The Rise and Rule of Elon Musk

Summary

This video script delves into the enigmatic figure of Elon Musk, exploring his early life, business ventures, and controversial leadership style. It scrutinizes Musk's acquisition of Twitter, questioning his motives for buying the platform and his inconsistent approach to free speech. The script challenges Musk's recent actions, suggesting they may be undermining his own vision for humanity's potential, and discusses the societal impact of his influence.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Elon Musk's mind is described as a 'storm', indicating his complex and intense thought processes, which are not always understood or appreciated by others.
• 🚀 Musk's business empire and wealth have been built through a series of innovative ventures, starting from programming at a young age to the establishment of companies like Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla.
• 💡 His motivation stems from a deep desire to expand human potential and explore the universe, which has driven him to push the boundaries of technology and science.
• 🔄 Musk's approach to business involves deep involvement in technical details, questioning everything, and demanding efficiency and speed, often leading to high-stress work environments.
• 🤖 He has a reputation for being blunt and abrupt, with a disregard for social norms, which can come across as both a lack of empathy and a strength in his leadership style.
• 🗣️ Musk's acquisition of Twitter was based on his belief in the necessity of free speech for a functioning democracy, aiming to make it a global platform for open dialogue.
• 🔄 After taking over Twitter, Musk implemented significant changes, including reinstating previously banned accounts and altering the platform's algorithm to amplify his own voice.
• 📉 Contrary to Musk's claims of fighting government censorship, Twitter under his leadership has shown an increase in compliance with government censorship requests.
• 💔 There is a sense of betrayal among some of Musk's employees and colleagues, who feel that his recent actions are undermining his original vision for the advancement of humanity.
• 🕊️ Despite controversies, Musk's enduring belief in the potential for human achievement remains consistent, although his methods and impact on society have become a subject of debate.
• 🌐 The script raises questions about the role of social media in society, the responsibilities of tech billionaires, and the balance between free speech and harmful content moderation.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the video script about Elon Musk?

The main theme of the video script is to explore who Elon Musk is, his background, his business empire, and particularly his motives and actions regarding the purchase and management of Twitter.

What was Elon Musk's first business move in tech?

Elon Musk's first business move in tech was at the age of 12 when he invented a video game and sold it to a magazine for $500.

What is the significance of the company Zip2 in Elon Musk's entrepreneurial journey?

Zip2, founded by Elon Musk and his brother, provided maps and business directories for online newspapers and was his first successful business venture, which was later sold for $307 million.

How did Elon Musk's companies revolutionize their respective industries?

Elon Musk's companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, revolutionized their industries by pushing the boundaries of technology and innovation. Tesla disrupted the automobile industry by mainstreaming electric cars, while SpaceX transformed space travel with reusable rockets.

What is the 'Twitter Files' in the context of the video script?

The 'Twitter Files' refers to internal communications at Twitter that Elon Musk discovered after taking over the company, revealing instances of content moderation and censorship with potential political bias.

What is the claim about the political bias of Twitter's algorithm before Elon Musk's acquisition?

The claim is that before Elon Musk's acquisition, Twitter's algorithm did not have a liberal bias; in fact, studies showed that the mainstream political right enjoyed higher algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left.

How has Elon Musk's approach to free speech on Twitter been criticized?

Elon Musk's approach to free speech on Twitter has been criticized for being hypocritical, as he has been seen to suppress certain voices, ban journalists, and allow government censorship, contrary to his stated commitment to free speech.

What is the 'All Maps Are Wrong' poster mentioned in the script?

The 'All Maps Are Wrong' poster is a product designed by Johnny Harris, the script's narrator, featuring various map projections and is available for purchase by viewers interested in cartography.

What is the role of Ground News as mentioned in the video script?

Ground News is a platform highlighted in the script for its ability to provide a balanced view of news stories by aggregating articles from around the world and allowing users to examine how news is being covered, including identifying biases.

What is the perspective on Elon Musk's impact on society presented in the video script?

The video script presents a perspective that Elon Musk's recent actions, particularly with Twitter, are divisive and potentially harmful to society, undermining his own vision for the advancement of human civilization.

What is the 'Search Party' channel mentioned at the end of the script?

The 'Search Party' channel is a new initiative started by Sam Ellis, a former colleague of Johnny Harris, focusing on deep dives into geopolitics and sports, and is a channel that collaborates with Johnny Harris's work.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 The Enigma of Elon Musk's Mind

The script opens with a contemplative tone, pondering the complex mind of Elon Musk. It discusses the public's fascination and misunderstanding of Musk, delving into his background, business empire, and recent acquisition of Twitter. The narrator's quest to understand Musk includes interviews with various individuals who have had professional relationships with him, revealing a mix of admiration and animosity. The segment also touches on Musk's early life, his autism spectrum traits, and the hardships he faced, including severe bullying and an abusive home life. It sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of Musk's character and motivations.

05:02

🚀 The Rise of an Entrepreneur

This paragraph outlines Elon Musk's journey from his early programming days to becoming a billionaire entrepreneur. It highlights his first business venture, Zip2, which was sold for $307 million, and the subsequent establishment of X.com, which later became PayPal and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. Musk's ambitious investment in SpaceX, Tesla, and Solar City with his earnings is emphasized, showcasing his vision for a multi-planetary human species and sustainable energy. The summary also touches on the innovative approaches of Tesla and SpaceX, including Tesla's open-source patents and SpaceX's reusable rockets, which revolutionized their respective industries.

10:08

💡 Diverse Ventures and Controversies

The script moves on to describe the wide array of companies Musk has launched or co-founded, such as The Boring Company, Neuralink, Starlink, OpenAI, and xAI. It discusses Musk's playful side, which is evident in his ventures like selling flamethrowers and peculiar perfumes. The paragraph also addresses the serious side of his businesses, such as Starlink's impact on global internet access and the war in Ukraine. Furthermore, it mentions Musk's role in shaping public opinion through his companies and his recent foray into reshaping the media landscape with his acquisition of Twitter.

