Elon Opens a Restaurant, Strikes a Chip Deal, Dreams of Robots

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Let me tell you we have a new star. A star is born Eylon pumped up on Mars Jusan 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 I'll be in full pos.

We are meant for great things in the United States of America, and Elon reminds us of that.

I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.

Welcome to Elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, July twenty ninth. I'm Max Chafkin. David Papadopolis will be back next week, I've been assured. But we've got one more week together, and this week we're gonna take a little break from our Jealousy series, where we've been interviewing some of the authors of stories that we've really admired, because we've had a slew of Elon news

I mean, does that mean like we could have a few rough quarters. Yeah, we probably could have a few rough quarters. I'm not saying it well, but we could.

But you can't disregard that musk magic, as we'll talk about later in the show. And we discussed the progress at Neuralink, a big announcement with the boring company, as well as a bunch of sort of news around Tesla that is kind of pointing up. We had the X Takeover event. This is essentially a fan event in San Francisco. We're a much more upbeat version of Elon called in to talk all about the bright future ahead for Optimus.

Hypothetically, Tesla was making a billion of these here at scale, and at scale of the cost gets lower and lower, so maybe like on the order thousand dollars, I'm just guessing he's put trillion in revenue.

Insane.

You know, that's a long way to go between here and making a billion provots here.

And so to puzzle through those signals, some positive, some negative. I'm sitting here with Bloomberg Law Musk reporter Dana Hall. Dana, how are you.

I'm doing great, Max, Great to be.

Here, Danna. You and I were live blogging the Tesla earnings as we like to do. Tell our listeners how it went for Elon on Wednesday. We're recording this on Tuesday of the following week.

Well, you know, it's interesting whenever there's a Tesla earnings call, so much of it is really about Elon's mood and what he says. And you and I, because we work at Bloomberg and we have a terminal, we can like watch the stock trading in real time as he's speaking. And what I noticed is that, like the earnings were coming along, it was like sort of a bad quarter, but everyone kind of expected it in terms of the

Dana, The thing for me about this call was that like Musk in the last few quarters has been talking a lot about robotaxis, this time he barely talked about the actual Austin ROBOTAXI, this thing that we've been talking about on the show for the last few weeks, and mostly used it as a reason to argue that the you know ADAS system, the assisted driving technology that you get when you buy a normal Tesla is good, and it felt like almost an acknowledgment that that robotaxi thing

Yes, the call was a little hard to listen to, like the sound quality is always so bad. But I think one analyst asked them how many miles they've driven in Austin, and it was something like seven thousand miles, which is not a lot. I mean it means that they still have a fleet of what are we thinking,

Okay, one last thing I want to bring up before we move on to the confab this weekend, which is that you know, we've had a sort of long running discussion on this show about this so called low cost model. Remember this was the model too that many people, especially many investors, were really excited about, and there was this vague thing that happened, was it, Dana, Like about a year ago when Reuters reported that Elon had canceled this model,

Yeah, And like fans are still pushing back, like if that's not exactly what he said, you're taking what he said out of context. But yeah, I mean like This is by all accounts, including what Elon said on the call, like some kind of decontented, cheaper, more affordable model. Why how do they make it more affordable? I don't know, Like do they strip down the interior? Does it not have a roof? Is the sound system worse?

Like?

Are the seats crappier?

Don't you know? I don't know.

There are a lot of ways to make a car more affordable. Maybe it's more affordable and better in some ways, but it's not like a new model. It's not like Franz has some like brand new spanking design that he's been molding in clay in Hawthorne. Like, so I think that people just really need to disabuse themselves of this notionha that this is a brand new car. I mean, Elon is tired of making cars like the future is

Okay, let's talk about the future. Because we heard the clip at the top Elon Musk talking about the gazillion units of Optimists he's expecting to sell. We've seen a lot of sort of crazy predictions around this stuff floating around, but Danna talk about this event that happened over the weekend, the X Takeover.

Yeah, so this is an event that's put on every year by the Tesla Owner's Club of Silicon Valley. This year it was in San Mateo, which is in Silicon Valley,

Yeah, Boomer Mama was there, friend of the show.

