Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, and I'm your host, Will Walden. One more thing before we start. Google Podcasts is being discontinued by Google. So if you want to continue getting episodes of the Elon Musk podcast, please check us out over at YouTube Music.
Search us out over there and that's where you'll be able to find our podcast through Google products. Thank you so much for understanding. I had no control over this. Google pulled the Google Podcast app off of Android. And I want to let you know where to continue finding the show. Over at YouTube Music Search for Elon Musk podcast. Thank you so much.
Formerly, Twitter is financially backing Chloe Happ in a legal action against her previous employer, Block, founded by Jack Dorsey, who also established Twitter, now known as X. HAP asserts she was unfairly dismissed from expressing her opinions on X through a pseudonym satirical account outside of work hours. Elon Musk on X expressed his support for the lawsuit emphasizing supporting your
right to freedom of speech. Now the lawsuit arises from 2 specific posts made by Hap on her anonymous account. The first post referenced the movement of refugees from Gaza to Kurdistan following attacks on October 7th, while the second included derogatory language aimed at transgender individuals in the context of discussing a gender neutral restroom. A HAP maintains these posts were satirical and did not directly
mention her employer. Block Block's acquisition of these posts in the company's decision to terminate Hap's employment formed the crux of this dispute.
Hap alleges that despite Block's policy seemingly supporting free speech, she was dismissed without severance for sharing views contrary to the company's stance, a move she argues was against the company's own guidelines now seeking redress, Hap's lawsuit demands her reinstatement at Block and financial compensation for damages, including lost wages. This case is not X's first foray into legal battles championing
free speech. Previously, the company supported Gina Carano in her lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm, alleging her removal from The Mandalorian was due to her controversial viewpoints. Now, the intertwining of significant tech figures like Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and the companies they founded shows that there's a complex web here, there's ideologies, relationships, different ways of thinking, and it's all in the tech industry right now. X in Block They're in a legal battle.
Musk's X, by funding Hap's lawsuit, is taking a definitive stance on issues of speech and expression in the workplace, and this shows that there's a bigger debate here. Freedom's in the digital age. Can you speak your mind wherever you are without being let go from your job? Do you have freedom of speech, or is there language in your contract that doesn't allow you to do this?
It's really up to the company and up to the person who signs that contract when they start employment with that company. Now, Hap's assertion that her posts were meant as satire and her subsequent actions, including deleting the content, Now it's nuanced, it's online expression, and now she has potential consequences when personal and professional
boundaries intersect. Her insistence on her right to express political satire without workplace repercussion is an important question that we have to ask ourselves. And does it limit expression and employer responses? We're going to find out with this lawsuit, and this lawsuit also alleges that Block violated its own speech policies by dismissing HAPS suggest a possible discrepancy between company guidelines and their applications.
Now this raises broader concerns about how companies interpret inter force policies related to employee conduct and expression, particularly in cases involving social media and in this case, a quote satirical account. Now, Block's refusal to disclose whether complaints from other employees prompted their investigation into HAPS posts adds another layer of complexity
to this case. Corporate transparency and the rights of employees to understand the basis of disciplinary action taken against them. If they post quote satirical content on another website, well, we're gonna have to find out what's going to happen in this lawsuit. Will keep you up to date as well. Now, Hap initially denied these posts, though they said that they feared repercussions if they were attributed to this and her later admission.
Spotlighting the challenges that individuals face when confronted with their online activities impacts their professional life and their personal life. It raises questions about privacy, identity and also accountability In the age of digital personas. Now, the support of high profile figures like Elon Musk for legal actions rooted in free speech concerns signifies a notable intersection of tech leadership
and socio political issues. Musk's public backing of Hap's lawsuit through X positions him and the platform within ongoing debates about freedom of expression, freedom of speech both online and at the workplace, and the legal precedent set by cases like this in the involvement of platforms like X in such disputes could influence future employer implied dynamics concerning free speech.
The outcome of this lawsuit may offer insights into how companies craft and enforce policies regarding employees online expressions in the future, especially when done anonymously or through a pseudonym. Now, the reference to previous cases, such as Gina Carano's lawsuit against Disney, where X also provided support, shows that they're willing to take the step forward and take A big stance on certain free speech issues.
This pattern of backing individuals challenging corporate actions perceived as limiting expressions suggests a broader strategy by X to align itself with particular values in the public sphere. Now, the complexity is this case, though, involving pseudonyms and online activity, satirical expression, and corporate policy shows that there's challenges out there for companies and for individuals when they're signing that contract. Is this free speech? Do you have to manage your
speech to keep your job? That's another question we have to ask ourselves, and the boundaries between personal expression and professional responsibilities continue to blur, raising important questions about the rights and obligations of employees and employers alike.
