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EZRA LEVANT | Elon Musk bets a trillion dollars on a Mars colony for 1 million people
00:30:58
Will he really be able to hit these milestones? One thing is for certain: There's only one country in the world in which it could happen, and that's the United States of America.
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- [00:00]
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Hello, my friends. I want to change the subject from our terrible and sad politics to an amazing story of Elon Musk's new pay package at SpaceX. It's just unbelievable. One of the terms is he has to get a Mars colony set up with 1 million citizens. Would you like to be a citizen of Mars? Well, now's your chance anyhow. Very interesting. I'll take you through it today. But first let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com click subscribe. Not only will you get great content, but you'll support us because we take no government money and it shows.
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One more thing, being a rebel today is simply being normal. So why not support normal news and look cool while doing it by buying yourself some rebel merch and more@rebelnewstore.com and you can save by using coupon code DREA. Ted, when you do.
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Tonight, the Earth's leading citizen is betting a trillion dollars that he can start a colony on Mars and that 1 million earthlings will go there. It's April 29th and this is the Ezra Levant Show. Shame on you, you sensorist. Hey, I want a little bit of a change of pace. We're talking about gross politics all the time. It's a bit depressing. Let us take a break from the squalor of the real world and daydream a little bit to talk about the Earth's leading citizen. And I don't even think I have to tell you who that is. It's obviously Elon Musk. He's had an amazing life from PayPal to Tesla to the boring company which makes tunnels to buying X used to be called Twitter to Xai and now SpaceX, which is in the news today. SpaceX is his spaceship company. It's privately held right now, but he's getting ready for an IPO to take it public to allow investors to come in. Now, I confess, I was a skeptic of Elon Musk a decade ago. I was a skeptic of anything that got government grants and had an eat your spinach vibe. Which is how electric vehicles struck me a decade ago. That they were a curiosity really, that were heavily subsidized and made no economic sense on their own. But. But it wasn't Elon Musk who asked for the subsidies. It was the big three automakers who were trying to keep up with him. Musk himself is not an anti development extremist in the mold of Greenpeace or say Greta Thunberg. He believes in electric energy, which of course is in many places by burning coal or burning natural gas. But he's a big believer in solar and he believes that's the solution. I've come to understand his views and I think his views have actually changed over time as well. Needless to say, I'm a super fan. And as much as the left has been horrified by his coming out as a freedom activist, I think many people love it. I think he really has saved the world in many ways, culturally, morally by protecting freedom of speech on such an important platform as Twitter. He spent about $100 million of his own money in the last US presidential election. Nothing George Soros hasn't done, but it was spectacular to see Elon Musk do it, to try and get people to vote for Donald Trump, to stop Kamala Harris and all that she meant. I think that by doing so he helped save the country, probably saved himself. I think Elon Musk, like Donald Trump before him, would have been arrested, would have been stripped of his companies, would have been the target of lawfare like they were doing to Trump. Remember, they arrested Trump, they raided Trump, they were, they had stitch ups where he was charged with made up offenses. They would have done that to Elon Musk too. Absolutely they would. They didn't. And so Elon Musk is safe for now. He's the richest man of all time, but he doesn't live like it. As far as we know, he doesn't have giant mansions or private islands like many other billionaires do. He flies in a private jet for reasons of security and speed, but he doesn't live large. He's always on the go, he's always working. I don't know if he is even capable of taking a vacation. In a way, he's like Trump that way. And like Trump, he always gives a running commentary on the world and his views in it. I think that's one of the most interesting things about Trump is if you want to know what he thinks, just stick around a minute and he'll likely tweet it. Actually, there was this very funny movement moment at the White House today, actually the NASA. A NASA executive was there and there was a question about an office lease. It doesn't even matter what the question was, but Trump looked at the NASA executive who happened to have big ears. I just got to show this clip to you here. Take a look at Trump in the Oval Office.
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Are you considering relocating NASA's headquarters out of D.C. once the lease is up. States like Texas, Ohio and Florida.
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A
Well, the best man to tell you that is there's a man standing right over here. You heard that question with those beautiful ears of yours. He's got great hearing, you know, super. He's got super hearing.
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C
Trick of the trade, sir.