Boomer Mama was there. People were standing in line to get like selfies with her, like she was you know, I could barely talk to her because she was getting thronged by all these people thanking her for her work. And then there were a lot of panel discussions and you know the reason why I went was because Larar's Maravi, who is Tesla's VP of vehicle Engineering, was speaking and he doesn't speak publicly very often. And you know, it was like a day long event. There were things for

And then of course what did the kids do?

Oh well, here I'll show you. I've got a little thing. There was a three D printed cyber truck that you could cool said. They were giving out cyber trucks and crayons and a lot of kids were coloring them. There was like face painting. There was there was a balloon guy. You know a lot of people were there with their families and employees were there with their families, and you know,

Got it? Got it? So? And what was the mood? I mean, like, where are among the sort of Tesla Elon musk faithful, What are they most excited about?

I think they're all in on the Robotaxi and Optimists. And there was a forthcoming cybercab, which is the car that has no steering wheel on display.

Right, this was that kind of gold car that he unveiled Elon unveiled on a sound stage at the end of last year.

Yes, surrounded by ropes, so I like couldn't sit in it. But like the cyber cab was there, surrounded by velvet ropes, and like Optimists was there, and like there was a throng of people like taking pictures of both. And what's super interesting about you know, all all these people is that like some of them owned a Tesla car and then they became investors in the company. Some of them were investors in the company and then they bought their car and like Tesla Boom or Mama, I mean, I

What you just said. It's so interesting though, because this is as you said earlier this the heritage of this event is a Tesla Owners Club event. It is not a Elon Musk memestock trader event. And yet it really sounds like, even more than owning the cars, owning the stock is the thing that unifies this group.

I think it's both. It's just a question of like which one came first, did you buy the car first or the stock first? But most people are in both. And it's a community. I mean, it's a real community, and you know, we can laugh about it, but it is a real community. And that you get the sense that these are people who maybe met online and now

All right, you've brought up the Tesla diner. Yeah, And we got to jump to that because amid all this kind of somewhat dire earnings news, the you know, car sales declining. The stock dropped the following day, although it's regained some of that ground. You know, Elon Musk did something spectacular. He unveiled a new line of business, the Tesla Diner. It opened in Hollywood, Dana. There was a lot of excitement among the influencer crowd over this. Yeah.

No, to be clear, I have not been there, but I actually think it's a brilliant idea because I drove by it when it was under construction and it's in this kind of older part of Hollywood en Route sixty six. It was like this empty lot. They built this diner. It has like two stories. You can you can sit, you can order food, but you can also sit in your car and watch a movie. It's got like eighty supercharger stations that are like version four of the superchargers.

Yeah, I mean I was watching or I saw a clip of a KTLA anchor kind of making fun of the food. You know, there have been some negative reviews. Let's let's give a quick lesson.

I went inside with the full intension of ordering even these tacos, but it didn't look very advercharging. Okay, and if I'm gonna have like a good breakfast, I wanted a good Chris This is have you guys, unbiased, honest.

Brito.

So that's how KTLA. You know, a network morning show was covering it. Dan, I watched that and I thought, ooh, this really shows you what the backlash has done, because I don't think TV networks would have covered it this way five years ago. Right Like, like you said, the

Yeah, it'll be and it'll be interesting to see, like once the initial hype about it dies down, if it remains this like packed tourist attraction or not. I mean the protesters are out there in front, you know, with an inflatable Elon doing the awkward gesture, so I mean, like it's definitely gonna be like a magnet. But I think the other reason why people go is because they think that they might run into executives there, Like Fan Hoolshausen,

It would be so amazing if Elon just takes all of his meals at the Tesla Diner. He's only eating the tallow fried French fries and the fried chicken and waffle or whatever. I have to say my reaction. A lot of people have talked about the prices on this menu, right, like it's kind of expensive the hot dog costs thirteen dollars. That's a lot for a hot dog, I guess, although is it a lot for a hot dog in Los Angeles? Like, I'm not really sure, but I my beef was like,

Right, Like there's no waiters or waitresses right in my mind, like a diner, I thought. I thought it was gonna be more like you're sitting in your car watching a movie, and like the diner brings the food to you while you're in your car.

