Kara Swisher has known Elon Musk for decades - she saw this coming

And I'm glad you got here safe. Thanks for having me. It's great see you guys. Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. You kept your promise, which was nice. I think you were drunk when you promise me, but that's okay. I'll take it.

So that's veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher in one of many conversations she's had with Elon Musk, public and private over the years.

You'll be a good king. Thank you, Elon Musk.

Thank you for nowadays they don't talk. Elon Musk is, of course, in the process of dismantling US government spending as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency or.

DOGE, unelected billionaire Elon Musk is taking a sledgehammer to the federal government, whose reports that secrecy is becoming a defining trade of Musk's DOGE.

And Kara Swisher says, the techno dictatorship he's building with Trump's blessing is just the beginning. From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am Today, author of burn book, Kara Swisher on what Elon Musk wants and how he got it. It's Tuesday, February eleven. So, Cara, You've known Elon Musk for a very long time. He was one of many tech bros who you reported on and talked to regularly, and he was just like a lot of them.

Tell me about it.

Yeah, we were actually talking during the first Trump administration when he went to that meeting with Trump and Trump Tower, and he's the one that confirmed it to me actually that he was going and it was happening.

A senior official on the Trump transition team who told me that Elon Musk arrived shortly ago. Elon mus CEO of space k Tesla billing rockets and cars and sort.

Of stuff in the US, and he was helping to change Trump's mind on this, especially immigration and climate change. Think's really important that people demonstrate to goma's around the world that they care about climate change.

Are you sincerely trying to save the world. Well, I'm trying to do good things.

Yeah, but you're trying to do good things and you're a millionaire.

It was also very interested in predicting gay and lesbians and trans people, and he certainly isn't now everything he was very interested in. He shifted on pretty dramatically, and I don't know why. I think there's a combination of his personal life. He had some issues with his trans daughter, not all his issues, not hers, She's wonderful. I think he had COVID sort of radicalized him in a weird way because they were shutting down some of those factories.

That changes you a little bit.

And I think he also, you know then what was stutjournals written about his use academy.

I think that disassociated him quite a bit.

And then becoming that wealthy sort of makes you into a magnomaniac.

No matter how he's licent.

You have to be a pretty fantastic person to keep up with that kind of adoration and idolatry.

Really, I mean, when you talk about the types of things that Elon must began talking about and tweeting about, you know, starting with the questioning of the pandemic, and then you know, moving on to many other things. I think we're you know, great replacement theory. Now, I suppose my question for you is, to what extent do you think that he believes everything he posts or is he sort of stirring outrage to distract people?

Where does he fall on that? Does it matter?

Does it matter what he believes? I mean, is it better if he believes it?

It's all heinous.

It's like whether he's anti immigrant or anti trans people are anti legal. You know, I don't know that it matters whether he thinks. I think he's a contrarian at heart. No matter what, I think, this is just the thing that he wants to use to get to power right now, and so he takes it to a huge extreme.

I guess, yeah, I guess it's the question of whether he is actually ideological about all of this or whether you know that kind of idea that you hear around Oh right, Internet culture?

Is this actually a joke? He could be. He thinks everything's a joke. He thinks everything he used to love dank memes.

Also, what I want to say, and if if the consequence of that is losing money, so bea so maybe it's the ultimate joke, but it has real world implications. I mean, but it's all negative and cruel and belittling of people, and it's all law breaking. It's really a lot of it is like just running through the government without any kind of guard rails. And you know, he knows he can do it because he has the history

Well, yeah, let's talk about what he's been doing over the past few weeks with his Department of Government Efficiency taking on this task of quote, uncovering fraud. But what he is doing is he's shut down the US Agency for International Development, and then there's the Treasury issue, which has just been blocked. But what have you been thinking as you have watched that unfold.

I've been thinking, our government we're in the middle of a constitutional crisis, in a very severe one, and now today they're attacking the judiciary. I think they're not going to enforce what the judiciary decides. And then what happens if the judiciary rules against Trump? And then the US Marshal Service doesn't do anything about it because it's under the purview of the Justice Department here, So we're in the middle of a real constitutional.

Persons coming up after the break the three factors that have led America to where it is today, and one of them is Australian Kara Elon Musk is right now in an incredibly powerful position with Trump's backing. So what do you think he is going to do with it? How do you think he sees governance and the way the US should be run.

He wants it to be run like a techno authoritarian whatever phrase you want to use. It's dictatorship. Really, I don't know what else to say, techno dictatorship. What they say is best and what they want is best, and they would like to to be no rules and everyone gets out of their way and they get to do what they want. And that said, you know, these free speech warriors regularly censor people, you know, regularly censor people, throw people off depending on what they think.

So that sounds like a dictatorship.

To me, and what is your read on the dynamic between Mosk and Trump and how long that partnership is going to last.

Well, it's in Must's interest to keep it going, so he'll probably pretend he's a beta to Trump's out but as long as.

He can, he's not, but he'll pretend he is. And to keep Trump happy.

I mean, you've got an elderly man who likes power and money, and he has someone else to carry out the cudgel part, right, someone else who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. Trump never gets his hands dirty, if you notice, right, And so it's a perfect relationship in that regard. So I thought at first they might fight and it wouldn't last, but now I see it's in their interest to do so.

And they're not unsimilar, No.

