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Let me tell you we have a new star.
A star is born Elon On Mars Juthan Kennemy.
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy.
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
But those two percent.
That are nasty, they are our pit in four post.
We were meant for great things in the United States of America, and Elon reminds us of that.
I'm very disappointed in Elan.
I've helped Elon a lot.
Welcome to Elan and Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, June twenty fourth. I'm your host, David Popadopoulos. So over the weekend, while the world was transfixed by the war raging in the Middle East, US quietly rolled out the Tesla robotaxi on the mean streets of Austin, Texas. It didn't stay quiet for long though. In fact, it sounded a little like.
This, This is a big day for Tesla robo taxi experience is.
About to be crazy.
We are fastened, we have our location here estimated rival start ride. Our ride is complete, but it looks like the Robotaxi is waiting for its next call.
Bloomberg EV reporter Kara Carlson was there for it all, and she makes her elon Ink debut today to tell us about it. Welcome to the show, Kara.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Then later on, our man Kurt Wagner, just off the plane from the French Riviera, will join us to break down Ex's participation or perhaps absence, from the all important Lions Advertising Festival. Of course, an episode of elon Ink ain't an episode of elon Ink without the pre one, Max Chafkin.
I was wondering who if you were going to introduce me or what here? I was very patiently.
You were nervous, worried. All right, So Max will have for you today, in no particular order, reports on enchiladas, exploding rockets in Musk's odd computer situation. But we do indeed start in Austin with you, Kara. You were there for the launch on Sunday. What did you see?
Yeah, so I started off bright and early.
You know, six am is when they were potentially going to start launching, So I didn't see any four hours they end up launching it about too. But I live in one of the neighborhoods they're launching, so I actually was seeing some of their vehicles just driving around, you know, my neighborhood streets in the morning as we were waiting
and watching streams. I ended up watching the first three rides through the stream of some of these people with early access before heading out, and there was only a few cars out, so it was actually a bit of a game to try to find any of them.
Okay, So in other words, like there was no starter gun, there was no pomp and circumstance or a hype man, there was no musk, there was nothing that said the Robotaxi launch.
No.
Suddenly they just started popping up here and there.
Yeah, they've been in areas of south and southeast Austin for a few months now. They're not labeled Robotaxi, the ones they've been using for testing. They're just model wise that they just recently refreshed. And I started noticing there's a lot with you know, manufacturer plates just kind of popping up. Sometimes they had some roof racks with sensors
on them. They're just kind of driving around. I think, you know, Elon Musk said, they're driving around in circles, and that really is what some of these neighborhoods have felt like we.
Should probably just like lay out the basics of this launch. Kara mentioned it very small number of cars. I think we think, what like about ten, Tara, is that right.
About ten to twenty? I would say from what I observed, that feels like the right number. And that's what Tesla's said before.
I feel like you maybe saw every single one of them. Very small area, I mean, you know, it doesn't include downtown Austin. And really importantly, there was a safety monitor in the passenger seat, which so a guy sitting in the passenger seat, not behind the wheel, but somehow babysitting in the car. In a lot of these videos, the safety monitor has his finger on a button which I
think most people assume is an emergency brake. Yeah, it's the it's the button that kills you if you tweet something mean about the ROBOTAXI while you're in it.
Uh wait, women, so literally the whole time he or she has their finger like just hovering over the button.
Yeah, or or just kind of on it. It seems like there may have been some other types of you know, controls or ways to provide input in the vehicle. You also have, at least according to statements that that Musk and others have made you know, on the earnings call, some tele operation as well, So they're probably in addition to that safety monitor is a guy sitting at a desk watching the ride who is also able to intervene one way or another world. I don't think we know
exactly what that intervention could be. It could be anywhere from sort of giving the ROBOTAXI some commands or suggestions all the way to you know, maybe a steering wheel or whatever where where that person could literally take you. But we don't know exactly what That tele operation.
A lot of supervision. Now, obviously the idea is at some point, once this thing gets you know, a little more experience out there, the training wheels come off and it's out on its own in the wild. Now, Kara, who got to take these initial rides? Was it just picking up random strangers on the street.