I think there is some of that that's an option, or you can walk in in order at the counter and get it on a tray. I have to say that the Hamburger boxes look like little cyber trucks. Apparently that's cute. That goes along with a theme of the show.

And Optimist is serving popcorn or something.

Not well, though, did you watch the video of Optimists serving the popcorn spilling? There's a lot of spillage I saw though. You got to say, hey, look, Elon has been trying to find things for Optimists to do, and here here they have one. This this seemed good. Last thing I want to hit and we'll move on. Bloomberg reported initially that Samsung has a almost seventeen billion dollar deal with Tesla to manufactured chips in its new factory in Texas. Elon confirmed the report. How big a deal

Yeah?

I think so. And Elon posted something about how he was going to be personally walking the line and like making shit that quality was up to snuff, and they were gonna be very involved. Like they really pitched it

Yeah, he's gonna be He's gonna be walking the line, probably sleeping on the line, if history is any guide, And There's of course also a political element here because these would be made in the US chips. That, of course is probably good for Trump and his efforts to onshore you know, manufacturing.

Made in Texas chips.

Right, So maybe you know where I'm on. As you know, Dan, I'm on the lookout for any sign of the moot, and I feel like this is the tiniest little flicker of a spark. Although there have been some Epstein tweets, Elon has not stopped tweeting about Epstein. So so I don't know, you give and you take. I suppose. All right, let's move on beyond Tesla to Neuralink. This is the

Good?

Thanks for having me.

So I this company has been kind of a mystery, at least to me, maybe not to you, beyond the fact that they were doing some really cool experiments. These trials that I think we're just are technically just to show safety, although based on like the social media clips, you're seeing some impressive stuff. Patients who were not able to use their hands able to essentially play video games by controlling a cursor with their brains. You report a

Yeah, so they sort of have a ramp up plan that they were presenting here right now. You know, they just have announced nine patients who've gotten these devices. These are not like FDA approved for general commercial use, so these are all in clinical research trials right now.

These are safety trials, I believe, so not even designed to show effectiveness, just that it's safe to do them, to have them in somebody's head.

And they're hoping to get regulatory approval for sort of the first version of that device by twenty twenty nine, and then ramp it up to two thousand, you know, two thousand people a year, two thousand sergers a year, then ten thousand a year by twenty thirty and then

Can you rebind me?

Like?

What are the different products called? Like I've kind of gotten them confused in my mind. There's several different names now for different.

Things, right So the one that they're testing right now in humans is called telepathy, which they're using to allow humans to manipulate electronic devices just using their brain, without without using their hands. So if someone's paralyzed or has severe nerve damage, you know, they can interact with a computer. People have been making videos, playing games you know, able to like you know, type and text and things like that, just using the brain instead of us in the hands.

Wait is the idea that people who are totally blind now would have superhuman vision or they would just get regular vision, and that people who can see would be upgraded to superhuman.

From what they've they've said, I think like it looks like they want superhuman vision to be available generally. But the idea of these things in general, so that you know, you can increase sort of people's abilities if you're trying to cure some disease or bring people up to you know, sort of quote unquote normal, but you could also go beyond that. And that blind site implant neuralink has been testing in monkeys. One of the engineers made a presentation

I the information that you're reporting, these these investor presentations, these predictions or projections. Why are these documents circulating now? My assumption is always like when you see something like this, the suggestion is they're trying to raise money, right, Like they're circulating these documents because they want to raise money or why like, where is this kind of coming from? Do you have any sense? Yeah?

So they did just raise money. It was announced in May a six hundred and fifty million dollar Series E funding round, So there was you know, recent fundraising. In terms of upcoming fundraising. If anyone's heard anything, I'd give me a call, but they have been raising money recently.

Got it, Danna Really? Until Ike said the words super human Vision, I was thinking to myself, like, this is like such a weird company for Elon Musk because like you're talking about long FDA approval, it's kind of a ways away from what we normally think of as an Elon company, Like these are not really consumer products Elon likes to make consumer Like like, how do you see this fitting in his larger program? Do we need the brain computers for to go in the tunnels in Mars?