15:08

🛠️ The Intense and Demanding Leadership Style

The paragraph delves into Elon Musk's leadership style, emphasizing his obsession with detail and his hands-on approach to engineering and technical aspects of his companies. It reveals that Musk spends a significant amount of time interrogating every aspect of his projects to find the most efficient solutions. His leadership is characterized by questioning everything, pushing boundaries, and demanding accelerated timelines from his teams. While this has led to remarkable achievements, it also creates a highly stressful work environment and has earned Musk a reputation for being difficult to work with.

20:10

💸 The Pursuit of Wealth and Power

This section discusses the psychological aspects of Musk's drive for wealth and power. It includes a revealing text conversation that suggests Musk thrives in conflict and finds calm periods unnerving. The paragraph highlights his acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion and his stated reasons for the purchase, focusing on his belief in free speech and the potential of Twitter as a global platform for open dialogue. It also touches on the immediate changes Musk implemented at Twitter, including the notorious 'Twitter Hunger Games' and his demand for an 'extremely hardcore' work culture.

25:12

🔊 The Hypocrisy of 'Free Speech'

The script questions the authenticity of Musk's commitment to free speech on Twitter. It describes how Musk used algorithmic power to boost his own tweets and allowed the return of previously banned accounts, seemingly to amplify certain voices, including those of controversial figures. The paragraph points out inconsistencies in Musk's approach to free speech, such as his selective banning of journalists and his decision to censor Substack links. It suggests that Musk's actions may not align with his stated ideals and could be driven by a desire for attention and controversy.

30:14

📊 The Myth of San Francisco Liberal Bias

This paragraph examines Musk's claim that Twitter's San Francisco location biased its platform towards liberal ideologies. It cites a study showing that, contrary to Musk's assertions, the platform actually had a conservative bias in terms of algorithmic amplification. The summary highlights the discrepancy between Musk's beliefs and the empirical evidence, suggesting that his acquisition of Twitter may have been based on unfounded assumptions.

35:15

🏛️ The Reality of Government Censorship

The script addresses Musk's concern about government censorship on Twitter, revealing that internal communications showed instances of political bias in content moderation. It discusses specific cases, such as the censorship of the New York Post's article on Hunter Biden, as examples of Twitter's compliance with government requests. However, the paragraph also points out that under Musk's leadership, Twitter has increased its compliance with government censorship requests, which contradicts his professed dedication to free speech.

40:16

🛑 The Betrayal of Free Speech Principles

In this paragraph, the script concludes that Musk's actions since taking over Twitter do not align with his stated motives of promoting free speech and combating government censorship. It provides examples of Twitter's compliance with government requests to censor content in Turkey and India, despite Musk's earlier criticism of such practices. The summary suggests that Musk's approach to content moderation is inconsistent and subject to his personal whims, rather than being guided by a clear commitment to free speech.

💔 The Consequence of Controversy

The final paragraph reflects on the broader implications of Musk's recent actions, suggesting that his pursuit of controversy and division may be undermining his own vision for humanity's potential. It discusses the sense of betrayal felt by some of Musk's former colleagues and employees, who believed in his grand vision but now see him contributing to societal discord. The script concludes by questioning whether Musk's current path is truly in service of his stated ideals or merely feeding his own need for attention and crisis.

Keywords

💡Elon Musk

Elon Musk is the central figure of the video, a renowned entrepreneur known for his ventures in electric cars, space exploration, and social media. He is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and has recently acquired Twitter. The video discusses his impact on these industries and his personal motivations.

💡Autism spectrum

The term 'autism spectrum' refers to a range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech, and nonverbal communication. In the video, it is mentioned that Elon Musk later said that he's on the autism spectrum, which provides context to his early life experiences and possibly his approach to work and social interactions.

💡Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching, and running a new business. The video script highlights Musk's entrepreneurial journey, starting with Zip2 and leading to the formation of influential companies like PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and his recent acquisition of Twitter.

💡Innovation

Innovation refers to the introduction of new methods or products. The video emphasizes Musk's role in driving innovation, particularly in the fields of electric vehicles, space travel, and social media platforms, constantly pushing the boundaries of what is considered possible.

💡Free speech

Free speech is a fundamental principle that supports the right to express one's opinions without censorship or restraint. The script discusses Musk's acquisition of Twitter and his stated intention to make it a platform for free speech, which raises questions about content moderation and the implications for society.

💡Controversy

Controversy implies a situation that is likely to cause disagreement or debate. The video mentions Musk's tendency to court controversy, whether through his business practices or public statements, which often puts him in the spotlight and fuels public discussions.

💡Risk

Risk is the possibility of something bad happening. The script describes Musk's 'addiction to risk', illustrating his willingness to pursue ambitious projects despite high stakes and potential for failure, as seen with SpaceX's initial failed launches.

💡Neuralink

Neuralink is a company focused on developing brain–machine interfaces. The video briefly mentions Neuralink as an example of Musk's ventures into futuristic technologies, aiming to connect human brains directly with computers.

💡Starlink

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX, providing internet coverage to remote areas. The script refers to Starlink's role in providing internet services, including its controversial use in conflict zones like Ukraine.

💡Government censorship

Government censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information by a government. The video discusses Musk's criticism of Twitter's past compliance with government censorship requests and his own approach to such requests after acquiring the platform.

💡Substack

Substack is a platform for independent writers to publish and monetize their work via email newsletters. The script mentions Musk's decision to restrict Substack links on Twitter, which raised concerns about his commitment to free speech and open dialogue.

Highlights

Elon Musk's mind is described as a storm, indicating his complex and intense thought processes.

Musk's purchase of Twitter and the mystery surrounding his motivations are explored.

The narrative delves into Musk's early life, including his experiences with bullying and his entrepreneurial start at age 12.

Musk's self-identification on the autism spectrum and its potential influence on his behavior and outlook.

Debunking myths about Musk's family wealth and his actual upbringing.

