Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and the podcaster’s paradox

Summary

POLITICO Tech Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and the Podcaster’s Paradox
Release Date: February 20, 2025
Host: Stephen Overlea
Guest: Calder McHugh, POLITICO Tech Contributor

---

1. Introduction: The Rising Influence of Online Personalities in Politics

In this episode of POLITICO Tech, host Stephen Overlea delves into the evolving role of online personalities and podcasters in the political landscape. Focusing on Joe Rogan, the host unpacks how Rogan's podcast has transitioned from a seemingly nonpartisan platform to a more politically charged medium, especially in relation to Elon Musk and the Trump administration.

---

2. Joe Rogan's Shift from Nonpartisan to Partisan Voice

Calder McHugh provides insight into Joe Rogan's transformation post the 2024 elections. Historically perceived as an apolitical figure with a vague libertarian stance, Rogan's podcast content was largely disconnected from traditional electoral politics. However, recent episodes have seen a pronounced shift, with Rogan staunchly defending Elon Musk and endorsing Trump-associated policies.

Notable Quote:

"Musk is a super genius that's been fucked with by these nitwits that hide behind three letter agencies..."
— Joe Rogan [04:13]

This candid expression underscores Rogan's growing alignment with figures like Musk, signaling a departure from his earlier neutral stance.

---

3. Listener Backlash and Alienation of the Fanbase

Rogan's pivot has not gone unnoticed among his listeners. Many long-time fans, who previously valued the podcast as an apolitical escape, feel betrayed by the newfound political fervor. Calder McHugh highlights the intensity of the backlash, particularly on platforms like Reddit, where listeners express frustration over Rogan's perceived endorsement of the very policies and figures they once critiqued.

Notable Quotes:

"Joe and his billionaire friends are becoming the swamp they've always hated."
— Reddit Comment [02:06]

"I seriously can't even listen to him anymore. It sucks so much, man. I really love this show. I really miss the old Joe."
— Reddit Comment [02:24]

These sentiments reveal a deep-seated disillusionment among Rogan's audience, questioning his shift towards more partisan content.

---

4. The Impact on Rogan's Credibility and Influence

While Rogan remains one of the most popular podcasters in the country, his political endorsements may be eroding his credibility as a nonpartisan influencer. Calder McHugh discusses how this change affects Rogan's ability to act as an impartial platform, potentially diminishing his influence among listeners who valued his previous balanced approach.

Notable Quote:

"This could be hurting his kind of credibility as this non-political actor who can see the playing field a little more clearly than somebody who might be wrapped up in the day-to-day goings on of Washington."
— Calder McHugh [06:27]

---

5. The Broader Implications for Influencers in Politics

The conversation extends to the broader role of influencers in shaping political discourse. Stephen Overlea and Calder McHugh explore how influencers like Rogan are blurring the lines between media and politics, gaining unprecedented access to political events and spaces traditionally reserved for journalists.

Notable Quote:

"There was a real anger from journalists at the DNC towards influencers who they felt had gotten special treatment."
— Calder McHugh [12:17]

This trend raises concerns about the potential sidelining of traditional journalism and the quality of information reaching the public.

---

6. The Future of Influencers in Governance

Looking ahead, the hosts discuss the sustainability of influencers operating within political ecosystems. The alignment between figures like Musk and Rogan with the government creates a paradox where maintaining an anti-establishment image becomes challenging once integrated into the system.

Notable Quote:

"It's really hard to remain this kind of anti-system podcaster and influencer when your fellow friends who are anti-system are now in the White House."
— Calder McHugh [13:33]

This tension underscores the complexities influencers face when balancing personal branding with political affiliations.

---

7. Conclusion: The Evolving Landscape of Political Influence

Stephen Overlea and Calder McHugh conclude by emphasizing the transformative impact of podcasters and influencers on politics. As these figures gain more access and influence, the traditional dynamics between media, government, and the electorate are shifting. The episode leaves listeners contemplating the future role of digital influencers in shaping political narratives and their implications for democratic discourse.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Joe Rogan's podcast is transitioning from an apolitical platform to a more partisan voice, particularly in support of Elon Musk and the Trump administration.
• This shift is causing significant backlash among long-time listeners who valued Rogan's previous neutrality.
• The growing involvement of influencers in politics is blurring the lines between media and governance, raising concerns about the erosion of traditional journalism.
• The sustainability of maintaining an anti-establishment image becomes challenging once influencers engage closely with political power structures.

