Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. I'm your host David Popatoppolos, and we are live at south By Southwest. For the uninitiated, Elon Inc. Is the show where we discuss Elon Musk's corporate empire and how to make sense of his NonStop gambits and antics. Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.
More than half the satellites in space are owned and controlled by one man.
Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
I mean legitimate.
He says.
He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will be different.
He'll vote Republican.
There is a reason the US government is so reliant on him.
Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Anything he does is fascinating to people.
Being here in Austin today, will dig into all things Elon in Texas. I'll let the man himself have the first word. This is Elon speaking back in twenty twenty two.
We built the factory here in less time than it would have taken to get deep permits in California. I loved living in California, but the problem is you cannot get things done. Ask anyone and anyone who's done a large project in California, how long would it take you to get the approval to proceed?
Two years? And you're doing well.
And like I said, we've got this book in eighteen months.
Since moving to Texas a few years ago, Elon has bought up swats of land, built new factories and facilities for his companies, even weighed in on a local election. And we'll get into all of that. But Texas has had an impact on Elon two and that is evident. Here we have him wearing a cowboy hat, maybe backwards. More on that hat later, but let me introduce our panel. Now.
I'll start with one of our true regulars, Max Chafkin, senior reporter and editor at BusinessWeek, and a man who is to this show what norm is to cheers, Hey, David. And then we have two special guests. We brought in Rachel Monroe, Texas in Southwest correspondent for The New Yorker, Hello Rachel, Hello, And Sewell Chan, editor in chief at the Texas Tribute. Hi, David. Hello, all right, So a nice breaker to get things started. I want all of you,
and I want you to think hard about this. I needed to rate Elon's Texan hood on a scale of one to ten, with one being a total utter impostor and ten being a modern day Sam Houston. Now, sewell, you are a student of the history of Texas. We will start with you, and I'm writing down these answers.
By the way, Well, it's a loaded question, but I'd have to say ten. And here's why ten. You know, Texas is a state where people have often come to reimagine themselves, and Texas is often a canvas upon which people project their desires, their dreams, or their nightmares about
what America is and should be. So, in one sense, the richest person in the world moving here, buying a giant's loss of land, buying up at State Park, building a giant factory in Austin, and proclaiming himself a Texan is the most Texan thing he could do.
All right, very good tool. We're gonna jump more into that in one second. But we're gonna get Rachel's number. Now, Rachel, I'll.
Give him an eight.
Honestly, Texas loves a businessman, Texas loves a huckster, Texas loves a billionaire with like unhinged political opinions. I'll ding him a couple points because of the hat.
But okay, so we have a ten, I mean eight, Max five, A five.
Do I explain?
No, No, they're cheating. I mean no, you will. You will explain during the course of the show. But we will then turn to you Max, okay, and I will ask you how did Elon, a native South African become a Californian first, and a very proud one at that, and then a couple decades later a Texan.
Yeah, I mean that clip is funny for me to watch as somebody who's covered him for a long time, because of course, like ten fifteen years ago, as he said he was a proud Californian. It was like central to his identity. It was in a lot of ways his identity. He would I remember, like the one of the first things he ever said to me, like in like two thousand and six or seven, when he was sort of talking up Tesla, was I'm a Silicon Valley guy.
I think people in Silicon Valley can do anything. And the central premise was like Silicon Valley's good at software
but doesn't build hardware. I'm gonna be the one to fix that, and of course he had this kind of change of heart around twenty twenty during COVID, like many tech guys I think, who simultaneously had huge capital gains windfall and were I think looking for ways to lower their tech liability and also was very frustrated with lockdowns, and then began this kind of evolution that saw him move to Texas, and I think, you know, changed kind of his whole persona.
All right, and Suell explain for us a little bit. He the allure of Texas, a place that's long attracted libertarians and sorts like that.
Well, first of all, it's important to remember that Texas has always been conservative, but Texas has not always been Republican, and indeed, across the twentieth century, California was largely Republican and Texas was largely Democratic. There were different parties back then, of course, but Texas, especially in the twentieth century an
important thing. The majority of the population lives east of I thirty five, the easternmost third of the state, and the Texas Triangle Houston, Dallas, Austin.