Musk's deep interest in computers, programming, and his first business venture selling a video game at 12.

Musk's philosophical motivations for his work, focusing on expanding human potential and understanding the universe.

The story of Musk's first company, Zip2, and its significant sale, establishing him financially.

The creation and success of X.com, which later became PayPal, and its acquisition by eBay.

Musk's investment in and transformation of Tesla, aiming to make electric cars mainstream.

SpaceX's revolutionary development of reusable rockets and its impact on space travel.

Musk's various companies and their collective aim to push the limits of human potential.

The controversial aspects of Musk's personality, including his treatment of employees and public image.

Musk's acquisition of Twitter and his stated goals for the platform, focusing on free speech.

Analysis of Musk's impact on Twitter, including changes in content moderation and government censorship.

Critique of Musk's approach to free speech on Twitter, highlighting inconsistencies and potential harm.

Reflection on Musk's overall vision and whether his recent actions align with his intended goals for humanity.

Transcripts

(soft music)

- I mean, my mind is a storm.

I don't think most people would wanna be me.

They may think they would wanna be me,

but they don't, they don't know.

- [Interviewer] Is your storm a happy storm?

- No.

- I've grown tired of hearing the name Elon Musk

and not really understanding what's going on.

Who is this guy?

Where is he from?

How has he built a huge business empire to become one

of the richest people in the world?

And what can we learn about his purchase of Twitter?

So I've been going on a deep dive,

finding everything I can about this guy,

his upbringing, businesses he's started,

talking to people who have worked with him,

who have worked for him.

Many of these people wanna remain anonymous

for reasons you will soon understand.

I've talked to people who love him, people who hate him,

people who used to love him and now hate him.

- If I were an employee at Twitter right now,

I'd probably just do your job,

don't let him know your name.

- So after a few months of reporting on this,

I feel like I finally have a handle on who this guy is.

I understand how he built his empire,

how he treats the people around him,

and the real reason I believe he bought Twitter.

- Elon Musk put in an offer.

- An unsolicited bid to buy the social media platform.

- [Reporter] $44 billion.

- So let me show you the rise and rule of Elon Musk.

- You're a super villain.

That's what a super villain does.

- [Elon] Yeah.

- [Announcer] He's addicted to drama, he's addicted to risk,

and whenever things seem to be going smoothly,

he almost has a compulsion to stir things up.

(soft music)

- [Johnny] Elon Musk was born in the summer of 1971

in South Africa.

From a young age, he was bullied pretty relentlessly

by kids at school for being scrawny and nerdy.

- You know, bullied quite a lot.

I got punched in the face many times.

- [Johnny] Musk would later say

that he's on the autism spectrum,

though he was never diagnosed.

It got really bad for young Elon.

Like one time.

- When he got beaten up at school once

and so bloody, he had to go to the hospital.

The scars were actually worse when he came home

and his father made him stand in front of him

and berated him for more than an hour, calling him stupid,

saying it was his fault.

- Stories like this make me sick to my stomach

and you realize that the trauma

and scars from this kind of abuse, both physical

and emotional, they don't go away easily.

Speaking of his dad, there's a lot of rumors

that Elon came from a rich dad

who owned Emerald mines in South Africa

and that he was set up to be successful

because of family wealth.

This isn't factually accurate.

Elon's dad did import emeralds,

but there wasn't a lot of money in this family.

- He never owned a emerald mine. This is total bull shit.

- If you want more detail on that,

you can go check out our sources where we put the fact check

for every of the assertions in this video.

Anyway, what Elon did have at a young age was a skill

for computers and programming.

(soft music)

- [Elon] I taught myself how to program computers,

but mostly 'cause I wanted to program games.

- At the age of 12, he invented a video game.

- Mom, do you remember when I was 12

and I created my own video game.

- [Johnny] That he sold to a magazine for,

- $500.

- It was his first business move in tech,

his first interest in space.

- Around 12 or 13, I had kind of an existential crisis

trying to figure out the meaning of life.

- From an early age.

Musk found meaning in the idea of the potential

of humanity, what humans can do as a collective,

how we as a species have somehow been able to work together

to explore the meaning of the universe.

- My motivation was that if we can expand the scope

and scale of consciousness,

maybe we can find out the meaning of life.

- I mean, you hear this and it kind of sounds overly grand,

kind of delusional, overly idealistic,

but honestly,

this is what motivates Musk from a very young age

and he doesn't bend on what he wants

and what he's willing to do to achieve it.

So he leaves South Africa when he is 18 and moves to Canada

and eventually ends up in Pennsylvania where he goes

to college and gets a degree in economics and physics.

At the age of 24, he moves out to California

to pursue a PhD at Stanford,

but he never starts the program.

Instead he starts his first business.

(soft music)

Okay, so I'm not gonna go into the details of every one

of Elon's companies because there are a lot.

If you want to deep dive, read this very thick book,

this was a foundational part of our reporting

and it details the play by play on all of these companies.

For now, let me give you a quick summary

of the businesses this guy built to become one

of the richest men on the planet.

His first company was called Zip2.

He started it in 1995 with his brother, who seems

to have an affinity for cowboy hats.

(whip snapping) - Yee-haw.

- His company provided maps

and business directories for online newspapers.

I know those words sound very strange to us now,

but like back in 1995, it was a huge deal.

It almost was like the precursor to

what Google Maps is today, and it was very successful.

- We helped bring online several hundred newspapers

that previously were only in print.

- It was acquired a few years later for $307 million,

22 million of those dollars going right into Elon's pocket.

Suddenly Elon is rich.

- Receiving cash is cash.

I mean, those are just a large number of Ben Franklins.

- He uses the money to start another company called X.com.

No, no, no, not that X.com, the first X.com,

which you now know today as PayPal.

- So this is an ATM.

All we're gonna do is

transform the traditional banking industry.

- It was basically an online bank

and it was revolutionary at the time.