So Friday night, a bunch of Tesla influencers and retail investors, and these are accounts that you know, really are interacting with Elon Musk get interacting with a lot of like Tesla News at all times. That's kind of whole brand. Got emails that said you have early access to the Robotaxi starting Sunday, and then you know, some other Tesla fans ended up coming in and kind of going as their plus ones.
They were allowed one guest per.
Ride, but it was really just a handful of pretty loyal influencers for the most part.
These are not like automotive influencers like we've seen Elon Musk kind of include like these sort of YouTubers who review cars and stuff in at you know, at at at earnings calls and so on. This was like Elon Musk influencers. These are people who are very, very very enthusiastically on the Musk train, which Karen and I found out when we tried to be asked them if they would take us as their their plus one and were at least in my chance in hell, yeah, repeatedly denied.
Right, Well, I can't blame them in your case now, I don't care. I'm just getting to know you. But in Max's case, yeah no, I also wouldn't ride in a vehicle with you, all right, So how in general these vehicles perform and how are they continuing to perform. There has been there have been some videos that have started to go a bit viral about some unconventional, shall we say, driving techniques. But on the whole and these things held up okay so far.
They drive pretty much as any other car.
They you know, they were doing pretty predictable driving behavior when we were following them around. But there have been a few videos that have shown some concerning behavior. There's been some mild speeding, you know, a few miles over the limit, which people are you know, humans too too, but it is strange for a robotaxi to speed typically. There's been one instance that a lot of people have
poined us particularly concerning. So there's a vehicle that was starting to turn left, peared to maybe decided it was going to go straight instead, and the spearing wheel really jerked around and it started to go straight instead, and it was going in the wrong direction, in the wrong lane for a few seconds there and then.
Got well, wait, so it was going into potentially into oncoming traffic, did go it did go in downcom then, but then it got it right two hours later, figured it out.
It got back into them.
Well that doesn't sound good.
I mean, I almost feel like I don't need to say this, but this is very much a demonstration, in
a very controlled demonstration, so we're evaluating it. So so part of why Kara is bringing up these like what they sound like very minor examples, and they are, except that, like, this is a situation where you're where there is a ton of monitoring, where they're where the roots have been traveled over many times, where it's like a very controlled and we're even getting the information we're getting from these rides is also very controlled because it's being filtered through
these fans. But the thing is, like what they've done here really is a long way from what Elon Musk has said they're going to do, and what he said they're going to do, just to remind people, is to be able to have any tesla anywhere driving around unsupervised. None of that is true right now. There is a very small geographic area, a very small fleet, and there is a ton of supervision, and I think it would have been it would have been surprising if something really
bad happened with these tests. Even these minor, you know, screw ups are a little bit surprising just because again, this is not all that different from what we saw in October, you know on the soundstage, right, it's just like a charger version of that thing, and which, okay, maybe that's some progress, but still.
Right, which gets me to the next point, Cara, which is despite how sort of you know, just okay, this whole launch seemed the stock really popped yesterday Tesla stock did it? It rallied eight percent, which by Tesla standards because it's a very volatile stock, it's not some enormous move, and yet eight percent is eight percent. It's certainly did not go down, So I guess the market market's first take is like, wow, this is great, big hit.
Yeah, I mean, this is an event that people have been waiting years and years for. Elon Musk has really bet the entire company on autonomy, on AI, on the ability to launch a network like this, and investors are just glad it's meeting that mark on.
A lot of levels. They will be closely watching to see if it actually can scale from here.
Is something that even the most polish investers are really keeping an eye on right now.
Though, Yeah, I mean, is is ten percent in a day for Tesla a huge move. That's like it's like a Wednesday or something.
You know, it's nothing. Esha Day Bloomberg Tesla reporter told me she doesn't even get up for an eight percent move. She's Tesla, right, you yeah, for most other stocks, but no, so yes, correct.