The legal and ethical considerations at play in Hap's lawsuit against Bloc supported by X reflect broader societal debates about the nature of free speech, responsibilities of digital platforms, and the impact of personal expression on professional engagements. These issues are increasingly relevant in a world where digital and real life personas intersect, and where the actions taken in one realm can have significant consequences in the other.
Now, the outcome of this case could have important implications on how companies navigate the balance between fostering an inclusive workplace and respecting individual rights to free expression and free speech. It also highlights the potential role social media platforms and supporting users rights in legal challenges that arise from
digital expressions. Now this lawsuit, brought by Chloe Hap against Block with the support of X, shows that there's an intricate relationship between free speech, employee rights, and corporate policies. It's a reminder of the ongoing challenges and debates surrounding expressions in their digital age and who's watching your accounts, especially as it intersects with professional life and corporate expectations.
The outcome may offer valuable insights into the evolving landscape of digital expression and the implications for both
individuals and organizations. SpaceX has announced its intentions to carry out as many as 9 Starship missions in the next year, with spacecrafts expected to land all the way in the Indian Ocean. Now these operations, which are set to be launched from the Boca Chica Starbase, Texas site, are detailed in an extensive environmental assessment by the Federal Aviation Administration or the FAA.
Now the FA AS report, which is 119 pages long, indicates the possibility of up to five total losses of the starships which would occur as they crash into the ocean at the highest speed possible after re entering from orbit while still intact. Of course, now these incidents termed over pressure events in the document would be caused by the impact with water leading the structural compromise and subsequent combustion of the liquid methane and oxygen on board.
In addition to these potential explosive landings, SpaceX is also looking into the viability of controlled water landings wherein the spacecraft would softly approach the water surface before tipping over as described by the FAA document. Now the FAA report points out that the starships propellants, liquid methane and oxygen are not toxic unlike some other rocket fuels, which is an important consideration for
environmental safety. Now the document also acknowledges the chance the starships might break apart during the RE entry process, adding another potential outcome to these planned missions. Now SpaceX moves forward with these plans and continues to receive the necessary authorizations from the FAA. A large number of starships, either whole or in pieces, will likely end up on the ocean floor in a region between Australia and Madagascar.
Now the FA as environmental assessment details what could be expected if Starship landings in the Indian Ocean do not go as planned, predicting a field of debris primarily made-up of heavy metals and some composite materials. Now, the majority of this debris, especially the stainless steel components, is expected to sink quickly due to its heavy nature and material composition. However, some lighter pieces might float or remain suspended before eventually sinking.
Now, in case of explosion upon impact, the resulting debris is expected to be contained within a radius of about .5 nautical miles from the point of impact, and the FAA has stated there will be no attempts to retrieve or clean up the Starship remains, whatever their condition after landing in pieces or not, and the report also considers the potential impact. Are these operations on marine life such as sea turtles, fish, sharks, whales and others in the
intended landing zones? Now the FA as assessment suggests that the direct impact on marine life from either impact or breaking apart starships is highly unlikely, thanks to the Ocean's vastness and a relatively small size of the spacecraft components compared to, well, millions of tons of water, and also they have to hit tiny fish, so it's
very unlikely. Now it's reason that although debris hitting an animal underwater could cause harm or death, the low frequency of Starship operations and the natural underwater behavior of marine life makes such occurrences highly unlikely. And on March 14th, 2024, a large crowd gathered to watch a Starship launch from Spacex's Boca CHIC facility. Marking an important moment for this company, this launch was particularly notable.
As well known to be the most powerful rocket in existence, it successfully reached orbit, a significant achievement for SpaceX and everybody in the spaceflight community. Now these developments and the planned future missions show that SpaceX is working towards fully operational and fully reusable large scale massive rockets that can take massive, massive payloads the low Earth orbit to the moon, Mars and
beyond. One more thing before we start the show, Google Podcasts is being discontinued by Google at the end of this month. So if you want to continue getting episodes of the Elon Musk podcast, please check us out over at YouTube Music. Search us out over there and that's where you'll be able to find our podcast through Google products. Thank you so much for understanding. I had no control over this. Google just pulled the Google Podcast app off of Android.
And I just want to let you know where to continue finding the show. Over at YouTube Music Search for Elon Musk podcast. Thank you so much. Tesla has once again reduced its vehicle prices and introduced special offers aimed at enticing buyers following a report of disappointing vehicle deliveries in the first quarter of 2024. This news comes alongside adjustments by analysts to Tesla's full year earnings forecast leading to a rise in
Tesla shares. Now, in a notable move, the electric vehicle behemoth known as Tesla slashed the prices of its Model Y vehicles in Australia by over 9%, setting the starting price of approximately $42,240. This decision coincides with a surge in electric vehicle sales in Australia, where Tesla ranks as the sixth most popular
automotive brand. Now. The price reduction in Australia is part of Tesla's broader strategy to remain competitive, evidenced by the introduction of a 0% financing offer on the Model 3 and Model Y models in China till the end of April. Now this marks Tesla's first foray into interest free promotions in China and the electric vehicle market globally.