So much so that in 2002, eBay bought it

for $1.5 billion. (cash register ringing)

Elon got 180 million of those dollars,

and now he's officially super rich.

- There it is gentlemen, the fastest car in the world.

- So what to do with all of this money?

The answer for Elon Musk was

to try out the craziest ideas he could think of.

- Oh, I have like about 180 million from PayPal.

I thought, you know, I'll allocate half of that to SpaceX

and Tesla and Solar City.

That should be fine. I'll have 90 million. Like that's lots.

I thought our probability of success was less than 10%.

It would be foolish to think anything else other than that.

(soft music)

- Ever since he was a kid making video games about space,

Elon has been motivated by this idea

of humans expanding outside of earth, humans becoming a,

- Multi planet species.

We would like to help make life multi-planetary.

The extension of life to multiple planets.

- In early two thousands, Tesla already existed.

They were making electric cars,

but there were kind of high-end niche sports cars.

Elon was really interested in this.

So he came in as an investor

and eventually became the CEO with the vision

of turning electric cars mainstream

and ushering a whole new era of transportation.

But these ideas were more expensive than he anticipated.

- Things cost more and took longer than I thought.

So I had a choice of either put the rest of the money in

or the companies are gonna die.

- His rockets kept blowing up.

His electric cars were devilishly complicated

to manufacture, but Elon developed this addiction to risk

and intensity that kept him pushing forward

despite these challenges.

Tesla reinvented how cars were made.

Thanks to innovative technology

and manufacturing, really clever engineering

and a waterfall of government subsidies.

He was able to skyrocket Tesla into one

of the most valuable companies in the world,

overtaking every other car company

by a long shot in just a few years.

And this company was weird.

It wasn't obeying all the rules,

like there was almost no official marketing campaign.

And Elon decided to make all of his technology open source.

The patents were not copyrighted.

Anyone could see them

and use them with the hope that the market

for electric vehicles would take off,

and that the world would more quickly move away from the use

of fossil fuels, which would ultimately benefit Tesla.

- So if somebody comes and makes a better electric car

than Tesla, and it's so much better than ours

that we can't sell our cars

and we go bankrupt,

I still think that's a good thing for the world.

- These were bold, crazy moves,

but they were totally working.

Meanwhile, Elon's Space Company was about

to go out of business

(soft music)

- For SpaceX, the first three launches failed.

Just barely able to scrape together enough parts

and money to do the the fourth launch.

- And then, after six years and six months of stress

and intensity, Elon's dreams of going

to space started to come true.

(upbeat music)

(cheering)

I'm gonna explain a little bit more about how he did all

of this, but the big deal about SpaceX is

that they created a reusable rocket.

Every other rocket is disposable.

You can only use it once and it's very expensive.

But Elon proved that you could use a rocket

and safely land it back down onto the surface

of earth and then use it again.

Soon, SpaceX would be carrying NASA astronauts

and supplies to the International Space Station,

launching military satellites into space for the Pentagon,

launching dozens of satellites up into space

for commercial use,

and even launching the first ever private space flight

for tourism.

Space travel was officially reinvented.

- I think we're at the dawn of a new era

and it's a reason for people to be excited

and inspired to be human.

- Okay? But what's crazy is that during all of this,

Elon is also launching a bunch

of other companies like The Boring Company,

which is trying to revolutionize traffic

and transportation by building smarter tunnels.

Oh my God, it just hit me that it's boring,

like boring into the side of a mountain.

Oh my God, that just hit me, right now?

This company also turned into like a blank canvas

for Elon Musk to play out all of his childish,

silly ideas like selling a flamethrower

or this perfume that smells like singed human hair.

And yes, Musk uses his businesses as kind of a way

to troll humanity while also trying to save humanity.

It's this behavior that a lot of people find refreshing

and ends up getting a lot of attention

and becoming a marketing tool for all of his companies.

He starts building Neuralink, which is designing a way

for humans to control computers with their brains,

which is already having some initial successes.

And now that Elon's company can easily go to space,

he starts sending up these small satellites, 6,000 of them

that are orbiting the earth,

and he starts providing internet to remote places,

arguably changing the course of the war in Ukraine

by providing Ukrainian soldiers with internet

during the initial invasion from Russia.

Though that's gotten more complicated in recent months

as Russian soldiers have started to use Starlink

and it's a whole other rabbit hole.

Okay, but we're not done yet with Elon's companies.

He also co-founded OpenAI way back in 2015

who went on to make ChatGPT.

He later left the company over disagreements

and then has recently started his own AI company called,

you Guessed it, xAI.

Yes, the guy loves the letter X.

It's literally the name of several of his companies

and one of his children.

Each one of these ventures points back

to Elon's childish idealism.

This grand vision of testing the limits of

what humans can do by pushing our understanding of physics

and working together to do crazy amazing things.

But then after building all of these companies

that are focused on pushing the physical limits

of human potential,

Elon in recent years has set his sights

on reshaping another industry.

(soft music)

- [Announcer] Tonight, the richest man

in the world is hunting for more.

- [Reporter] Put in an offer of almost $44 billion

to buy Twitter.

- [Reporter] All of Twitter.

Is this all a troll or is this very real?

- Elon Musk has been portrayed as both a reckless,

unethical billionaire as well as a visionary

who is changing the world for the better.

And what you think about him probably comes from

what you read about him.

And what you read about him was probably served to you

by an algorithm.

This is how our media landscape works these days

and it's getting us deeper and deeper into trouble,

which is a major theme in this video,

but it's also in line with the sponsor of today's video,

which is Ground News.

Ground News is a platform that I've been using

to navigate this problem, to find a balanced view

where I can see both sides of a news story.

Ground News aggregates, tens of thousands

of news articles from around the world into one place,

and then allows you to critically examine

how that news is being covered.

Here's a recent story

that on the left you can see from the Los Angeles Times

that engineers sue Elon Musk

and SpaceX saying

that the company mirrored his juvenile, crude X posts.

