in business.
- [54:56]
Zing Singh
History. I mean, even if he didn't invent the electric car, I still feel like he's got a claim to being one of the most powerful Men in.
- [55:04]
Simon Jack
Business and politics completely revolutionized the company car industry. Basically, the internal combustion engine had ruled the roost since the early 20th century. And there's no doubt without him, when you walk out that door, you would not see the number of electric cars on the road that you do today because he kicked up the backside. The likes of Volkswagen, the likes of Porsche, the likes of, you know, you name a mass volume car manufacturing, they wouldn't be doing what they were doing to the same extent were it not for him. So that's enormous power and like.
- [55:32]
Zing Singh
Legacy. And, you know, that's before we even talk about if he will get people to Mars. Because if he manages to do that, my.
- [55:39]
Simon Jack
God. Yeah. I wonder whether he'll lay claim to own it back to his science fiction. He will own Mars power and.
- [55:45]
Zing Singh
Legacy. What would you give him.
- [55:46]
Simon Jack
Then?
- [55:47]
Zing Singh
10? Yeah, I think it's got to be a 10. And you know, if Elon's listening, if you ever get a rocket ship to Mars and the first person to step out on the surface of Mars doesn't combust of radiation poisoning. Yeah, we'll get you an.
- [55:59]
Simon Jack
11. Yeah. And the very fact we've now given a few 11 out of 10 on the podcast and most likely will go even higher than one day, who knows, probably underlines that our marking isn't the most scientific of.
- [56:09]
Zing Singh
Processes. I think it's just a fun way of summarizing different themes in this episode, like we always do. So, I mean, where do we even end with Elon, because I feel like his story still has miles more to go.
- [56:21]
Simon Jack
Yeah. To create one massive revolution, revolutionary company like Tesla is amazing. But remember, he also PayPal was a revolutionary company. SpaceX is a revolutionary company. He's got a company putting chips into people's brains called Neuralink. He's got a transport company called the Boring Company, which has got some hyperloop which is going to revolutionize urban transport. These are extraordinary ideas and he's making most of them work and pay off. I mean, whether you love or hate him, he's got some claim to be the most remarkable business person of all time and one of the most remarkable individuals of the 21st.
- [56:57]
Zing Singh
Century. He is one of those people that you would only see in science fiction. It's almost like he created himself to be the star of his own science fiction.
- [57:06]
Simon Jack
Novel. That's a brilliant way of putting it. I think that's exactly.
- [57:09]
Zing Singh
Right. So is he good, bad, or is he just another billionaire? If you're listening to this, please tell us what you think we'd be fascinated to know because, you know, from my perspective, I first heard of any Elon as the boyfriend of Grimes who appeared at the Met.
- [57:22]
Simon Jack
Gala. Is that how you approach.
- [57:23]
Zing Singh
It? Yes.
- [57:24]
Simon Jack
Exactly. Wow. And I'm saying, who the heck is Grimes? You're saying, who the heck is Elon.
- [57:27]
Zing Singh
Musk? Well, this is why the podcast works so well. I would love to know what people think. How did you first hear of Elon Musk? What did you think of him then? What do you think of him.
- [57:36]
Simon Jack
Now? I think it's pretty hard not to have an opinion about Elon Musk. I'd be surprised if he'll say, you know, neutral. Don't really give very much attention. If you want to share your thoughts on Elon or any other billionaires, please email Good Bad Billionaire. That's all one word. Bad billionaire@BBC.com or drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001.
- [57:59]
Zing Singh
917-686-1176. We've had an email from a listener. John hi Zing. And Simon, My dog Matilda, who is a fan. Love that, love that your dog listens to podcasts, has asked me to suggest that you check which billionaires are dog lovers. She's pretty adamant. This may very well guarantee that they are good.
- [58:16]
Simon Jack
People. My wife certainly believes in that. So anyone who likes loves dogs can't be all.
- [58:21]
Zing Singh
Bad. I don't think pets are heavily in any of our billionaires.
- [58:24]
Simon Jack
Series. We need to go back and.
- [58:26]
Zing Singh
Check.
- [58:28]
So we're actually going to take a break for a few weeks for the holidays, but we will be back in the new year with even more.
- [58:35]
Simon Jack
Billionaires. In the meantime, we have more than 70 episodes in the.
- [58:39]
Zing Singh
Archive. If you haven't already, then what are you waiting for? They are all well worth a listen, and especially if you want to get some time away from your family this holidays.
- [58:48]
Good Bad Bellina is a big BBC World Service podcast produced by Hannah Hufford with additional production by Louise Morris. The editor is Paul Smith and it's a BBC Studios production for the BBC World Service. The Commissioning Editor is John.
- [59:00]
Ad Voice / Advertiser
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- [59:11]
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