Yeah?

Or like is it part of it? I always wonder like is there some kind of fertility play here? Like does this all come back to, like, you know, extending the light of consciousness and making sure that people reproduce and how do you reproduce on Mars? And is there some kind of neuralink thing that will stimulate fertility. I don't know, because I feel like everything always comes back

You know, going to one of the questions sort of you had brought up before. Neuralin Executive have talked before about how this is a product that you know, everyone might get. I mean the President DJSAO, you know, said on this very long and comprehensive podcast with Lex Friedman that there's a very real possibility that you could see eight billion people walking around with neuralink. Something that I'm curious about is sort of there's the neuralink implant and

If we're not comfortable with like red number four or whatever. It's it's hard to imagine the FDA kind of moving super quickly on on a brain implant, particularly given that we've had and this has come up on the show before you know they're one of the I believe the

That's a good question, I you know, I mean they're getting investment, clearly. I'm not sure what people think about sort of how realistic that that timeline is. I mean, the FDA has approved you know, brain implants. I mean, like you know, deep brain stimulation, other other sorts of things like that. Like it's the idea of putting something

Yeah. Yeah, and of course peer that's been that's like often a complaint about this kind of like venture backed healthcare company, especially with somebody like Musk who who loves to kind of paint a futuristic picture. There's there's the picture,

Thanks a lot for being here, Yeah, thank you.

Okay, Dana, stick around one more segment for you. The boring company. This is like the forgotten Elon Musk venture, the perpetually forgotten, you know, youngest child that no one can quite remember even exists. It does exist, and they have a deal to drill a tunnel in Nashville, apparently ten or so miles going from the airport to downtown. There was a big event or an event in Nashville yesterday. This is Tennessee Governor Bill Ye announcing the move.

The boring company is set to transform the airport to downtown travel experience. And for those that live here, it means that they'll be less congestion on our roads, there will be less wear and tear on our highways. And the best port of it all is one hundred percent privately funded. There will be no cost to Tennessee taxpayers.

Dan, I can't remember have you been to the Vegas Loop, the version of this in Las Vegas. I have not had the honor max the Vegas Loop. Dan, you'll know this, but maybe some listeners won't. It's pretty underwhelming. It's basically a couple of miles of very narrow tunnels that primarily go between different ends of the Las Vegas Convention Center, which, to be fair, is a very large convention center. But you go in a regular car. It doesn't go very fast,

Yeah, I mean, I think I guess it's a win in that. You know, Yet people kind of forget about the Boring company, Like what are they doing in this tunnel thing? Is it really just about tunneling in Mars? And the fact that they're still apparently getting these contracts at approvals and having governors of states sort of announce

Yeah, music city with Nashville being the music city.

Music City loop you know, apparently in Nashville they're having like a hiring event. So his empire is continuing to expand into this very interesting kind of red state that is the center of a lot of logistics I mean a lot of logistics companies kind of use Nashville as their as their base of operating. So I just think when we think of Elon writ large and like if you think about congressional districts and where he has installations, now Tennessee is a really big part of his empire.

Yeah, absolutely, And Nashville's kind of an it's an Elon sort of town, right like La It's got a big music industry. Of course, it's a big tourist attraction obviously, so you could kind of see the affinity. I will say it's very early. And although on one hand you look at this and you say, wow, for the feud with Trump and all the ways that Elon Musk has been divisive, he's still able to command the respect of the governor of a state. We don't really know how

Dan.

You know, maybe in a couple of years, you and I can fly down to Nashville and take that express car, take a little Tesla maybe thirty five forty miles an hour straight from the airport to downtown.

Well, that sounds great. I think we need to do our Group sixty six road trip first.

We're going to the diner before then, of course, this episode was produced by Stacy Wong and edited by Anna Mazarakus. Blake Maples handles engineering, and Dave Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson. Welcome Back, Magnus. The Elining theme is written and performed by Taka Yazuzawa and Alex Sagiera. Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks to our supporters Joel Weber and Brad Stone. I'm