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A
Now that guy's a good sport, but that's why Trump is so wonderful. He will tell you exactly what is on his mind and what's likely on a lot of other people's minds. But he's the only one audacious enough to say it. Well, Elon Musk is similar too. And he talks about politics and he talks about the world. He's interested in the whole world. And he's become sort of friends with our friend Tommy Robinson, which is, you know, very risky politically for a big shot like Elon Musk to do. In fact, last year at a big rally Tommy Robinson had in London, Elon Musk came in via satellite. Here, take a look at, here's a small excerpt from his speech. You may notice this T shirt that
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D
I'm wearing is great British author George Orwell. What would Orwell think? I think that's generally a good way to look at these things. He would want freedom of speech. He would want the people to know what's real. He want the people to fight against government oppression and fight for the truth and fight for the future of Britain.
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A
I tell you, Elon Musk, he's high up on a lot of enemies lists, but he can get away with things because he is the world's richest man and a very powerful man. And of course we all know about Starlink, that's his satellite based Internet company, which is amazing if you haven't tried it. But there is a Star Shield version of it which you may not have heard of, which is the military satellite. So he is absolutely essential for so many countries, national security. Sort of reminds me of the comic book character Tony Stark. Iron man, who's an inventor and an industrialist. As long as, as well as a superhero. It's been socially important for Elon Musk to come out in favor of Tommy Robinson and others like him. Because the thing about bullying and social peer pressure, it only works when the bullies are powerful, when they have sort of a moral persuasion, when they, by disparaging someone cause you to say, oh, I'd better not talk to them. But how can you be more powerful than Elon Musk socially? So it's really made it hard for people to try and marginalize Tommy Robinson and others when Elon Musk has normalized them. I checked, and there's different websites out there that purport to measure what wealth of billionaires, even on a daily basis. I checked the Bloomberg page. He's worth about $650 billion today, which is US money, of course. It's close to a trillion Canadian. He will surely be the first American trillionaire. If you look at the list, it's interesting. The top eight richest men in the world are American and they all made their money in tech. You can keep going down the list. 18 out of the top 25 are American. It's not even close. There's. There's one person from China, I think one or two from India. I mean, that speaks to America as well, doesn't it? About how America has the culture of freedom and entrepreneurship. Still, it hasn't quite been snuffed out yet. Now, this monologue is not a hagiography or just fan fiction about Elon Musk. Even though I am a fan for various reasons, I want to talk about some news. And I think the news is sort of amazing and a little bit unbelievable, but I believe it. It feels like I was reading a science fiction novel. I mean, I mentioned SpaceX, which delivers about 80 to 90% of all mass to orbit. That's one of the measurements of sending rockets into outer space is. Well, how much did you lift up there? Was it just a pound or was it a ton? I mean, it's. That's the expense and the effort. How much mass can you get to orbit? Well, when measured that way, SpaceX delivers 80 to 90% of all mass to orbit, more than all other countries and companies in the world combined. Times 10. Hey, but don't knock it in Canada. We just spent $200 million on a Nova Scotia spaceport. Bring your own rocket to our lovely concrete cement pad. That was just crazy. Well, SpaceX is a private company, as I mentioned, but it's looking to go public, which means selling shares to the public. It'll probably be the largest IPO in, in world history in terms of the amount of money raised. I think everyone in the world will want in on this deal. But of course, when you sell shares of your company, it means that you yourself have a smaller slice. The pie might be larger, but your slice of it, the fraction of it, gets smaller. Which brings us to this news. In advance of the IPO, Elon Musk and SpaceX filed certain things with the securities and Exchange Commission, including about Elon Musk's compensation. Believe it or not, he only makes about $55,000 a year at SpaceX. You heard me right, 55,000. Not 55 million or even 55 billion. Here's a headline, the Wall Street Journal. SpaceX's IPO will help Elon Musk consolidate power. Investors welcome it. His fans don't mind another moonshot pay deal and almost total control. So let me read a little bit because like I say, when he sells shares to others they'll get certain rights. But as you can see by the headline, he's trying to protect his power in the company. I'll explain why Tesla's shareholders already give Elon Musk leeway. Entertaining the billionaires whims as he plows money into robots and blessing a $1 trillion pay package that will pay out if he hits long shot targets. He is poised to have even more sway at his rocket maker Space X which is aiming to go public in June. Now just absolute incredible milestones. I mean it's almost, I feel ridiculous even saying them. Like one of them for, for Tesla, which he, which was passed by the Tesla shareholders was he gets certain share vesting milestones if he can do things for the company like get it up to an $8 trillion valuation. The world's largest companies right now are about $3 trillion. It's like Apple and companies like that. So Elon Musk has to make Tesla bigger than any company in the world. $8 trillion of value and more importantly, 20 million cars on the street, 10 million self driving cars, a million robot taxis and a million of those humanoid robots. And if he doesn't meet these milestones, he doesn't get paid. That's how Tesla is encouraging him. Tesla owners loved it. Well here's what SpaceX shareholders on the board