While on the right you've got the New York Post saying

that Elon Musk was sued

by fired engineers alleging Elon Musk

allowed pervasive sexist culture.

These headlines have subtle bias in them.

Like the left-leaning headline suggests

that Musk's personal behavior was directly responsible

while the right-leaning headline emphasizes

that they were fired employees

and that there was an alleged sexist culture

softening any kind of blame towards Musk and his company.

This is really subtle stuff that's hard to pay attention to

if you're just scrolling your algorithm.

Ground News emphasizes and highlights these biases

and allows you to be more critical as a news consumer.

Not only do they show this bias distribution,

but they also have a tool that rates

how factual an article is,

and my favorite, they have this blind spot detector

that pays attention to the articles that you tend to read

and presents you with stuff that might be outside

of your comfort zone,

but that you probably need to see

to be a balanced news consumer.

This is a really cool tool. I'm very glad they exist.

I'm really glad they're sponsoring today's video.

If you wanna try this out for yourself,

go to groundnews.com/johnnyharris

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which is unlimited access to all of these features.

I use Ground News, I think it's really important

in today's media landscape.

I'm grateful that they sponsored today's video.

With that, let's dive back into the story of Elon Musk.

- [Announcer] Tonight, the richest man

in the world is hunting for more.

- Okay, so we're getting into this.

Why did Elon buy Twitter?

What can we learn from it?

Before we do that, I want to tell you a little bit

about what I learned about Elon Musk as a leader

after talking to people who have worked with him,

people who have worked under him.

There's a few key lessons that I've taken away from all

of these conversations we've had with these people

and doing research on him.

I will not be quoting them directly

because most of them asked to remain anonymous.

(soft music)

The first thing I heard over

and over again is how obsessed Elon Musk is with the details

of what his companies are building.

- [Elon] I think people think like I'm a business guy

or something like that,

engineering looks like 80% or more of my time.

- [Johnny] One source I talked to

who worked closely with Musk,

estimates that he spends 90% of his time

in technical details

with a whiteboard out, looking at code with engineers

and programmers, solving very specific details in meetings

that sometimes go into the middle of the night.

And this gets to our second takeaway, which is

that Elon questions everything and I mean everything.

You can see this really clearly.

When he was building SpaceX,

- It was tough going there in the beginning

'cause I'd never built anything physical.

I mean, I'd built like little model rockets as a kid

and that kind of thing, but I'd never had a company

that built anything physical.

- Elon's original idea for SpaceX was to buy Russian rockets

that had been decommissioned

and to rebuild them more efficiently.

- I can tell you it was very weird going

to the Russian rocket forces

and saying, I'd like to buy two of your biggest rockets.

They thought I was crazy, but I did have money.

- He went to Russia

and quickly discovered that the price that governments pay

for rockets is astronomical.

It felt absurd.

On the flight home, Elon makes this list

of every component he can think of needed to build a rocket,

and then he put in the estimated price

for just the materials and the components.

What he found is that the prices that they were quoting him

for these rocket parts were highly inflated.

He interrogated every single cost associated with rockets

and started to make plans on

how his team could find a much cheaper way to build them.

He did this over and over and over until soon

his team was manufacturing 70% of all

of the rocket components for SpaceX

and saving millions of dollars.

I heard story after story like this, Elon showing up,

talking to some low level engineer,

working on some very specific problem

and interrogating it

until he found the most efficient answer.

Oh, and this wasn't about him being collaborative

or inclusive of his employees.

This is about him stress testing every single assumption,

pushing every single thing to the limit so

that he can find the most efficient way to build something.

This also makes working for Elon incredibly stressful.

He'll show up, he'll question everything,

and then he'll tell people that a six month timeline needs

to be condensed down into 90 days.

Everyone's jaw drops.

They say it's impossible, and he says it has to be possible

and then everyone makes it happen.

Which gets me to number four, the people around him.

Musk's ruthless idealism

and vision for the future has attracted a lot really

talented people who bring these dreams to life.

These people have rallied around his mission

to reinvent transportation or take humans to Mars.

They're the ones who make it happen

with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

These four things are really his superpowers.

They're the ingredients that have allowed him

to reinvent entire industries,

but this isn't the full picture.

Everyone I talk to includes the fact

that Elon can be a total asshole

and is a lot of the time.

- Hate me, like me or indifferent.

Do you want the best car or do you not want the best car?

(laughing)

- [Johnny] He is abrupt, he is blunt,

and he puts basically no effort into making you like him.

- No, I am not the evil. I just misunderstood.

(whistling)

- One irony I kept hearing is that Musk cares so much

about humanity, but he doesn't really care about humans.

Okay, so I'm the father of an 11-year-old who is autistic,

and I myself identify as being on some part of the spectrum.

And so listening to hours of Musk, I see moments that

to most people might look like him being mean hearted

and arrogant, and extreme, and even cruel,

but to me feel more like him being unaware

or perhaps unwilling to play by the rules of social norms.

Okay, but, and because my son is probably watching this,

I need to make one thing crystal clear

that there is a line here.

Musk's behavior, especially recently,

can quickly cross into malicious, temperamental,

mean hearted and harmful behavior that goes well

beyond anything that can be justified

or explained by neurodivergence, into something

that looks a lot more like aggressive bullying, coercion,

unethical business practices.

- There's almost a demon mode of Elon Musk

where he turns really dark

and that can be very problematic, especially

when it came to acquiring Twitter.

- My point is that there's some empathy

that is warranted here.

It can be a blurry line,

but Musk very clearly crosses that line.

Something we'll talk about more in a little bit.

But for now, let's get back to our list, these five things

that are the big takeaways on how Musk operates

and how he's built his empire.

And let's look at where this got him by the early 2020s.

His four big companies had grown rapidly

to become worth billions.

Tesla reaching a trillion dollar valuation,

one of the most valuable companies on earth,

revolutionizing the car industry.

And by January, 2021, these successes has skyrocketed Musk

to become the world's richest man

according to Forbes Billionaire Tracker.