---

For More Information: Subscribe to POLITICO Tech for daily insights on how technology disrupts politics and policy. Stay updated with newsletters like Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech for comprehensive tech news coverage.

Transcript

[Calder McHugh]

I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto.

[Stephen Overlea]

Friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger so I can get in more.

[Calder McHugh]

Squats anywhere I can.

[Stephen Overlea]

1, 2, 3 will that be cash or credit? Credit.

[Joe Rogan]

4 Galaxy S25 Ultra the AI companion.

[Calder McHugh]

That does the heavy lifting. So you can do you get [e-mail] compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy.

[Stephen Overlea]

Hey, welcome back to Politico tech. Today's Thursday, February 20th. I'm Stephen Overlea. We've talked before about the influential role that online personalities and podcasters now play in politics. They were heavily courted by both 2024 presidential campaigns and more recently, some were invited to President Donald Trump's inauguration, and others have been given seats inside the White House press briefing room. When it comes to online political culture, few personalities are more influential than Joe Rogan, host of the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience Train.

[Joe Rogan]

By Day, Joe Rogan Podcast by Night.

[Stephen Overlea]

My political colleague Calder McHugh has listened to a lot of Joe Rogan after the election in November. Calder wrote about Rogan's political power and how his seemingly nonpartisan nature made him a trustworthy messenger for listeners who don't really engage with politics. But if you tune into Rogan these days, he's become far more partisan. In many recent episodes, for instance, he has breathlessly defended Elon Musk and his controversial role remaking the federal government. Calder tells me that Rogan's listeners have.

[Calder McHugh]

Taken notice, so the comments are mainly directed towards this idea that Rogan in many ways has become what he used to hate.

[Stephen Overlea]

And some are speaking out.

[Calder McHugh]

Comments like Joe and his billionaire friends are becoming the swamp they've always hated. Joe is state run propagandist media. Very nice. I seriously can't even listen to him anymore. It sucks so much, man. I really love this show. I really miss the old Joe.

[Stephen Overlea]

On the show. Today, Caulder tells me that Rogan's full embrace of Trump politics could alienate some of the same fans who made him so impactful in the last election, and that other online influencers face a similar challenge. Here's our conversation. Hey Calder, welcome to Politico Tech.

[Calder McHugh]

Thanks so much, Stephen. Happy to be here.

[Stephen Overlea]

So Joe Rogan's podcast has been fervently defending Elon Musk in the weeks since the Trump administration took office, and you've reported that there's some backlash to that from some of his fans. What's going on?

[Calder McHugh]

Yeah, so it's an interesting, it's an interesting story. Basically what's going on is, you know, many of his longtime fans understand him as this really kind of apolitical or particularly non political podcaster. He might have a political view of things. He, you know, has been kind of a vague libertarian for a long time, but essentially that hasn't really found its way into the podcast a ton. And even before the election when, you know, he was talking about Elon and Trump and ultimately endorse Trump, most of his podcast content was not really related to electoral politics or politics as we understand them. So what's going on now is that a lot of his podcast content post election is him defending Musk. You know, he talks about him in almost every podcast interview. And a lot of his fans are kind of frustrated by this. They understand Rogan as kind of a potential escape and they don't see it that way.

[Stephen Overlea]

Now, is there an example of kind of what he's said or anything that stood out to you in terms of him defending Elon Musk or defending the administration?

[Calder McHugh]

Yeah, absolutely. Can I, can I curse on here? Is that okay? Yeah, okay. So on his show recently, Rogan argued.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm telling you, that's not what he's doing.

[Calder McHugh]

Musk is a super genius that's been.

[Joe Rogan]

Fucked with, genius that's been fucked with.

[Calder McHugh]

And when you've been fucked with by.