offered him. That SpaceX must reach a market value of $7.5 trillion. Again, quintuple what it is. Now imagine if he does both makes Tesla worth 8 trillion and SpaceX worth 8 trillion. I mean the largest wealth creator in the history of the world. But the milestones beyond just selling are incredible. This is the one that gets me. I mean the huge valuation is one thing, but he needs to get a permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million people living there. So we're not talking about a little space station with four astronauts. We're not talking about like a little moon rover and like a hut, a million people. That would be mums and dads, grandmas and grandpas. That would be not just scientists but it would be, you know, people working at a drive through. It would Be clerks. It would be janitors. A million people. That is a fairly large size city. It's crazy. But he has to do that to get his big payday at SpaceX. And that's in writing. That's the disclosure of the securities and Exchange Commission. Here's another idea that he has to meet. Another milestone is the operation of space based orbiting data centers. People are building all these data centers on Earth. Of course he wants to make space based data centers because you wouldn't have to cool them the same way wouldn't crowd people. You could use solar power. I don't even know what these words mean. But it needs at least 100 terawatts of compute capacity. That's. They talk about compute. I honestly don't know what that means. I think it means brain power for AI. And one of the news sites I read today said that's equivalent to 100,000 1 gigawatt nuclear reactors in terms of energy and computing. I don't even, I can't even fathom that. But that's what like he's got to not only get a million people on Mars, but he's got to get the equivalent of that much solar power operator. Maybe the nuclear reactors. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I'm in a science fiction novel and we're talking about the lead character, which is sort of true. I mean, it sounds like a joke, but so does driverless cars and robots from useful spaceships that land back on Earth for reuse. But he's done that. When I was in Austin, Texas a few months ago, I used Uber on my phone and up comes a driverless car. First time in my life I'd seen one. First time in my life I got in one. I tell you, it takes a little bit of getting used to. But by the time the drive was over, it was pretty cool. And it's a real thing. His Tesla deal says he needs to have a million robot taxis. Do you think he'll reach some of his other goals? I don't know. Tell you one thing, there's only one country in the world in which it could happen, and that's the United States of America. For now at least. And just stop and think for a second how close the world came to electing Kamala Harris and. And the destroyers. Stay with us. More ahead. You know, I'm old enough that I actually had a chance to meet and get to know a little bit Alan Borovoy, who for decades was the leader of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Now, he was a liberal man, but in the best sense of those words, he wasn't a partisan. He certainly wasn't woke. And he understood that the civil liberties movement had to get involved in the tough cases because they couldn't afford to turn their nose up if someone was offensive or odious. That's where the front line of civil liberties law was. I remember something he said and I've always remembered it now. I think it's been 20 years or 30 years since I heard him say this. He said, freedom of speech is the gift you have to give your opponents if you want it for yourself. He also called freedom of speech the strategic freedom upon which the others are built. I mean, just think about that for a second. What use is freedom of assembly? What's the use of getting together in a town hall, let's say, if you don't have the free speech to use it? What's the use of voting if you didn't have free speech in a campaign? He was very smart and I very much miss him because I think the model of those legacy civil liberties groups is now woke. And they won't touch you if you are conservative or right wing or whatever. They're the, I think really the, the establishment civil liberties movements have been in a crisis and we saw that, by the way, during the COVID lockdown. So I could only imagine what Alan Borovoy would have said about those. The Canadian Civil Liberties association was absolutely silent. They were mia, they were awol, absent without leave during the huge battle of our generation. I say all this because I really wish there had been more civil libert groups active in some of the key tests of our freedom in the last generation. The trucker convoy being, I think, the most notable amongst them. And because of some horn honking and some parking violations, the entire country was put under a form of martial law. Hundreds of bank accounts were seized. Peaceful protesters were jailed, sometimes in solitary confinement, as happened to our friend Tamara Leach. And it was just a disgrace. And I lament the passing of the great Old 60s Berkeley Era Civil liberties bosses like Alan Borovoy. But there is some good news out there. Yesterday, you might recall, we spoke with Lisa Bilde. She's the new executive director of the Free Speech Union of Canada, FSU Canada. It's a fairly new group. I'm familiar with their organization in the UK and they're excellent. I'm really glad they're putting down roots here. You know me, I love the Democracy Fund. That's a civil liberties group that we helped get going during the pandemic. But I think the archetype, really the role model, for me, at least in Canada, is a group that's been around for about a dozen years. So they're relatively new compared to the Civil Liberties Association. You probably know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about the justice center for Constitutional Freedoms. And I'm so glad they were active during the trucker convoy. And so it's a pleasure to welcome back to the program one of their lawyers who we've had on before. He's based in Hamilton, but of course he operates in other cities, too. His name is Hatim Kir, and he joins us now via Zoom. Hatim, great to see you again.