Now contrarily, Tesla has raised the prices of all Model Y variants in the United States and Europe and also in China, despite some existing incentives coming to an end. Nevertheless, significant discounts on the Model Y inventory remained available in the US and other markets. Tesla stock experienced a 1.6% increase reaching 171.5 and
these pricing adjustments. During these pricing adjustments and this follows A rebound where the stock went up by 1% to 100 and 6838. Now the company's stock purchased activities by Kathy Wood which involved acquiring 319,000 shares over 2 days also contributing to the stock
movement. Now to keep its sales momentum going, Tesla has aggressively reduced prices and offered discounts throughout 2023 and also 2024, causing a significant dip in auto gross margins from a high of 30% and quarter 4/20/21 to below 20%. And following Tesla's announcements of lower than expected global deliveries of 386,810 vehicles in quarter one, HSBC revises Tesla price target downward, maintaining a reduced rating on the shares.
Now this report has sparked a wave of criticism for both supporters and also skeptics, attributing the poor performance to challenges in the production ramp up and factory shutdowns. Now analysts have adjusted their 2024 earnings projections for Tesla downwards, indicating a potential second conservative year of profit declines for the company. The revised forecast reflect a more than 26% reduction in EPS consensus estimates since the end of 2023.
And despite A disappointing first quarter, expectations for Tesla's business are higher for quarter 2. With anticipated improvements in Model 3 and Cyber truck sales in the US and a potential uptick in Chinese sounds now, Tesla's stock performance has seen fluctuations. The 2.9% increase last week but trading below the 50 day moving average. Leaked emails from Elon Musk suggested push for the latest full self driving update in North America along with a one month free trial offer for FSD.
Now Tesla faced A notable decline in stock value on March 15th, reaching a new low for 2024 stocks. Performance ranks in eighth among auto manufacturers with relatively low composite and relative strength ratings. Now hedge fund manager Pearl Lekender has expressed A bleak outlook for Tesla, though predicting the company could face bankruptcy and its stock could plummet to $14.00.
A very pessimistic view following Tesla's quarter one delivery report, which fell short of market expectations and pair is a bull. Lekender attributes Tesla's challenges not to supply chain disruptions but to a demand problem, particularly with the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. He does not anticipate any significant recovery for Tesla in the near term due to the aging model lineup and economic
conditions. Now, Tesla's first quarter delivery shortfall has led to a chorus of negative opinions, with analysts pointing to the harsh realities of scaling electric vehicle production despite Tesla's valuation. Increased competition and market pressures are contributing to skepticism about the company's future. Now Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives described Tesla's first quarter performance as a disaster, calling it a crucial moment for the company to recover or face potential long
term challenges. But amongst the criticism, Tesla continues to receive support, notably from Kathy Woods Arc Invest, which purchased Tesla stock ahead of the delivery report. Some analysts remain optimistic about Tesla's long term prospects, citing potential catalysts like the promotion of the FSD feature and also the free trial of full self driving. Now. RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Menerian highlighted Tesla's energy storage and autonomy as key factors in his positive
rating on the company's stock. Despite the first quarter setbacks, there remains a belief in Tesla's potential to leverage this technology for future growth. Now, Tesla's recent price adjustments and promotional offers show that it's going to work to stimulate sales amidst A challenging period marked by lower than expected delivery figures and a downward revision in earnings forecasts.
The company's stock has experienced volatility with its future prospects contingent on its ability to navigate the competitive electric veal market and capitalize on its technological innovation. Tesla Motors has reintroduced its full self driving transfer program as a buying incentive this quarter. Now this is counter to CEO Elon Musk's previous assertion that such an offer would be a
singular event. The program permits existing Tesla owners to transfer their FSD package to a new vehicle upon purchase, which a feature that has been highly requested due to Tesla's unfulfilled promise of complete self driving capabilities. They've been promising this for years and have not delivered on FSD, and people bought into this. They paid about $15,000 for full self driving. It's never come to fruition.