[Joe Rogan]

These nitwits, by these nitwits that hide behind three letter agencies and you're dealing with one of the smartest people alive and he helps Donald Trump get into office and he goes, I wanna find out what kind of corruption is really around.

[Calder McHugh]

That sort of colorful language aside is a very clear statement of what he believes.

[Joe Rogan]

And that's good, that's good for everybody. That's how you should be looking at this.

[Calder McHugh]

He has had Musk on the podcast many times. He understands him as this real genius and sort of in many ways, because Musk is in the administration, Rogan, you know, understands the new administration is something that's, that's helping him and that he believes is, is helping America. But again, that's, that's really not necessarily welcome news to some of the people who listen to him.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right. Well, and you've seen a lot of chatter about this online, especially on Reddit. What are disgruntled listeners saying? And you know, is this a threat to his popularity? You know, this is one of the most popular podcasts in the country.

[Calder McHugh]

Yeah. So I want to Be careful. A lot of these listeners are longtime listeners, many of whom have been frustrated for, with him for kind of a while. In certain ways. A lot of it began around Covid and their belief that he was potentially spreading misinformation and post Covid. So there is some frustration on Reddit that's been boiling up for a long time, but it hasn't been this directed or this or this large in recent weeks. He's kind of dropped from maybe 1 to 2 in Spotify or Apple podcast charts, but those charts are kind of often clouded in secrecy. He might be back up at the number one spot next week. So it's hard to tell so far whether or not this is affecting his listener base, but what it is doing is it's defining him politically in a very particular way that he was not necessarily defined, I think pre election and even after he endorsed Trump. Like part of his power as a Trump endorser and part of the reason that he was so successful in doing so was because people understood him as this kind of non political entity, somebody who was able to look at the pieces on the board and say, this is the person who I'm going for. And he had built up this real trust with his audience as somebody who didn't really buy into I guess the two party system, which is, which is true of much of his audience as well. They're kind of suspicious of government, often libertarian leaning. So what this could be doing, even if it's not hurting his listener base, is hurting his kind of credibility as this non political actor who can see the playing field a little more clearly than somebody who might be wrapped up in the day to day goings on of Washington.

[Stephen Overlea]

Well, to me, you know, the tech angle here in many ways is that these podcasters like Rogan drive online culture, you know, and they shape a lot of the social media discourse around politics. We've talked in the past, for instance, that 2024 in many ways was kind of the influencer podcaster election.

[Calder McHugh]

Yeah, no question. I think it's important to make a distinction and I, I've written about this a little bit before between somebody like Joe Rogan and somebody like Tucker Carlson or on the other side, the positive America guys. He was so interesting because he had all of this wild influence and, and you know, Trump went on shows with people sort of in, in the similar camp to Rogan of these kind of non, non political podcasters, or not obviously political podcasters, but he had all this, this influence on politics while also not being somebody who's Talking about politics on his show all the time right post election. You know, a lot of liberals very quickly recognized that this was, this was a podcaster election. This was an influencer election, like you mentioned. And there was this whole idea of that we need to find our own liberal Joe Rogan, which was kind of a misnomer at the time because he wasn't necessarily exactly a conservative Joe Rogan, he endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary, for example. But now in a certain way, he's turning into a little bit of a closer version to what liberals imagined he was. His turn towards defending Musk and thereby defending the Trump administration is turning him into kind of a more obvious political actor. And I can imagine that that might change his place in the culture.

[Max Reed]

Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University. Our game changing flexpath learning format, like, lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule. That means you don't have to put your life on hold to pursue your professional goals. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.

[Stephen Overlea]

Edu There is a conundrum I think here that in some ways affects any party that takes power, which is, you know, when you don't have power, it's very easy to criticize and point fingers and kind of like gin up anger from your base. And then when you are in power, you like no longer have that at your disposal because you have to sort of make an own decision. In some ways. I wonder if Musk and Rogan and some of these other folks, even, even folks in the administration now are sort of stuck in that situation.