But don't be fooled.

For Musk, this actually isn't an ideal situation.

Musk's biographer, Walter Isaacson, wrote this amazing book

that details all of this private communication

that really gives us an inside look into the psychology

of Musk during this time.

And he documents this conversation between Shivan Zilis,

the director of operations at one of his companies,

and the mother of a set of Elon's twins,

and Elon in a text that read, "You don't have

to be in a state of war all the time,

or is that where you find greater comfort,

when you're in periods of war?"

And he replies that it's a part of his default setting.

Zilis then tells Isaacson

that "It was like he was winning the simulation

and now he felt at a loss at what to do.

Extended periods of calm were unnerving for him."

The guy is addicted to conflict and crisis,

and tension, and drama.

And being the world's richest man

with all these successes was uncomfortable.

He needed a new storm to throw himself into,

and so he chose the storm of all storms.

(deep music)

At the end of 2022, he buys Twitter for $44 billion.

In his offer letter, he tells us why he's doing it.

He believes that Twitter has the potential

to be the platform for free speech around the globe,

and that free speech is a societal imperative

for a functioning democracy.

And right away, Musk applies his playbook to the company,

sending out a midnight email telling the thousands

of employees that there's gonna be a new Twitter culture

that is quote, "Extremely hardcore, long hours,

high intensity."

And tells anyone who wants to stay

to fill out this form or be fired.

- Thousands of Twitter employees are being laid off,

locked out of their work email accounts.

- Twitter has fired half of its seven

and a half thousand staff.

- We called it the Twitter Hunger Games.

- I thought a lot about how to talk about Musk's foray

into Twitter because it is in the news right now.

It is shaping the way that we receive

and talk about information,

and there's a lot of hot takes out there.

What I decided to do here is to try

to give the most earnest understanding as to Musk's motives.

Why did he do this?

What does he want from it,

and what is he doing to reshape Twitter around this vision?

- [Joe] What was it ultimately that led you

to make the decision to do it?

- [Elon] It's somewhat melodramatic,

but I was worried about that it was

having a corrosive effect on civilization.

- So first and foremost,

free speech is like the thing he says over and over.

- Free speech. Free speech. Free speech.

- Free speech is the only way that humans are gonna thrive.

And because Musk's main mission is the advancement

of human civilization, he must buy Twitter

and make it the free speech platform.

The platform where we have perhaps the most important

conversations in the world.

He says this over and over like in this tweet where he says,

"This is a battle for the future of civilization.

If free speech is lost, even in America,

tyranny is all that lies ahead."

So that's number one on what he says his motives are.

- [Elon] I think part of it is that,

it's where it was located,

which is, you know, downtown San Francisco.

- [Johnny] The next pillar of Musk's reasoning has to do

with the city of San Francisco.

- [Elon] Is there a place that's more far left

than San Francisco, Berkeley?

- [Johnny] Twitter's headquarters is located right here

in downtown San Francisco.

And for Musk, that's a big problem.

- [Elon] It was an accidental far left information weapon

that was then harnessed by the far left

who could not themselves create the weapon,

but happened to be co-located where the technologists were.

- Okay, so let me get this straight.

Musk believes that Twitter being in the heart

of a liberal city means that the engineers

and leaders deciding what gets elevated

and suppressed on Twitter are infected with the politics

of the liberal city.

And so they're more likely to elevate their ideology,

a megaphone, an information weapon.

That's his argument.

I have a couple issues with the argument

and its logical underpinning,

but again, this is about what Elon Musk says

and his motivations for buying Twitter.

And number three, the government is censoring Twitter

and Twitter is letting them.

- [Elon] Twitter was simply an arm of the government.

You know, a state publication is the way

to think of old Twitter.

It's a state publication.

- Alright, this is our list.

We're gonna get to each of these

and like try to understand them all.

But like is anyone else wondering what happened here?

It feels like the story went from quirky visionary engineer

uses his brilliant unorthodox,

socially immature tactics and obsessions

to accomplish unprecedented engineering feats.

To said quirky engineers suddenly

dedicates his brilliant mind away from physics

and towards social media

because he believes that there's a deep state conspiracy

between San Francisco technologists infected

with liberal bias and their censoring government overlords,

and he is going to fix it.

(soft music)

What happened?

I actually never got to the bottom of that

and I don't think anyone has.

That's actually been a central question

that was never answered for me during this reporting.

We do know this pivot happened sometime in 2020.

Why did Musk shift to obsessing over this?

The answer to that probably lies somewhere

in Elon Musk's brain, and it is not ethical

or useful for me to try to opine on his mental health

or what is going on in his brain.

So let's stick to the facts.

Here is the logical framework

that Elon Musk used to buy Twitter.

This is what he wants to do with it is fix this.

Let's see what happens next.

So after firing most of the employees

and changing the name to his favorite letter,

he gets to work on free speech.

He lets big accounts

that were previously banned back onto the platform,

including former President Donald Trump,

comedian Kathy Griffin, lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene,

Jordan Peterson.

Within a few months he posts this tweet

around the Super Bowl and he notices

that this tweet gets less engagement than the tweet

by President Joe Biden.

Elon does not like this.

He calls an urgent meeting

and tasks 80 engineers to quickly rebuild a version

of the algorithm that will allow his tweets

to be artificially boosted by a factor of a thousand.

I was kind of skeptical on how sensational was reported,

but through my conversations, confirmed

that this actually went down.

Like the old Twitter was not built

to artificially boost one account.

And Elon, the free speech guy was like,

I need you to boost my account

because it's not getting as much attention as the president

and the 80 engineers did.

So a few months after buying the company,

Elon now has super algorithmic power

and he uses it to start to amplify certain people.

So I know what you're thinking, Johnny,

you just disagree with these people

and so you think that it's bad that Elon let them on,

but really free speech is about letting everyone talk.

Yes, absolutely. That is true.