So people think that they should be able to transfer their full self driving license from one vehicle to another. Considering that Tesla never gave them what they bought, customers have long argued for the ability to transfer the FSD package price it up to $15,000, especially since the promised
autonomous driving features. Have yet to be fully realized by Tesla. The rationale is that if Tesla can eventually provide these features via in software update, owners should not lose their investment when upgrading their vehicle. Now, despite the logical appeal of allowing FSD transfers to support customer investment in the technology, Tesla has historically been resistant to
the idea. Companies eventual concession to allow transfers, but only for purchases made in the third quarter of 2023 was met with a Lunt of skepticism. Now Elon Musk said that the temporary nature of this opportunity. He said that he framed it as a one time amnesty for buyers to take advantage of during the
specific quarter. This move was not seen as a customer friendly initiative, but as a strategic attempt to just boost sales for Tesla within a limited time frame by leveraging the company's failure to deliver on its FST promises. And let me ask you a question. If you invested $15,000 for full self driving and they didn't deliver, would you be upset? It's kind of like buying a house and you put an investment of a couple $100,000 into this house and the real estate agent never
shows up and give you the keys. You don't have a house, you don't have full self driving, so you spent a lot of money. I know it's a little bit different, but you spent a lot of money and you never got what was promised to you. Now, critics have accused Tesla of using the FSD transfer offer as a sales tactic rather than a genuine effort to do right by
its customers. The skepticism was further fueled by the belief that, despite Musk's statements, the offer would likely reappear in the future. Sometime and in line with these suspicions, Tesla announced the future of the FSD transfer option in February 2024, available until the end of this quarter to encourage new vehicle purchases. This decision contradicts Musk's earlier claims of the offer being a one off.
Recently, Tesla expanded the FSD transfer offer to include all new Tesla vehicles, excluding the Cybertruck. This move is part of a broader strategy to stack incentives and boost sales, indicating a more flexible approach to FSD transferability than previously communicated. Tesla has also provided updates to long standing FSD adopters with older Model S and Model X vehicles, shedding light on the company's efforts to extend the latest FSD capabilities to these
legacy models. The rapid pace of Tesla's tech advancements means that newer vehicle models often receive the latest updates first, leaving older models waiting for enhancements. This has been particularly true for FSD and Autopilot features, which are primarily developed for the more recent additions to test this fleet. New computers, new architecture. They're going to get the latest software because of it. Think of your iPhone.
The latest iPhone gets the latest update before all the other phones do. Now Musk acknowledge this issue, noting that while the upcoming Hardware 4 will offer improvements, the company's current focus remains on vehicles equipped with Hardware 3. This left some early adopters of FSD, particularly those with older Model S and also Model X vehicles, feeling overlooked. They spent a lot of money on these cars and they should be
getting what they paid for. This frustration among these legacy vehicle owners stems from unmet promises regarding the vehicles potential for autonomy. Although Tesla has introduced hardware upgrade programs, they come at additional cost. With some owners are unwilling to pay. They should have full self driving. That's what they think with the current software that they were promised and the current hardware that they're using now.
The sense of exclusion among these early FSD supporters was highlighted in a post by Tesla owner Anthony Spina, who expressed concerns over the lack of updates and communication regarding the deployment of the latest FSD versions to older models. Responding to these concerns, though, Tesla Vice President Rohan Patel conveyed the company's efforts to bring full self driving capabilities to
older models. It might take a little bit of time though Explain the challenges in validating the software for different hardware configurations reassured customers of the company's commitment to resolving all of these issues. Now, Patel's communication show that there's a lot of challenges here. Software with hardware. You don't just put a new version of software with older hardware. Or you could do the Apple root and make sure that it works with a bunch of versions before it.
Now there's a small segment of Tesla's customer base that faces these challenges, and they possess different hardware from the majority of the users. He said that there's rigorous safety validation processes that each software update undergoes and they aimed to manage the expectations regarding the timelines for these updates at Tesla. Now, the follow up communication from Tesla's executive team acknowledged the patients required from legacy vehicle
owners. It showed that the company's understanding of these frustrations and also Tesla reiterated the intense efforts made to extend the latest FSD features to all eligible vehicles regardless of their hardware versions. They have to build different software for a different hardware. It's a big process. I know it is.
I'm a software developer myself. If you have to develop for one sort of code base on a certain sort of hardware, and then you switch the hardware, you might have to reroute, rewrite thousands of lines of code. Now the situation illustrates the complexities that test the faces. As a tech driven company in the auto industry, they want to rapidly innovate, but it could lead to disparities in customer experience based on vehicle age and hardware capabilities of
older vehicles. And the reintroduction of the FSD transfer program along with the ongoing efforts to update legacy vehicles shows that Tesla's actually in this. They want to help and they have their efforts towards the older vehicles straight in line with the newer vehicles, but it's going to take them a little bit longer. They aim to balance the company's forward-looking technological advancements with the needs and expectations of its diverse customer base. Hey, thank you so much for
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