Has the vast majority of the population.
So Texas is actually a pretty urbanized state, but the rural image and that frontier image, the cowboy, the rugged individualist that became kind of Texas's defining identity in the twentieth century.
Along those lines, Rachel, is this move to Texas for Elon is this largely? Is this a branding thing or is there more to it than that?
Well, you could.
You might also want to state the lack of a state income tax. It's a pretty huge and Texas likes to think of itself as a very business friendly state. And I mean, I think you've seen that in his experience here and the clip that you all played in terms of the regulation. I mean, what's been able to happen with SpaceX here has happened really quickly, sort of alarmingly quickly. But I think that and then I think there's something fun about there's a certain kind of performative
masculinity and the cowboy image. I mean, Elon's not the only guy that we're seeing that put on the hat and the boots.
It's also, you know, he's good at a few different things. You know, he's a really good, you know, manager of engineers, he's a good marketer. He's also very good at getting municipalities local governments and even national governments to write him gigantic checks or to you know, cut him enormous tax breaks.
And by the way, it's similar to the way he does it with investors, right, I mean, investors have been handing him lots of money for years.
And it's really good if you're if you want to, you know, extract a tax break out of a governor or a mayor or whatever, to be a little flexible about your identity, to be willing essentially to embrace a new identity. You know, when he was a proud Californian, of course, part of what he was doing was reviving the new ME factory. This is the main Tesla factory in Fremont, California that he got for very little money
that essentially took over this GM Toyota joint venture. And you know, coming to Texas, he's been able to extract some I believe some pretty significant tax breaks. And he's done this all over the world, right in China, in Germany. It's like a big part of what he does is like find a way to sort of fit himself into policymakers agenda and get paid for it.
We're going to get into that in a minute. Let me ask you this though, because I do know, I believe, and you were very excited. You saw your first cyber truck ever yesterday I did, and.
It looked it sort of fit in you know, right, they're so big, but you know, maybe the scale you know here is a little a little more forgiving.
Rachel. You've talked a little bit with me before about Elon's star power, in the star power that he brings to Texas. What does that look like and does that star power? Does it matter in any meaningful way.
I talked to a person that I know the other day who is the only person I know who's friends with Elon, and I was just sort of asking him. I was like, what's the deal, Like does this work out there in the scene? And he was like, oh yes. You would think that once you were billinaire you would get over this. But people are still like, oh yeah, no I went with e to this. There's still a
lot of swooning. There's still a lot of deference. There's still a lot of like laughing, laughing at his jokes even when they aren't funny.
So I guess it, you know.
But this is like within a cohort that I think is like his cohort that has come to Texas with him. Whether that travels kind of outside that bubble, I think is it's less clear.
So that includes like members of the PayPal mafia, the people who've settled in West Austin.
Yeah, exactly, the sort of new Austin, tex scene.
I was just wondering, like, who is the because when he lived in California, you know, he's sort of hanging with the Hollywood scene.
You know, he married twice, actually.
Married an actress, kind of a Hollywood starlet. He sort of enjoyed that part of his identity. What is the Austin equivalent of that? Is it Joe Rogan or like.
Joe Rogan and Alex Jones. Is that the best that we've got it? I don't think so. I don't like to think that that's true. But I mean, from what I hear, this is just like a lot of sort of like private enclaves. That's sort of the scene that's happening here. It's not a lot of like cross pollination with the kind of broader Austin community.
What actually is Elon's ideology nowadays? If we have any sense, is he a libertarian? Is he more right wing sort of law and order guy. He likes to say that he's pretty much a centrist. And ever, no one else has moved left any sense of where he stands, and at this current time, I.
Think, like a lot of people who've moved rightward. You know, Elon Musk is fundamentally annoyed by what thirty years ago was called political correctness or now wokeism. Whether you agree with that critique or not, I think it's one that he's really glommed onto. He's obviously become a free speech absolutist.
I would say his orientation is mostly libertarian. He tends to talk more about speech issues than about low tax law regulation, low government services, which is really the Texas economic model mega.
I mean, his ideology is the ideology of Donald Trump. I think partly because Maganism or whatever you want to call it, has is politically salient and is popular with a large portion of the United States.