Look, the other thing is for this stock, eight percent is not a huge jump. This is a very volatile stock. But also like there were versions of this day that could have been a lot worse. Right, One thing that has surprised me, frankly, is how cautious Elon Musk is being with this launch, like it in certain ways, like, yes, he's putting these cars that in a lot of ways don't seem to do the thing that he says they're
do on public roads. On the other hand, he's kept this to be a very modest demo, I think, much more modest than anybody believed or anybody would have thought. Like he's he's talking about teleoperation, which is something that it hadn't talked about before, or he had said if if there was tele operation, that would be a bad sign. So in other words, like he's being safe at least or maybe safer than he otherwise could have been or some of his actions like we didn't see as you know,
maybe concerning or whatever. As the incident we talked about with the Tesla crossing over the double line is you know, there wasn't anything worse. So maybe it's slightly beat expectations that some people had.
I do think apparently the bar was pretty damn.
Well, I'm say a very low bar. But I'm they're also maybe like the enthusiasm may fade because like the novelty here of being able to drive like from one end of part of Austin to the other, it's is gonna face.
Yeah, it's like the boring company right where you can go from what I want.
One end of the yea from the Las Vegas Convention Center to the resorts world.
You know, Max, last week when you launched your acronym a report.
Talking about mammoot or Madra, there were multiple, right, there were two, you had two. It was a two fer.
I must forgot about Madra no when you were Okay, so when you were launching your acronyms, a bit of a riff on Taco, Trump always chickens out. Hence uh stock investors by stocks, we had asked our listeners our legions of listeners to put forth any ideas they may have for acronyms that could improve upon if such a thing could be done that would improve upon mammoot. And you know we got a brilliant idea.
Yeah, we got some fun responses. My favorite and Grant, who responded with a lot of good ideas, but also complaining that we hadn't seen that he had his own acronym, which was enchilagaha.
Way, so he launched it. He alleges he launched it before.
Unfortunately, the time stamps uh confirm his his his launch uh elon never completes his innovative level for autonomous driving announcements enchilada.
Uh.
This guy obviously, you know, something of a bear. I would I would guess. He also, in response to mamoot, which he thought was, you know, insufficiently creative, uh, suggested a few others with the help I believe of chat Ept, including and now these are replacements for mamoot, which was musk always makes up with Trump. These include kso Coral until eventually snuggling online salsa spats are loud. Still amigos
guawk grudges usually aren't consistent. Burrito billionaires ultimately reconcile, regardless of Internet tempestuous outbursts. None of them are perfect. But Grant, thank you Grants for these ideas. They are all hilarious, and I regret missing Enchilada.
Grant's given this a lot of thought.
I know a lot to work with.
I like just about all of them, Enchillada in particular because there's a just a mouthful quile. It's very long, it's slightly incomprehensible. Elon never completes his innovative level four autonomous driving announcements. That's all good, But Kara, now that the robotaxi is is roaming the streets of Austin, is that still true? Is en shallota truer? Was the acronym launched only immediately to be vanquished, defeated and go away?
I think it depends on kind of where we go from here.
No, no, no, no, no, depends well.
Level of autonomy they're using.
They haven't actually revealed a lot about what kind of the text stack behind this.
Looks like level four autonomy is like a lot of are you doing it.
Without any kind of supervision? I don't think this counts. He's good, Kara, You think there's even a question here.
I think we need to wait and see what level of autonomy they claim it to be, and they will have to self report in the very least suite to Texas.
Well, wait a minute, but if there's a dude in the vehicle with his finger always hovering over the emergency eject button, I don't know. I mean that doesn't sound I think Grant's good. I think is good now for now. Okay, very good, Cara. We will talk again soon.
So good.
We are now joined by Bloomberg ex reporter Kurt Wagner. Kurt, welcome back to the show.
Hi David, thank you for having me, so.
Listen, Kurt. Let me just get this out of the way and get it off my chest. But fuck you, Kurt.
Okay, Max and I been sweating it out on the mean streets of Manhattan, earning an honest living, and you're sipping Royal vespers and taking in the sea breeze at La Belle Epoc.
What kind of gig is this that you have?
I feel like this wasn't even the worst introduction you've ever given me on this show, so I feel like, you know, by that standard, I'm actually moving up in the world. That's right, David. While you were sweating here in New York, I was sweating in the south of France. And it's a hard life out there, you know, you get up early at the meetings.
You know, looking out at the French River.