They seem quite similar in a lot of ways.

They're overly sensitive, grandiose liars, hypocrites, but you know, I think they have a great partnership in that regard and they will.

Continue to do it.

Musk needs the power that the president does have in terms of getting into the government and getting his hands in there with all that data which he dearly love to get on Grok.

I assume and.

Then the president needs the money that he can use to threaten all those congress people who won't have a backbone. They'll break their backs with the money and they'll get them out of office.

And this partnership between Trump and Musk is the defining partnership of the moment. But he was not the only tech CEO at the inauguration. Mark Zuckerberg was there, so was Sam Altman. So what do you think is going to happen as these other relationships with Trump play out?

Acquiescent quizzlings. I don't know what can we call them.

I mean, they have interests and everyone has a different level. I don't think Tim Cook or Sam Altman really wanted to be there.

I don't think they had a choice, right.

I think they're not in line with the Trump administration, but they will say things that will get them out of harms away, just like Jack Travis Kelsey did for the Super Bowl.

He's like, I'm glad he's there.

He's not glad he's there, but he said he's glad he's there because he has to write.

He can't pick a fight with the present in it.

There's a little more in line with them, like Mars Zuckerberg, who was like I called him a sad weather Bane. He'll do whatever it takes to push forward the meadows a company, So he'll do whatever it takes. And Jeff Bezos, I think, kind of likes it and he wants to get into space, and so he's got a last time out. Trump attacked him all the time and he doesn't have the taste for that anymore. So he really wants to be in the in the room. The others are just like,

Is there anyone in Silicon Valley likely to push back against Trump?

There has been Bill Gates, of all people, is pushback very politely, you know, but he has in some fashion saying he thinks all this is nuts. And Reed Hoffman has funded enormous childes to Trump, including paying for Ejene Carroll's legal case. But I think he's nervous. I just had him on my podcast. I think the man has a go bag. I'm sure the man has a go bag. Like where's he gonna go Australia. I guess, I don't know. Somewhere. It's got a private plane. He'll be fine.

Probably, And from reading your book, I mean it's clear that you you've been really excited at times by you know, the innovation of Silicon Valley, and you've been there from the get go. But given you know where we are now, where it's taken us to this moment where someone like Elon Musk can take over the federal government, I mean, how do you now reflect on where that innovation has has taken us?

Well, my book was about that.

My book was about where this was at it and you know, I think the end of my book, I'm like, you better fucking get rent for these people because they've taken over everything. And so I was warning people and at the time everyone's like, yeah, it's too hard on them.

I'm like, I'm not hard enough. Like I don't.

I just this was inevitable what they're doing, and I didn't I call them not benign. These are not benign people. I think the protests in the streets is where we're headed. I think eventually it'll be so chaotic and the economy will will be affected that it'll be too much.

But the world is not enough. I think they're going to moving around the world.

Look at him, he's I'm sure he'll be backing right wing people in Australia.

You think Rupert Rdoch is scary, Welcome to the new world.

Murdoch looks like a like a avocular old man right now at this point, but really truly he docs. I mean, he's heralded in this whole era. But that's another issue altogether.

I mean, what do you think his responsibility is here?

All of it?

I think between in this country, gerrymandering, Rupert Murdoch, and social media has led us to where we are today.

But it's a you know, this is a they're going to move to Australia.

They're going to move to their move to They've already in Germany trying to press the AfD. And if your right wing are great, you should be thrilled. But let me just tell you they're coming for you too. They are. And this is what these people do. They eat themselves alive. And so you know he'll they'll take it. They'll take it global, They'll take it global.

And Kara, in your racing book, you do lay out the threat of Silicon Valley and where this drive to power could lead. And I want to know a bit more about how you feel about that now, whether there is a sense of frustration or weariness around having made that warning and then watched it come true.

You know, you caught me on a bad day.

It caught me in a bed day because Elon attacked me on Twitter, and so I got a lot of death threats.

So that was nice. That was a nice sunday for me with my kids.

I just get a lot of like, really nasty stuff when it comes in. He accused me of threatening those pricks that are running around at his behest, and because I call them pricks, but they are a little pricks.

And so it was really it was you got me on a bad day, But I wish I was more hopeful.

I feel terrible that I was correct, you know, I think I feel terrible that I didn't.

I wasn't on to it sooner. I guess.

I feel like a lot of people give me a hard time for interviewing these people as if they were normal. Well they were normal for a long time, right, and so I didn't think they would take this sort of repulsive turn, although maybe I should have anticipated it much sooner, I suspect, But no, I don't like right now having to defend democracy on a daily basis. I wish I could talk about cool stuff to cure cancer and technology that will help us go to Mars. I think go

Yeah, it also sounds like he's trying to shut you up.

Yes, that's correct. It's not working, but someday it will maybe. Good luck.

Well, I hope not, Karl.

Thank you for your time. All right, thank you so much.

Kara Swisher will be at Adelaide w Rider's Week on the fourth of March, in Sydney, at the All About Women Festival on the fifth of March, and at the Wheeler Center in Melbourne on the sixth of March. Also in the news today, Prime Minister Anthony Abernezi says he will use a scheduled call to President Trump to make the case for Australia to be exempt from US steel and aluminium tariffs as it was during the first Trump presidency.

This is seven am.

Thanks for listening.