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C
Hi, Ezra. Thanks for having me.
- [19:12]
A
Well, it's our pleasure. You know, civil liberties are tough because it's easy when you're the one who wants your civil liberties. But what about when people disagree with you? That's the hard part. That's what Alan Borovoy was saying when he said, freedom of speech is the gift you have to give your opponents. And that's when we're tested. Do we really support free speech or is it just we only support free speech for ourselves? Can you tell our viewers about a case that I think tests this principle? It's the city of Ottawa, and I'm sure they have some good reason for doing it. But every time I see censorship afoot, I think of the worst case scenario. Tell us a little bit about what the city of Ottawa is planning to do and what you guys at the JCCF are doing in response.
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C
So the city of Ottawa has just passed their safe access bylaw. And what the bylaw does is it allows certain kinds of institutions, schools, places of worship, child care centers, healthcare centers, and residential care centers to apply for, to be designated a social infrastructure which has safe access points, which essentially means they're. There's no protest zones for 50 meters surrounding those access points. So the, the bylaw prohibits all sorts of things that are already illegal, like obstructing the access to the property. But probably the most concerning thing is it is it prohibits demonstrations, which are defined as one or more people in a place primarily for the purpose of expressing an opinion. So it could just be a person holding a sign would be prohibited for 50 meters from the access point to the designated facility.
- [20:58]
A
You know, that's very concerning. I, I know section 1762 of the Criminal code off by Heart, which is an obscure section, but it prohibits disturbing churches, synagogues, mosques. You're not allowed to quote, disturb them. And that makes sense. There's some sense to that. And there's a very, and that word disturbance in there. And that's very different from a peaceful person standing with a sign out front. And I think you're so right to be concerned, especially if they define a demonstration as just expressing an opinion and to do so even if you're on your own. A one man demonstration. I'm sort of chuckling at the idea of that. Let me ask you this, because in the past labor unions have opposed rules like this because they can imagine it being used to shut down strikers. You know, sometimes people on strike, they protest at their particular place of work and they maybe even slow down a car getting in or out for a minute, make them wait. It's a little bit of a hassle, but it's, I suppose it's a Canadian tradition. In the past, labor unions have been very worried about these anti protest rules because, you know, unions protest from time to time. Who supports this bill and does anyone other than you guys oppose it? It's not a bill, sorry, it's a policy or a bylaw who supports it and who opposes it.
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C
So actually the only thing there's an exception for is our labor unions.
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A
Oh really? So they've got a favor for their friends, right?
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C
So the city council has now voted on this. It happened last week and basically the, the council was overwhelmingly in favor of it. There were a few councillors who tried to amend the bylaw to remove the prohibition on demonstration, for example. So then it would just prohibit these more sort of obstructive behaviors. But that was voted down and ultimately the bylaw has now been approved. So it's, it's just come into force. As far as I'm aware, it has not been implemented yet because it depends on organizations actually applying for a safe access point. But I doubt it'll be long until that happens.
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A
You know, there have been a lot of protests against Jewish synagogues, against Jewish schools in the last two and a half years. And they've concerned me, but I have, even though I'm Jewish, I've resisted the call for new laws because I've always said, look, we have laws on the books. If there's uttering threats, if there's harassment, if there's mischief, if there's, if there's trespass, all of these things are already caught under the law. And by the way, stalking, or I think they call it besetting the law, I don't think the law uses the word stalking uses similar. Those are Already on the books. So if someone was doing threatening behavior, if someone was stalking you. We don't need a new city bylaw to deal with something that the criminal code has contemplated in many cases for centuries. I mean, the laws against uttering threats or trespass go back almost to time immemorial. We don't. It's not like in 2026, the City of Ottawa councilors have discovered a hole in our. In our criminal code that only they can patch. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, if there was a problem. Cops have a lot of tools, don't they? Including disturbing the peace, breach of the peace. Those are pretty vague catchalls. Cops can already fix these problems with current laws. Am I right to say that?