Also.
I mean, of course, like Donald Trump and Elon Musk have a lot in common, right, They're both kind of like libertarian inclined businessmen who are really interested in as souls as you know, saying what they want when they want and there's even you know, I think psychically some kind of connection. They're both given to these like, you know, kind of grand pronouncements. They both have this feeling that they can kind of speak something into existence just by saying it very forcefully.
So I mean, I think it's that simple. I think his ideology is the ideology of the Trump movement.
It's interesting to me that he seems to really think of himself as a as a contrarian and as a maverick of sometimes. But when you look at you know, particularly the recent things that he's been saying about immigration, which is we have some.
Tape of them at the border speaking on this very topic.
At Eagle Pass, and we're going to be being with the sort of major the major officials and law enforcement responsible for the order.
The reality is that if this is an open order for all of Earth and just you know, so there's roughly a three hundred fifty million people in the US, but there's eight billion people on Earth.
Yes, this is an open border too, eight billion people.
So can I ask a question though, I mean, at one point does elon the capitalists run up against elon social media personality? I mean, someone running a global company wants a stable, large base of consumers.
I think it's arguably happening. He feels he gets that under Trump.
I mean, I think he's like Tesla. There are big questions about why is there not more demand? You know, why do is demand seemed to slow down?
You know?
One explanation is that he's turned people off. I also think that Musk is on Twitter all day, every day, and it feels intuitively, rightly or wrongly, that there's something behind this and that's what he's attacking. But of course they're you know, large and very sophisticated investors who would disagree with that.
He think he's making a huge mistake.
I mean, it's just it's just interesting to me as a person who's been to Ego pass many times. Yeah, I mean, first like important to say how divorced this is from reality? But again it's like these aren't These aren't sort of like edgy contrarian opinions. This is like very standard, kind of like Fox News Divorced Dad talking points like this is you know what you could And it's interesting to me hearing you talk about him in California.
I wonder if he's actually just much more of like a permeable person to his environment than he thinks his idea of himself.
Yeah, we've talked about this in the past, but there's a certain chameleon sort of aspect to him now.
Yeah, well absolutely. I mean he during the Bush years, the George W. Bush hears, when he was just getting started, he kind of framed the companies in libertarian terms. During the Obama years, he was a green capitalist. He presented as a centrist kind of somebody very much in line with Obama. I think he actually personally likes Obama quite a lot. And then during Trump, you know, he shifted again.
So I think he's somebody who, yeah, who's pretty chameleonic politically, and also, as Suwell said, you know, Silicon Valley is not has not historically been a liberal enclave like Ulicon Valley is, like Defense Department military.
It was like a right of center place.
So I think you could and I think there is some quality of some of the tech guys who moved who sort of missed the like, you know, a Silicon Valley of the seventies and eighties, and I you know, maybe Elon has part of that, even if they were kind of very small during that time. But they at least miss it on some psychological level.
Back to the border and back to his fixation on immigration in these topics. What has his impact been school on local politics?
Well, let me start with the state level. So you know, immigration is the biggest issue for Texans, and it's one reason why the state Republican Party continues to exert such a dominant hold on the state. But a lot of the local issues here that have been the most divisive actually are less about the border and more about things like privatization of the school system or very local issues like our attorney general who is under indictment and was
impeached by the Texas House. And so there's kind of a civil war going on within the Republican Party that I don't think Elon is really part of. He did, however, recently, take a position against Austin's district attorney, who is a Democrat who was running for reelection, and he urged people to vote for the primary challenger, who was more centrist, and he kind of portrayed the DA as kind of Soros backed prosecutor. But it was an intervention that came in way too late.
Is that what went wrong here that he just simply jumped in too late. That you can't rush in at the eleventh hour and and try to tip an election. Well it's that.
And simply he also doesn't have much of a huge political voice here yet, right, I mean, as his workforce here grows, that might change.
He I was just also remembering that a few years earlier that Austin had a thing on the ballot, Proposition A, which was just sort of like a boosting police, you know, law and order kind of ballot that he tweeted in favor of. This was right after he had moved here.