I expect you to understand. But yes, I was at Canlon's last week, the Wonderful Advertising Festival. For those who are unfamiliar, it's essentially everybody in the world who is involved in the ad industry, from you know, the big players like the Metas and Youtubes and Googles of the world, to these agencies to the creators who are now making a living on this. They all show up and and spend a week together sort of cutting deals and boondoggling and all that kind of stuff. So it was a good time.
Now, what was Ex's presence there, because I feel like just last year its presence was kind of odd, unique, and how did it play out this year?
So last year was interesting because Elon showed up himself and I believe he did a keynote with WPP, one of the largest ad agencies in the world, I believe, the largest ad agency, and he kind of signaled, hey, this is important to me by physically showing up and giving his time. In years past, X formerly known as Twitter, had literally like a beachside setup, you know, they set up there was a concerts that they had, they would hold the all there. I was. That was back in
the day. This was you know, pre COVID. When I was there this week, I did not see a single X branded sign throughout the entire conference. Just to give you a sense, like TikTok took over an entire hotel, essentially Meta takes over multiple floors of a hotel, has a giant beachside thing, you know, like everyone is throwing their logo in your face. Essentially you can't walk down the street without seeing these things, just just like right in front of you. X was nowhere to be seen.
And I thought that was very notable.
So how do I interpret this, Kurt? Are they just giving up? What does this mean?
So there's two ways.
I think there's a I'll give maybe the positive X version and the more critical X version.
I think the.
Positive is it's not very doge to go to can right like it is not.
For all the reasons I stated at the time.
Yeah, yeah, Saysten, we're cutting We're cutting into it a little bit. Okay, fine, I'll admit it's not the most doge thing to go to. Can It's it's definitely a show, right, It's a it's a bit of a circus. And so if you are X and Elon is running your company, maybe the last thing you want to do is be seen out here kind of frivolously spending money for a Diplo concert on the beach. I shouldn't say that Yahoo
hosted a Diplo concert. I did go and it was pretty fun, so, you know, sorry for sorry to use that as the example. Yah was a great time. But my point is like, maybe Elon is not wanting to be seen doing that kind of stuff right now. That's the positive like reason why X might not be visible. The more negative is that, quite frankly, they either don't have the money to do those kinds of things or they're no longer in that tier as an advertiser.
What do you mean they don't have the money there? They're a unit of Xai. Xai has got money coming out the ear.
When I hear about Kurt talking about X's advertising business, I have that feeling of when you hear about a really old celebrity who you thought had already passed away like years ago. Like it's like, oh yeah, X has an advertising is I completely forgot because David, like you said, they are now part of Xai, and it really seems like this whole part, you know, this whole soilent.
They're simply soilent for the Xai robots.
Not necessarily the metaphor I would have used, but yes, that's exactly what I mean.
That's the cynical way to look at it, right, is that x is sort of now the you know, the any money they make is sort of bravy, and it's the back burner to this much more important thing, which is that they're using the data to power Xai and that's really all that matters. And so you know, if that's the way that that X is, it's certainly nowhere near the kind of top of the conversation that it
was several years ago in the advertising industry. But maybe it has a different purpose now to your point.
But now, Max, it just said a minute ago that oh my god, right, X advertising, you know, it's just a corpse, it's a cadaver. It's it's it's long since past. But I actually thought there was reporting, including perhaps from you, that indicated there's been a bit of a of an uptick in advertising revenue over there at X.
Yeah, we talked about this a few months ago and
it came up again this week. So way back in February, I wrote this newsletter that essentially said, hey, we're seeing it up to an advertising Elon Musk is out here saying the quote unquote a boycott is essentially over or soon to be over, like what gibs, right, And what I heard and what I put in this newsletter was essentially that everyone in the ad industry is terrified of not advertising on X because at the time, the owner of the company was bff with the President of the
United States and they were suing people who didn't advertise there. Right, So there was this implicit sort of idea that hey, if we don't spend money on X, we are going to be sued, and it has been talked about for
several months. The couple days maybe a day before the conference started last week, the Wall Street Journal had a more detailed version of that story that said, the lawyers for X are literally calling some of these advertisers and making this threat explicit, right, you advertise with us or we will sue you, and that.
The illegal argument is kurt. The legal argument is, uh, what what's the legal argument?