[Calder McHugh]

Yeah, I think that's a big, that's a big part of this. I talked to somebody who, who put it really well, someone named Max Reed, who is a journalist who's written about Internet culture for a very long time. And what he really understood was that, you know, even Musk himself, as somebody who is sort of insisting he's not actually part of Doge, he doesn't actually work in the government. He's trying as hard as he can to continue to cast himself as working against the government somehow. I mean, even in the stuff that he wants to cut, he understands that there's a huge amount of power in this sort of anti system, anti establishment politics.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Calder McHugh]

And so that's what Attracts Rogan to musk as well. But it's much harder to make that claim, as you noted, Stephen, when you're actually in power. So, you know, it's. It's really hard.

[Stephen Overlea]

You've given millions and millions of dollars to the President's campaign and you have an office in the White House and you're a special employee of the government, and it's hard to say you're on the outside, I think.

[Calder McHugh]

Right, totally. Yeah, exactly.

[Stephen Overlea]

I've been really fascinated by the idea of the role of influencers in politics, especially some of these folks who, like we were just saying, kind of position themselves on the outside of politics or on. Outside of mainstream media. But, you know, we're now in a world where there are podcasters and influencers in the White House briefing room. You know, we saw them at political conventions and they're interviewing, you know, top political candidates. I wonder what you think it means going forward for that line to really be blurred.

[Calder McHugh]

Yeah. So I was at the DNC this summer and I reported there on political influencers, and there was a real anger from journalists at the DNC towards influencers who they felt had gotten special treatment. I mean, there were these particular bars that only the influencers could go into. They were roped off. They got access to certain people at the DNC that journalists didn't. Look, it's a. I think it's a complicated topic. If you are a high ranking official, communications official, let's say, in the Democratic or the Republican Party, there's obviously a reason why you want influencers on your side. You can understand them as kind of cutting out the middleman, going directly to the voters, you know, and they don't have to play by the same rules either as journalists of commitments to fairness, fact checking, all of that.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Calder McHugh]

So it really kind of benefits both of those parties who it doesn't benefit, I think fairly clearly is the American voter. There's only so much you can get from what essentially becomes a press release or a PR campaign that's just washed through an influencer. Like, if you're an influencer who's at the DNC or the rnc, I think it becomes very hard to criticize the people who have invited you there. Whereas if you're a journalist, you know, you're there to make those criticisms. So, I mean, you know, I'm a journalist myself. I think I come down on the, on the side often of traditional journalism and believe in it, but I think that it is very complicated piece of modern politics and. But, you know, without question, because of how much it benefits both campaigns and the influencers who are getting more access and, you know, being able to talk to voters and increasing listening base more directly. This is something that's, that's only gonna, gonna grow in size. I don't think that, for example, in four years we have a Democratic president. I think we're gonna continue to see influencers in and around the White House. I don't think this is like a Trump particular thing.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right. What are you gonna be watching for going forward on this story?

[Calder McHugh]

I want to see how people continue to react to Rogan and I want to see what happens. I think it'll be really interesting to check in in six months and see if he's still talking about Musk, still talking about conservatives. Trump politics, you know, still having on kind of probably more political guests than he did before. I think that will be really telling. I mean, everyone is really caught up, reasonably so, right now in what's going on in government. And this is a big story that's kind of straddling culture, media, sc all the things that Joe Rogan likes to talk about. If it's still happening in six months, in a moment when that's potentially less true, I think we'll have seen a kind of permanent change in who he is and how he's understood by his listeners and also by the American electorate. And I think that that change will be interesting because it'll prove that it's really hard to remain this kind of anti system podcaster and influencer when your fellow friends who are anti system are now in the White House.

[Stephen Overlea]

Yeah, I totally agree. And I, you know, I think obviously Joe Broken is, has such a large following. He's so influential. He's certainly not the only one. There's a lot of sort of influencer culture I think may be changed as a result of our politics at this moment. So I'll be interested to see how that plays out. Calder, thanks for being here on Politico Tech.

[Calder McHugh]

Thanks so much, Steven.

[Stephen Overlea]

That's all for today's Politico Tech. If you enjoy Politico Tech, please subscribe. And for more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech. Our managing producer is Annie Reiss. I'm Stephen Overle. See you back here tomorrow.