That also was like soundly defeated Travis County. Austin has been votes pretty liberal, votes pretty progressive, and whatever sway he has isn't nearly enough to I mean the progressive incumbent that you're talking about school like one by you know, an enormous march.
Yeah, so right for someone who's leaving California and woke California for Texas. I mean, in some ways Austin is indeed sort of an odd choice.
No.
Within Texas well, they all love.
Living here because they want the culture of a thriving you know metropolis, like diverse place with good culture where you know, people who make interesting things live, so you know, that's but they also like think that, oh, you can come here and not pay the taxes but get the kind of cultural capital of a place like this.
That's right.
And Austin is sometimes described as like the border city between Blue and Red America because you only have to go like ten minutes outside the city and you can hit drum country really fast. And a lot of the people who've come here, like like Musk, they stay in these gated communities that are actually pretty. They're kind of on the west toward the lakes, and they're a little bit kind of out side the kind of downtown vibe that you're getting here at south By.
You can look at his the elon Jet account, which is this account that you know, much to his dismay, like tracks his travel and I mean you can see he spends a lot he spends time here. I mean he he's a guy who's sort of everywhere and nowhere like many rich people, but he is spending quite a lot of time I think in Bocachica, which is you know, on the border or close to the border, near the SpaceX factory.
And then and then here in Austin, Okay.
So if so far it looks like he's not having a huge impact on local politics. His arrival in Texas and is more of his takeover of Twitter, turning it into into X. His his constant presence there, is he his seeming embrace of Donald Trump? Now is he having or do we expect him to have a meaningful impact on national politics in this election year twenty twenty four.
So people may be aware that there was this meeting, you know, in Palm Beach between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. There's some suggest question. I guess that Musk might invent, you know, donate money to Trump's campaign, which could really.
Use the money.
And then there, you know, then there is his sort of power as a as a media figure, as like essentially like a new age Fox News or a or a Fox News on steroids, right, I mean Tucker Carlson. His main distribution platform right now is ex Tucker still, even though he's not on Fox, still has a big fan base.
So I think there's some potential there.
I do think there's this problem for Musk, which is that you know, Twitter, and people in this room will be aware of this. Twitter is not real life and I think those of us who spend time in digital spaces are continually reminded of that. And and I think, you know, this endorsement that didn't go that well is yet another instance of that, Like you can be tricked by social media into thinking that you are more popular
than you really are. And I think if you're going to critique Elon Musk, that would be you know, a critique.
Got it.
I mean, I think it's true that Twitter is not real life, thank god. But also I do think that it's a particularly with the issues of immigration and the border. So many people do not live anywhere near the border. I you know, I live like seventy miles from the border.
So he's playing into this idea of creating an image in people's mind of what happens at the border, which becomes this hugely salient national issue that isn't actually impacting most people in any way, or is it maybe impacting them in like positive economic ways that they don't see, But he can sort of feed this idea of the chaos.
Far more undocumented immigrants are people who flew into this country and overstayed their visas than cross the border. But you wouldn't knowing that listening to his rhetoric that said, does he affect swing voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.
I doubt it.
We shall see. I want to stay though on along the border for second. At this point, Musk between SpaceX, between Tesla between boring Musk has a large Musk inc has a large, fairly large presence here in Texas. In Boca Chica along the border with Mexico is perhaps one of the biggest spots, or maybe the biggest spot where
they have their spaceport. You've reported on this, you've been there, give us a little bit of a sense, So what life is like there in Boca chick and how it's been affected by Elon Musk and SpaceX's arrival.
So, Boca Chica is a very tiny little community outside Brownsville, right kind of on the beach where the Rio grand flows into the Gulf of Mexico, so the very tip of Texas. And when I first went down there in twenty nineteen, it's sort of like beach bungalow style, like retirees on fixed incomes, like there was seashell art kind of type of Grandma scene. And Elon Musk went down there to sort of build these facilities for SpaceX. I mean,
it's interesting because I live in West Texas. Where I live, it's very relatively close to where Blue Origin is, So Jeff Bezos build buys hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Right you can't see anything that he's doing. Sometimes we would drive out and watch the launches and they're just like.
A little but you're right on top of it.