Well, I'm not an anti trust lawyer. The claim is that this is anti competitive and that these brands are sort of colluding to damage X's business. Now, I have never really heard of a boycott being considered anti competitive, anti trust, right. I mean, think about how people vote with their their wallets all day, every day, right, And there's never been any kind of sort of to my knowledge,
like pushback on this from all illegality standpoint. When you think about what Elon in particular and Linda really have said about free speech, it's quite comical to think that, you know, hey, spend money on our product or we will sue you. Oh, by the way, we're free speech absolutists.
Right.
To me, those things do not really go hand in hand. But again, on the eve of this conference, essentially this story comes out that paints X in quite a negative light. Again, it's not totally new. We've been talking about this for months, but it did set a stage, i would say, for discussions around next At the event, and a bunch of people that I talked to last week pointed out like this is pretty shady stuff. If this is indeed what's happening to people.
Yeah, I mean, Max, I guess I don't understand if they are doing this and they're allowed to do this, I guess I just don't know where it ends like to me. Then, I suppose the hot dog vendor at the street is, you know, his sales pitches by this hot dog or I'll punch you in the face. The guy selling shovel says, by this shovel or I will beat you with it. I mean, it's pretty darn odd like. And I don't, well, I guess if it's working in the short term, I suppose, God bless him. But man, it doesn't.
Seem still is it working? I mean the data.
Kurt said that he's got reporting that says revenue is ticking back up.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just again, like you sort of would wonder if we're seeing maybe token purchases, small purchases to deal with the threat rather than well it.
Just Kurt, that is the would token purchases of ads be enough to drive that pick up and add revenue that you talked about.
Yes, at scale, because remember the numbers are quite small. Right. I mean, this is not like a one hundred billion dollar annual revenue company where someone spending ten million bucks gets totally lost in the sauce. It's like they're making you know, two zero point five billion dollars in annual revenue. So if suddenly you have, you know, a dozen advertisers that all could you know, spending ten million plus dollars or whatever it is, that's going to actually be a notable,
noticeable jump in revenue. Small but noticeable. So I do think the token thing is is sort of a real and if you are a giant advertiser, you have to weigh like, is ten million dollars worth sort of the public drama of being sued by X and going through a multi year lawsuit. And I think a lot of brands would just say, you give money enough.
You just give them the money and run the ad.
But is this a sustainable thing? Right? Like to Max's point, like, Okay, maybe there's an uptick this year, but like, this is not the sign of a healthy business when you have to force your clients to spend with you at risk of lawsuit.
Okay, Kurt so CEO Linda y Eckarino sat down with an Axios reporter for a panel there at kind and it got a little sporty tell us briefly about it.
Well, we talked about that story that came out, and so Linda was asked about this on stage. I believe it's on Monday of can so, the very first day of the conference, and essentially, instead of you know, either acknowledging yes, we are doing this or even disputing it, the real feedback was like she trashed the Wall Street Journal. You know, was like, and we.
Will still read that publication.
Right, and the whole notion. And you guys are familiar with this because you cover Elon and have paid attention to Elon for years, but like, this is a pretty tried and true strategy from sort of el Dusk as well, right, which is like someone writes something that he doesn't like or in this case, she doesn't like, and the response is, well, I'm just going to bash the journalism. I'm going to bash that outlet and those reporters and sort of cast doubt on the story that way. And so that's what
we saw. But it was a kind of an awkward way to start the week, right, everyone's there to potentially do these deals and and.
Perhaps give x big checks for money for ads.
But instead of starting that way, it really started with this sort of combative conversation with Linda, and and it did come up several times throughout my discussions that week. Is just sort of like it wasn't really a great look for her or X on the eve or the beginning of this important conference.
A bit of a buzzkill.
The other thing I'm thinking about as Kurt is talking about this, we talked last week about cash burn at XAI. Yes, I think a billion dollars a month was the figure that we had from our reporting. I mean, there's a lot of cash going out of this combined company, and for x.
It's mostly just going to be for the debt, right, I mean they've sacked a huge chunk of their workforce and right, I mean, yeah, you're right, they are believing.
I'm just saying there's not that much revenue coming in to this operation, either from the AI side or from the advertising side.
