Christiana, quick tip for you that I've learned. If you have a very traditional parent who hates therapy or psychology, a trick is to just switch it into Bible talk. So just say like, instead of saying like you have issues or you have childhood traumas, just be like, they're demons. They're demons from your past. They're demons you have inherited from your grandmother. When you were very poor, there was a demon of poverty that came into your mind. No, that's I promise you now.
I'm going to do it. I'm going to get out my ego. I'm being like to my dad. I just believe we have a generational spiritual class that I wish in the village, putting us and maybe you'll be like, okay, I want to hear more about this. Also, if you need any quotes, very few, very, very few Christians have read Ephesians. You get a gospel raw. People are going to be like, I don't think Jesus said that. You get them with Ephesians and they're like, probably, I don't know. This is how we commit.
You're listening to What Now. The podcast where I chat to interesting people about the conversations taking over our world. Today on the podcast, we're talking about the owner of X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. He's also the owner of SpaceX and Starlink and one of the weirdest people on the planet. Yes, Elon Musk, who has not just read-billed himself on the very platform he owns, but seems to be a true believer that the woke mind virus is going to destroy the world.
So today, instead of assuming everything, I wanted to try and figure out what is going on inside Elon Musk's brain. But also, what does Elon Musk represent? Does he represent how white men or even billionaires who are white men can convince themselves that they are the victim? And is our culture as divided and radicalized as he makes it seem? And can we have some empathy for a person like Elon Musk?
Well, joining me to discuss all of it, as always, are my good friends, writer, journalist, and professional hater, Cristiano Ivaco Medina, and stand-up comedian and human chill pool, Josh Johnson. Recording in progress. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. And we're back again. Happy Podcast Day! I'm writing a new theme song for the podcast. I hope you like it. Happy Podcast Day! They were friends and the world was ending, but then they hooked up anyway to talk about it.
Happy Podcast Day! It's a work in progress, but it works for now. Happy Podcast Day, everybody. How are you doing? Happy Podcast Day, man. Happy Podcast Day! Josh, I'm so happy to see you. It's good to see you all. I've missed you all. You haven't missed us, Josh. You are now a mega successful comedian who is gracing the pages of Vulture Magazine and getting millions of views on your YouTube.
I never used to understand grand parents until now. I show everybody your page, and I'm like, I know him! That's Josh! That's Josh! Do you like the YouTube? Well, let me show you the videos of Josh. Look at this one. This one's got millions of views. That's very kind. I haven't missed you all very much, because I feel like all the stuff is very new, but I'm very grateful that I get to talk to people who don't really like, how do I put this? Care? Don't care. They don't like getting...
You all care isn't your happy for me, but you all don't care. If I lost my mind off it, let's say I actually started going full, I don't know how to act anymore, you would be able to break me down to Earth very quickly. Hopefully. Oh, we'd let you fly, my friend. Oh, we'd let you fly.
Those are the stages of success, right? You're hitting that stage of success now where, you know, when an asteroid is entering Earth's atmosphere, one of those, like you burning up and it's getting real hot, and then the next stage is stalkers. Soon you will notice a fan at a few too many of your shows. And then the final level of fame is just losing it. Just like you running down the street naked screaming, I'm just jansing that I wish that level of fame for you, my friend.
The reason that you can't let me fly just yet is because I am not at the stage where I can afford security. This is a very valid point. Okay, not yet, Josh. Not just now. As Cristiano always says, we'll pray for you. We'll pray that you achieve bodyguard levels of fame and success. Cristiano, have you been my friend? Every time I see you, you look both more fulfilled and more tired as a mom. Oh, my God. Yeah. I think my son is trying to kill me.
I love him so much. Do you know what it is? We've had some really good friends of us. Their daughter has been spending time with us. So there's like the juxtaposition between this beautifully well-behaved girl who I'm like your dream child. And my son knew like yesterday I was like, I need to put an air tag in his afro. I don't know if it's legal. But I'm like, I need to like just braid it down in there.
You should actually. So I know where he is. Then then I was like, but the radiation, you know, I'm kind of a crunchy mom. I do vaccinate, but I'm crunchy. And so I'm like, he's just trying to kill me. I love him so much. But it's just like raising a boy as our friend Joe O'Pio told me, do you have a nuclear weapon in your womb? Cristiano, do not take your eyes off the ball. Yeah, but like as Josh says, as Josh says, as long as you don't raise a killer, then you're doing well.