It's like it was crazy to go down there. They built the rockets before they built any buildings to build the rockets in, so you were just watched, I mean with the sea air and sometimes the road was like washing out when the tides went a certain way. I mean, it was crazy to me that they were doing it, and people there were just would just kind of come out and stare and watch, and you could watch these rockets being built.
And so for a little.
While, it's I think it felt like a paradise for people out there because this thing was happening. I mean, a paradise and a.
Hell several years later, what do they make of it?
So all those houses were sort of he got kind of a sneaky deal that was able to get possession of those houses through eminent domain, which you know, of course, is supposed to be for things that are like for the public good, like power lines.
It's going to Mars, not for the public good, Rachel, I.
Guess it is what is going to save humanity, So I can think of no higher cause.
And it's them domained out.
They were eminent domained out, you know there the beaches closed down. The houses is one thing, but it's it's we're going to talk about the beach there. This is a poor area of Texas. This is like one of the poorest metro areas in the United States. This beach was it's one of the last undeveloped beaches in Texas. People described it to me with a lot of pride and affection as the poor people's beach. You know, you don't have to pay for parking. You go out there
with your grandma and you fish. They've got. Texas has an open beaches law, like we are sort of proud of our beaches and our access to our beaches. It's not like California in that way. However, SpaceX has this like special grandfathered in situation that they've worked out with the county there so they can close the beach, and so now this is it's just sort of become a private enclave.
It's also right narrow this you know.
Protected wildlife land, and it's it was just this area that they kind of moved into, had a little spot, and then have just grown to.
Take it over.
And along those lines, so well, you guys at the Texas Tribune have reported some on a proposed land swap between SpaceX and the state that would allow SpaceX to both hand over some land for protection elsewhere and take on right more land there right Inchica.
So basically under this land swap, SpaceX would acquire basically what's currently a state park and that pretty much shows you. And it's actually abuts a National Wildlife Refuge, so it's an ecologically sensitive area, a lot of biodiversity, and the fact that this deal is kind of moving forward actually says something I think powerful about how eager Texas governments are to kind of accommodate his wishes.
And you guys have encountered a similar sort of sense of hey, we're being essentially we the local community, oh, in part in a Hispanic community, we're being bigfooted.
Out absolutely, and you're also seeing that in one other big area in Texas, which is Bastrop County right near Austin, where Musk is. The Wall Street Journal reported is kind of acquiring these huge, huge swaps of land. And now, of course he's talking about building a private university, and even a few weeks ago it was reported potentially a new private Montossouri style school system.
I do think while Sue was talking, I was thinking about it's not just the Texas government. It's not just you know, I guess like Republican politicians right now are eager to please Musk. I mean, he he has power even over Democrats, right, like even Joe Biden. Musk is really mad at Joe Biden because like Joe Biden like with snubbed him at an event, and he's got like.
Some I mean, Biden held an evy convention, didn't bite.
Musk is like, you know, even under Biden, even under the guy that he despises and his you know, insults, I'll called him a sock puppet. You know, he's maintained his contracts, He's even gotten more contracts. And when you look at like what the federal government, even the federal government under Democrats have done to Musk, it's not a whole lot.
It's like it's like some.
Enforcement actions and so on, but the contracts, the stuff that really matters, has stayed because and I think the argument that some policymakers make is essentially that, you know, the US government needs this guy like he is.
He is the leading industrials better or worse? Is he too big to fail? Well?
Yeah, I mean that's the that's the essence of it, right that with this country needs him too much, that he's too big to you know, whatever, to push around. I think there are questions about that, right, I mean, maybe the companies are too big to fail. You could imagine a situation where the federal government went after Musk personally in a big way. But again, it's it's very hard to separate Musk from his companies.
So I want to ask that along those lines and his economic might, in the economic might he's bringing to Texas, and I'm wondering how much it matters. I mean, world leaders turn in Turkey, India, everybody, you know, France, you know, try to try to woo his business. And I wonder just how big a deal it is for Texas, a state that produces almost six million barrels of oil a day. That's almost four hundred million dollars every single day that
comes out of the ground. Does Musk matter, Does his arrival matter much to Texas as an economic engine or is it?