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C
I think so. A number of the subsections in this bylaw prohibit obstructing or hindering access to a location. And that's almost mirroring the language of the offensive mischief as well, which includes obstructing access or enjoyment of the use of property. Yeah, you know, I agree with you, Ezra. I am always wary when there's new laws like this being introduced because the sort of, the ancient laws, the oldest criminal prohibitions, the common law, these kinds of things already capture the rights that people have and ought to enjoy. The rights to property, the right to enjoy their property in sort of peace without disturbance. So what this bylaw ends up doing, in my view, is it's redundant. It copies those laws that already exist, but then it goes farther by prohibiting demonstrations. And also, you know, just because it's. It's kind of humorous. I'll bring it up. It also prohibits causing or permitting a bass noise or an unusual noise or a noise likely to disturb the peace. So no strange sounds are permitted at these access points either.
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A
Unusual. It's so vague. You know, one of them, I mean, I haven't practiced law in decades, but I like to dabble in the ideas that I remember in law school. You know, one of the things our constitution protects us against is laws that are vague. If a law is vague, you can't know how to follow it. And there's that phrase void for vagueness. If someone said, hey, Ezra, stop making all those unusual sounds, I would. What? What does that mean? Is my voice unusual? Is it if I yodel? I mean, that's sort of unusual. I mean, it. I don't know, it just seems like such a catch all. Was there any consideration in city council debates to the chart of rights? Like, did they even talk about it? Did they even acknowledge that there may Be the right to protest even if people don't like. I'm not saying the right to use loudspeakers to shout down a church or a mosque or a synagogue. I agree with section 176 2, the criminal code. But did anyone say, hey guys, we might be going too far? Or was it just the unions who had their charter rights protected?
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C
I mean, so the, the council did reference the charter. You know, they had these comments about, you know, we respect the right to protest, but also it's about balancing the right to, to safe access is what they called it. There were a few councillors who, you know, someone did try proposing an amendment that would have removed demonstration from the bylaw, but the vast majority of councilors voted against that. And then the vast majority of councilors approved the bylaw as it currently stands.
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A
Yeah, I'm not too surprised. I mean, Ottawa was ground zero for violating our civil liberties during the trucker convoy. I mean, I was there for a few days, but I watched it very carefully every day. And there was no trespass. They didn't go into parliament. They didn't go into private property. They, you know, they honked their horns until a court ordered them to stop. And then they stopped. And the overreaction by the government was astonishing. It was the overreaction for 50 years. It was the only comparable reaction was the War Measures act in October crisis 56 years ago. And I don't know, I just think Ottawa, sometimes they think maybe it's like the ruling city that they can tell the peasants not to protest. I don't know, I don't think it's a good look. And I think this has echoes of their censorship from four years ago. I hope you guys will stay on the file. And if any of these institutions request this bubble zone, I hope you guys will be there to inspect it and push back as appropriate.
- [28:39]
C
Yeah, we'll be keeping a close eye on this. And if anyone in Ottawa ends up running into this bylaw, you know, I invite to go to JCCF CA and find the intake page there and let them know your story.
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A
There he is. Hatem Kheer, lawyer for the justice center, keeping an eye on our civil liberties. Thanks for taking the time with us today.
- [28:58]
C
Thanks for having me.
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A
Right on. Stay with us. Your letters to me next. Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Selena Barber on Mark Carney's so called sovereign wealth fund says let carnage and Brookfield start with the 6 billion billion they owe Canada in taxes. Hey, that's a good point. They've hidden their money from taxes. They've moved their headquarters out of Canada. You might recall I went to the Isle of Man in Bermuda trying to track down their offices. They were really just mailboxes, ways to avoid taxes. It was really gross. Brian McIntyre says. I don't get it. Shouldn't it be called the sovereign debt fund? The new Marxism slush fund? Borrow, buy high, sell for less and lose money. Carninomics. Just keep your greedy grubby hands off Canadian pensions. It. I don't know what's going to come of that because we don't have a wealth fund. We are in the hole so much. Countries with wealth funds have huge surpluses, usually from oil and gas. Carney has tried to kill the oil and gas industry and we don't have a surplus. John Gonsalve says LeBlanc said today there's no projects approved to date. Let that sink in. But we are moving at speeds never seen before. Let's leave it as we will never see it. Yeah, there's certain words that Carney uses, like we're catalyzing this transformational investments moving at a speed never seen before. In general, he just has his set of BS jargon like Justin Trudeau did. It's all BS this time it just comes in a different kind of suit. Anyway, that's our show for the day. Oh, what a difference. Let me just say what a difference between a man of action like Elon Musk and a man of process and bureaucracy like Mark Carney. So show for the day. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.