Yeah. I mean that fundraise apparently, which they are still doing right now for XAI, of which x is now a unit, apparently came a touch too late for the big con party. They had that money come in. You know they would you know, that's where Kurt would have been hanging out on Thursday nights.
It would have been doing a double.
Okay, now, Kurt, don't hang up, don't leave us.
Yep.
But I got a couple of quick things rapid fire for Max and if you have some clever thought, some epiphany, sir, great way in the shouted out Max, there was another exploding rocket.
Yeah, over the weekend, a starship rocket doing a static fire test. That's a kind of test where they fire the engine while it's it's on the ground. It exploded. I think in the statement SpaceX called it like a significant anomaly or something like that.
But yes, it was a bad They say the darnedest things they do. You got to give them credit. They have rocket engineers.
Is funny, right. Anyway, this was bad. This was not something they expect, especially, and.
It's bad because they just keep happening one after the after another, like.
The third fourth, Yeah, I think maybe the fourth trier we've had it not go exactly right. If Lauren Grush, you know, our colleague and Bloomberg Aerospace reporter, were here, she just got Curt. She would say that like, look, this is these are experimental crafts. Explosions are not totally uncommon or or necessarily even unexpected.
Sorry, wasn't it and maybe you already said this, But wasn't it simply refueling?
It was a fuel mishap. There was an explosion while they were loading fuel in Uh. Yeah, definitely not supposed to happen, and they're investigating it. And I do think while these are experimental craft each time something like this happens,
it pushes the timeline back a little bit. And this is a company that is very much under the gun if they want to meet Elon Musk's very very aggressive timelines for sending these rockets, you know, towards Mars or even set putting them to tests that could lead them to go to Mars. So definitely a setback. You know, on top of the issues that we've talked about for the last few weeks with Trump and the former NASA point e.
Now we also had a revelation of sort On Musk's computer situation.
Yeah, this is where I want Kurt's input here, because a lot of people were surprised that in the legal filings between open AI and Elon Musk in the dispute between Sam Altman and Elon Musk open Ai and Elon Musk. Elon's team essentially said he does not have a computer and that, like the open Ai, I had been expecting, you know, emails or documents from his computer. I guess they got some from his phone, but his lawyer said, no computer. And a lot of people are surprised by this.
And my reaction, Kurt, was, is it really that surprising. I feel like Elon's not the only CEO who goes or claims to go without a computer. Yeah, I'm not.
I actually wasn't surprised at that at all. For the same reason Max. I remember in the book I wrote Battle.
For the Bird.
By the way, by it read it?
Yeah, by it read it?
Please.
Jack Dorsey, the co founder and former CEO of Twitter, did his entire job from his smartphone. You know what I mean. He had an iPad that he used from time to time. But really, I mean, like this is a guy running.
That's like very you know, elderly I don't know, or child of him or something.
I like, Yeah, but I mean like this guy wasn't just running Twitter. He was running Square now Block at the same time. So a CEO of two publicly traded tech companies who did his entire job from his phone, right, And so, I, I mean, it's hard for me to imagine Elon's sitting down at his laptop and typing away.
I think we know he did, because he's posted some some screenshots of a laptop at one point that The only reason I remember is they were like really smudgy and gross, and everyone was like, Oh, your screen looks really looks really gross. You need to clean it. So I do remember some of that, But no, I'm not surprised to hear he he works from a phone.
I suspect that laptop is his gaming piece, like he does play a lot of computer games. But yeah, like these guys have assistance and stuff as well, Like what what what would you need a computer for? If you're Elon Musk.
You've got he's got what's what the hell is the name of his robot. He's got optimists Optimist. Yeah, and he's got like a he's got a hole flock of Optimi around him that just at his beck a call.
I would be surprising if you saw Elon Lake typing away at a laptop, I'd say, unless he was playing a computer game. Or composing a meme.
Kurt Wagner. Thanks as always, Max.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Thanks David.
This episode was produced by Stacy Wong and edited by Annamasirakas, Blake Maples handles engineering, and Dave Percell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson. The elon Ink theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugierra. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is ahead of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks as always to our supporters Joel Weber and Brad Stone. I'm David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
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