Well, you know, it's important to also remember that Texas is the number one producer of wind in the United States and the number two producer of solar. So there is an energy revolution happening, and there is an acceleration of the energy transition happening here, even though the state government remains really dominated by petrochemical and kind of fossil fuel companies. But I actually do think, Look, the myth of Texas is an untamed frontier is just that it's
a myth. Yes, there's a lot of land, but there's also a lot of Texas that's pretty densely populated and pretty urbanized. As I said, but I do think that the ev revolution speaks to this energy transition, even if it's one that's not explicitly supported by the state.
But Rachel, I do know in chatting with you that you know some of Elon's lieutenants who came here to Texas with him from California as part as Hey, you know, we're gonna go change Texas and we're going to enjoy the you know, the libertarian streak in Texas they have, some of them have since moved on, is that right? Yeah?
And I don't know specifically if these are Elons lieutenants specifically, but I think, you know, just this this sort of tech world that came in twenty twenty came to Texas sort of seeing it as this low tax, low regulation paradise. I know that at least some of them are getting fed up. I think the you know, not having the political sway that they wanted. Housing prices are actually like
extremely high here. I mean, I think if you're sort of fantasizing about your your cheap paradise, it's it's not quite that. And I'm sure they're seeing the downstream effect, you know, from their employees.
Yeah, members are brutal.
People are leaving for Miami, people are going back to California. You know, people bought these enormous houses and now they're selling their enormous houses. So you know, it's not you're a lesson. We could all learn your your problems follow you wherever you are. You know, you don't get to solve all your problems by just moving to Austin.
So the problem is not the the the like world movers, like they have private jets, private jet, no problem, it's there.
It's their entourage that does not have a private jet.
Yeah, would very much like to buy a house, send their kids to school, and so on, and and like when you're talking about these elon musk right, potentially trying to high hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of people, Like, those costs start to add up and you start to there's like a trade off between this like gigantic workforce tech WorkFirst in Silicon Valley and high costs and that gigantic workforce that's still in California I think is an important attraction.
There are a couple of things that could threaten the Texas economic boom right. One is the energy usage. We had a near was fatal, hundreds of people died, but a near complete, almost state blackout almost three years ago, about three years ago. And then second, I actually think the social legislation is going to start having an impact on the ability to attract and retain human capital. You know, this is a state where abortions now criminal, with no
exceptions including rape or incest. Obviously, all the stuff around transgender care being prohibited for minors, and I think it's starting, not right away, but it's starting to have an impact on Texas's ability to retain highly skilled employees who are going to be necessary to work for these companies.
We're gonna go to our last segment, Max, We're gonna have fun in this last segment, whether you like it or not, and we're gonna put up either some photos for you guys to look at, or we're gonna play some audio. And then, you know, I need you guys to to judge and rate the you know, the the whether this constitute Texas behavior, textan behavior or not. So let's get the first picture up. Oh, we're back to
the hat. Okay, the hat. So my question is for all of you, and then the audience is gonna chime into it. Max, is the hat on the right way?
So okay, First of all, I don't know, because I'm from New York and.
I've ever wore a cowboy hat in your life.
I went down a rab a Reddit rabbit hole on this, and there are there are diverging views. Some people argue I think and I'm summarizing, and there are probably people in the audience who may know better than me that that is actually a style that that Yeah, it looked like a hat that just came out of a box and was put on backwards.
In fact, it is a hat that just came out of the box, but was put on there.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
He looks like that on purpose.
That's the argument. Okay, kind of worse.
It's a way mine you until you seem to buy that you're going with it. It's on the right I think it's on the right way. It just looks like he hasn't worn it a whole lot.
I would say a wider brim and a more tan color is what you more typically see. But again, there's a lot of self fashioning going on here.
So from the audience, I need to hear it from you. If you think the hat is on the right way, okay, so is it on the wrong way? Okay? All right, so he's Ozero for one. Okay, next up.
We say all hat and no cattle is a good way. That's kind of like all cattle and hat.
I just I feel the need to say, because you know this is under the aegis of Bloomberg, that Elon Musk actually responded to this critique on Twitter, said he'd own the hat for ten years. Is not a new hat he's maintaining. There's no way that this is all. He knows exactly what he's doing.