And yet Elon uses an artificially amplified voice

to prop up a very specific type of voice on Twitter

to amplify ideas, extreme ideas,

harmful ideas, not just to liberals in San Francisco,

but ideas that we as humanity recognize are bad ideas.

And now someone with a massive megaphone has control

on how big those ideas can get.

Even Bill Maher, the Elon fanboy.

- There's a very few people who actually make change happen.

You are one of those people.

- Even he could not understand why Elon was doing this.

- I understand why he wanted

to like have a platform where you have free speech,

but like why then embrace the worst people on it.

- And then Elon isn't totally consistent about this.

Like in the case of Alex Jones

who spreads horrendous conspiracies

and misinformation to a lot of people.

When asked why Elon didn't let him go back onto Twitter,

he said no.

Saying that he had no mercy for anyone

who would use the death of children for gain,

politics or fame.

He did eventually reinstate Alex Jones after running a poll.

But you start to see that he'll reinstate anyone

unless he personally takes issue

with their views or what they said.

What's puzzling to me is

that this isn't free speech absolutism.

It's not say anything you want.

Musk's new Twitter then starts banning

and suppressing Substack links,

Substack the place where independent journalists write.

Musk made the change where you can't comment

or like on anything that has a Substack article

and you can't embed tweets in your Substack article.

That doesn't feel like free speech to me.

Musk then decides

that the word cisgender is a slur on Twitter

and threatens to ban people who use it too much.

Is that free speech?

He then starts banning journalists

who criticize him, though he did reinstate a few of them

after a vote.

And then start suing media watchdog organizations

like the Center for Countering Digital Hate,

trying to silence them

for criticizing the new Twitter.

Musk, of course, lost with the verdict coming out saying

that this lawsuit was basically

about trying to silence criticism

and deter others from criticizing his company.

- He's someone who is willing to use his enormous wealth

and power to silence people.

- Like this is such clear anti-free speech behavior.

When Twitter users organized a protest against making users

pay for a blue check mark, he banned that account.

And this is what's so mind bending.

Like I swear he's trolling us here.

He says that he's obsessed with free speech,

but then immediately after taking over Twitter,

he demonstrates an extreme hypocrisy for that very point.

And I secretly think he's doing that

so that we are talking about it right now.

I don't think it was ever about free speech.

I also think that when he posts political propaganda ads

like this conspiracy video that says

that Democrats are letting immigrants in

to turn America into single party rule

and has almost a hundred million views.

I think he's doing that not

because he agrees with this factless piece of propaganda,

but because he loves to rile people up.

Though maybe he does agree with it, I don't know.

Either way, he has built a platform

that gives him the biggest megaphone

and suppresses people that criticize him.

That is not free speech.

Okay, but let's move on

because free speech was just one of his three major motives.

What about this argument that Twitter is infected

with liberal ideology because it is based in San Francisco?

Luckily we have data.

This was a great study, very thorough,

algorithmic amplification of politics on Twitter.

It's a study from before Elon took over.

They conducted a long running, massive scale,

randomized experiment where they looked at a huge number

of tweets from seven countries

and they found that in six out of the seven countries,

including the United States,

that quote, "The mainstream political right

enjoys a higher algorithmic amplification

than the mainstream political left."

They saw this over and over.

Oh, and also a really interesting side note here is

that they found that Twitter actually

doesn't amplify far left or far right political groups,

more than moderate ones,

which is a myth that I believed until I read this study.

But the whole point is

that old Twitter did not have a liberal bias.

If anything, it had a conservative bias.

This study is very robust proof of that

despite Elon's theory that Twitter being in San Francisco

infected it with a liberal bias.

Go to the sources and read the study

for yourself if you wanna poke into it.

If there's anything wrong with it that I'm missing,

please tell me.

But it seems like pretty solid proof to me.

Okay, but what about the last critique?

And this is a big one.

Musk believed that Twitter was being censored by governments

and Twitter was letting them do this.

And guess what? That is actually true.

Upon taking over Twitter, Musk cracked into all

of the internal communications

and found a bunch of emails that showed

how Twitter had banned

and suppressed information that it deemed harmful

and dangerous, but that they did so sometimes

with a political bias.

You can see things like Biden's team asking Twitter

to review these tweets that they didn't like.

Yes, governments around the world can ask Twitter

to take things down in their country

that they think are breaking the law

or that are harmful to national security.

And this happened on both sides.

The Trump White House asked Twitter to take things down

as well, but this reporting did reveal

what looked like a lot of left-leaning bias

in censoring certain highly sensitive content

that would be damaging to the left.

The the big example of this was this New York Post article

about Hunter Biden's laptop.

Twitter severely censored this,

not even letting people DM the link to each other

and making up a thin justification for it later.

Now, content moderation, deciding what is harmful

and what should be censored and what shouldn't,

is a really difficult task.

But for a lot of people, including myself,

this crossed a line.

This was not okay.

Though I have to say

that Hunter Biden New York Post article

was the most sort of egregious one.

A lot of the other stuff in the Twitter files was not nearly

as black and white.

Much more nuanced, much more complicated.

The point is there should be transparency here,

and I agree with Musk on that.

Okay, but this is once again

where we find some strange paradox

that doesn't make any sense, which is

that since Musk took over,

government censorship on Twitter has gone up.

Twitter suspended multiple journalists

from prominent outlets included the Washington Post,

the New York Times, and CNN.

- Tonight, a number

of high profile journalists have been silenced.

- Here are the number of take down requests that governments

around the world made to Twitter in the six months

before Musk took over.

And these are the ones that Twitter complied with.

Twitter would fully comply

with the government's censorship request

about half of the time.

The other half of the time they'd say no.

In the six months after Musk, the number

of requests went up, probably because Musk got rid

of a lot of the automatic moderation.

But look, Musk's Twitter now says yes

to government censorship over 80% of the time,

way more than the old Twitter.

Wait, what?

And look, the kind of stuff that Musk is allowing

to be censored on the platform is really sensitive stuff

for free speech.

Like take Turkey for example.

There was a Turkish election last year.