He's just never gone outside in the hat.
Then, all right, so it's okay to disagree on this one.
So then the boots he's got these cowboy can you see the cowboy boots on? He's got the cowboy boots on as he sits down with India's mody here. I don't know is this Texas behavior or not? When you sit down with the with the leader of India. Those those the cowboy boots you wear.
I think it's cool. I don't know.
You can wear a formal boot, for sure, I authorize it.
It's hard to see the leather work from here, but for sure it's it's business appropriate.
Okay, we're gonna go right to the next clip.
It's like that pizza restaurant, that that pizza chain, that's they got the best ice cream Sunday that I've ever seen, giant one out here. Oh yeah, if they've got a gigantic ice cream Sunday.
Everything they have is Gigantica.
It's amazing.
Oh bro, they have that rigatoni, that rigatoni with the meat sauce, and oh my god.
Is great.
It's fantastic.
Yeah, and it's very reasonably priced for the amount of food you get.
Okay, So, Rachel, is this the way two Texans talk about food? Because you know, Texans are very you know, proud of their food and there's a strong food culture. Here is this the way two Texans?
I mean, maybe it's actually really savvy.
He's not waiting into the Austin versus San Antonio breakfast taco debate. He's not taking a side Buka to Beppo. Nobody's gonna get excited. Nobody's going to get that mess.
It's safe.
So it's it's the safe you know.
It also shows like in every and every man's sort of quality, right, you know, I go to Buka the Peppo's right.
Yeah, it's weird, so I like it.
It's weird, so you like it.
You know.
On this podcast, I don't know other people may have listened, but Rogan talks, you know, at great length and with some authority, i'd say, about the food scene in Austin. And this is what Elon offers, which I mean, I think it suggests that he hasn't gotten out a whole lot.
Well, wasn't it during his early days, like at what would be PayPal and all that? Didn't they basically seat the same thing some iteration of soilent day in and day out.
Yeah, I mean when you're building the future, right, and when you're working, you're working in this extremely hardcore way. You know, you things fall by the wayside and you need a gigantic face size portion of Spagettian meatballs.
All right, we got one more that's going to play right now.
When you stay awhile, well you say, got.
You?
This is really winning. So that was Elon and his brother Kimball right here at south By Southwest six years ago. Max. When you hear that, When you hear that, does that sound like Texas do oh bro? By the way, he was still a Californian at the time. That's the issue.
Yeah, I think this kind of makes soul. He went for him.
I would sing it way better.
This is this is a cover from the of the Three Amigos.
I believe anybody in the audience.
I think I think that's what this is.
That's Elon's brother Kimball, Right, you know, props for putting himself out there.
Does any of either you want to touch that?
You know, it's it's a music town and so he should.
Probably the classic phrase for people who are newly arrived in Texas's I'm not from here, but I got here as fast as I could. And there's this phenomenon of people moving to Texas who then see themselves and project themselves as being more Texan than Texas. You might be seeing some of that here in a premonition kind of way.
So so to wrap up, I want to go back to the beginning, and at the very beginning, so will you assigned musk e ten? Basically he's essentially as Texan is Sam Houston to you? And then and then you gave him an eight, and then Max, who's that who's a tough SB gave him a five. Do any of you want to change your your votes, your your raise?
It's either a ten or a one, right, there's not much in between.
I say it's one of those, but you're you're staying with ten. You're not changing the one. Everyone else is good. So I'm gonna ask the audience. You know, You're gonna get two options here. The first option is five or lower. So I need to hear if you're gonna give Musk a five or lower. As a Texan, I need to hear from you. And and then well the other will be six and up. So who says five or lower?
Guy?
All right? Solid, all right, solid, tougher crowd than up here. How about a six or more? It's a it's a it's pretty even draw, which actually does happen to be the right answer, because the right answer is four point seven. This was terrific, So let's end it there. A big thanks to our panelists Max Rachel Seoul mhmm, and to the audience and to the audience for joining us. Thank you all for joining us for the special episode of
Elon Inc. At south By Southwest. Keep listening in each and every week.
Thank you, thank you,