The president of Turkey, himself, a massive user

of state censorship, pressured Twitter

to block the accounts of a few people he didn't like,

a Kurdish businessman, an investigative journalist,

both of them vocal critics of the president.

Like this is like clear black

and white political censorship in an election year.

Like make the guy

who is criticizing me go away.

And guess what?

Musk's Twitter did it. They said yes.

They banned the accounts

and then said we didn't have a choice.

They were gonna shut down all of Twitter

so we had to do it.

And then they patted themselves on the back

about how they were still trying to fight it,

and they're doing so much for battling government censorship

and transparency on the platform.

But guess what? They did have a choice.

This same kind of thing happened before Musk ever came in

and Twitter fought back.

In a previous Turkish election,

the government tried to do the same thing,

censor posts about corruption within the Turkish government.

They asked Twitter to take these down

and Twitter said, no.

They fired back that political speech is

among the most important speech,

especially when it concerns matters of possible corruption.

So Turkey shut down Twitter, it was down for a couple

of weeks while they battled it out in court

and the Turkish government lost.

Indeed, they lost

because they were trying to censor political speech

and Twitter fought back.

There's even more recent examples like Wikipedia

or Wokipedia as Elon calls it, refusing to comply

with the Turkish government censorship requests,

getting completely shut down for almost three years only

to have it be overturned in Turkish courts.

A major win for free speech in Turkey,

which is something that's in short supply lately.

So like Wikipedia, Twitter can do this.

They can say no to the Turkish government

if they're actually crusaders for free speech

and they're actually against government censorship,

they would have said no in 2023.

Musk's Twitter did this in India too,

when the Indian government asked Twitter to censor a bunch

of journalists, including an entire BBC bureau

and a documentary that was critical

of the government and the president, and Twitter complied.

Elon, where is your conviction for free speech?

Where is your hate for government censorship

in moments like this where it really, really matters?

But for Elon Musk, he's got a lot

of other things he needs to think about.

He needs to think about the market for Teslas,

who might be buying his satellites or rockets.

He needs to be thinking about

where Tesla factories might be set up,

the market for his electric cars.

This is a conflict of interest that gets in the way

of his idealistic vision for free speech

and his hate for government censorship.

Twitter used to have a page

where they would publish in detail

why they would take down any content they took down

at the request of the government.

And there's this research lab at Harvard

that would aggregate all of this for the public.

When our story producer Alex went to go look

for these government requests from Turkey

and India, she found that they no longer were there.

This page had gone quiet.

So she reached out to the Harvard lab and got this response.

Twitter stopped sharing this data starting in April, 2023.

No more transparency on government censorship.

It looks like it's down to the whims of one super rich dude.

That is not free speech, that is the antithesis of

what this guy said he was going to build.

So no, I don't think Elon Musk is earnest

about these three things that he said were his motive

for buying Twitter.

In fact, after looking into all of this,

I'm having a hard time figuring out

what Elon is earnest about at all, other than his belief

that humans have the potential to do amazing things.

I do believe that in all of this, that is the one thing

that has stayed consistent.

But how he's pursuing that goal

and that vision in recent years is baffling, confusing

and in my mind, quite harmful to our society.

Twitter seems much more like a platform

where he can bully the people he doesn't like.

He can feed his addiction to crisis

and controversy while also showing a childish hypocrisy

in his principles and values.

But unlike his other ventures,

which you can tell when they're successful

because they're physics,

the rocket either goes up into space or it doesn't.

The car drives or it doesn't.

This new venture doesn't have a physical feedback loop

that tells him if it's doing good or working.

Instead, he's playing with the delicate, precarious nature

of information in the internet age,

something that is already in crisis

and now is being chipped away at by one rich dude

who gets off on crisis.

And what blows my mind most is that in the process of all

of this, Musk is undermining his own dream,

his own vision.

This is a sentiment I heard from the employees

and colleagues of Elon Musk.

They felt betrayed, like this man pushed them

to think differently, to do things that seemed impossible,

all in the name of this grand vision of

what humanity could be, what we could do as a civilization.

And yet in recent years, he seems to be sabotaging

that very vision, alienating the people

and customers that he needs to bring this vision to life.

In my mind, Elon has exchanged that vision for controversy

and division that forces all of us to talk about it.

Here we are talking about it, talking about him.

I think a part of him loves that or needs that.

And yet after all of this, defenders of Elon will continue

to argue that only someone like this

could be the one to change the world.

- To anyone I've offended,

I just wanna say I reinvented electric cars

and I'm sending people to Mars on a rocket ship,

did you think I was also gonna be a chill normal dude?

(audience laughing)

- And yeah, I get that the people

who change the world aren't normal and orthodox,

they're not nice.

But I don't accept this way of thinking about Musk today,

maybe a couple years ago.

But in recent years,

Musk has shown it's his addiction to crisis and attention

that is having a corrosive effect on our society, validating

and glorifying ways of acting that rewards the worst parts

of us, and instead of saving civilization,

driving us further apart.

(soft music)

Hey everyone,

thanks for watching this deep dive on Elon Musk.

I wanna tell you about our new channel called Search Party.

It is a deep dive into geopolitics and sports.

It is started by Sam Ellis, my old Vox colleague

who now has a wonderful channel that we collaborate on

and it is awesome.

Go check it out. Thank you everyone over at The Newsroom,

which is on Patreon, the people

who support our deep dive reporting every month.

I really appreciate your support.

Patreon.com/johnnyharris if you wanna go check

out the perks there.

We also still have a few hundred copies of this poster

that I designed a few months ago, maybe last year.

And it is still around, a few hundred copies left

if you want to go buy them.

If they still exist at this point,

they could be sold out.

It is a poster of all the map projections

and it's called All Maps Are Wrong,

and I'm very proud of it.

You can have it on your wall like I have it on mine.

All of our sources are in the description

if you want to go poke into them.

And thank you all for being here.

I'll see you in the next one. Bye-Bye.

(soft music)