Oh, yeah. Like what was what was what was, did you ever do anything crazy as a kid? We're like, what's like the, the naughtiest thing Josh Johnson did become a comedian. That's probably the worst thing you did. I broke your mom's now. You're like, I want to be a comedian. Oh, that's, that's actually actually Christy. I that is it because everyone thought was gonna be an engineer.
Oh, damn, Josh. You really were a good kid. This is, okay, this is how I know you were a good kid is that when I told my mom that I was a comedian, she breathed a sigh of relief and she was like, thank God, I thought you were going to be a drug dealer. She didn't even know what a comedian was, but it's not even like there was comedy and stuff. There wasn't like stand up comedy in that way. And she was like, thank God.
And I said, do you even know what a comedian is? She's like, it doesn't matter, my love. She said, it doesn't matter, baby. I thought you were going to be, I thought you were going to live a life of crime. I'm so grateful. God has blessed me. This is how different our lives were. I would have had, I would have had the airtack. But I'm, I'm really excited for today's episode because it's funny enough talking about hot messes, Christiana.
There's one question. This has been like stuck in my mind. And I think it's, it's only, it's only become amplified over the past week. And it's been, what has happened to Elon Musk? And before you, before you stop listening, before I see your face, I see already you're like, why are we talking about Elon Musk? Like, I know Elon Musk is Elon Musk. And I know people have sort of gotten used to him as being this polarizing figure and this.
But like, what has happened to Elon Musk? Have you seen his, his posts online these days? Like, if you told me Elon Musk's Twitter was hacked by a megabot from, I don't know, Russia or whatever, I would believe you. Like, there's some people who are Republican trolls or they might not even be Republican by the way. They're not even conservative. They racist. They're sexist. They were whatever they are. They're whatever they are.
But those people know that they're trolling, right? Elon Musk posts that stuff. He reposted. And he says it like in a real way. He's like, yeah, this is true. The woke mind virus is coming for us. No joke, no humor. I know some people might think, well, why, why are you talking about Elon Musk? Why now?
Well, I think because over the past few weeks, we've seen Elon Musk and his world escalate to a point that I think we can sort of use either as a cautionary tale or just as a case study to try and understand many other men like him. Who don't have the billions for us to pay attention to them? Because if you're a billionaire and you act crazy, people pay attention.
If you, if you're just going crazy in a corner in the middle of America somewhere or in England or wherever these guys are in the world, no one really pays attention until there's like a riot or people are getting punched in the street or people are getting shot at an event. And when a billionaire goes off, whatever they choose to buy, whatever they choose, whatever influence they choose to use, that has ripple effects that are much wider than like your eye getting radicalized.
Do you I mean like if you if I get radicalized right now, I think I could convince three people. I think it's me and three other people going to go wild in the streets. But someone like Elon, we've seen, you know, we've seen what can happen. I mean, the influence. The most recent story for me, for those who haven't seen it, I'll try and summit up real quick. But the most recent story actually comes out of Brazil, like the dramas coming from Brazil.
What happened was, you know, Brazilian authorities reached out to Elon Musk and Twitter really and they essentially it's not like they tweeted him like,
Yeah, Elon, can we ask a question? No, what happened was Brazilian authorities reached out to Twitter and they said, Hey, listen, there are a few accounts on Twitter that we need to shut down because they're like, you know, they're spouting hate speech and they're sort of like attacking people, etc. They were like, these people are persona non grata and they're going against Brazil's laws and what we think people should or shouldn't be saying.
Elon then turned around and was like, I'm not going to block these accounts because Twitter is all about free speech. And he's like, anyone can say whatever they want on Twitter, as long as not about me. And then he said, he's not shutting the accounts down. Brazil, Brazil's Supreme Court came back and was like, Hey, we'll shut Twitter down. And then he's like, fine, shut it down. And now while we recording this at least, Twitter is shut down in Brazil.
So I was looking at the story and I was going, when you are willing to shut down a part of your business that has 20 million users and you've lost like, you know, whatever 80% or whatever it is of the advertising. I then go like, man, you know, I think he like believes this shit now.
Yeah, yeah, I was like, he's gone full on in here to his ego, like whatever this persona is that he's donning, he's owning it completely in a way I don't think we've seen before because now he's willing to lose money.
And which billionaire wants to lose money? But yeah, okay, but here's the thing is it ego or for me, it seems more like somebody who believes in a cult or like in an extreme religion or because those people don't care about money, you know, so I remember the first time Elon tweeted about like the woke mind virus. But now I've reread all of those tweets and I realized that Elon actually believes that there is a virus that has infected people all over the world and it's making them woke.
And because of that, people don't have like critical thought and he's on like a quest to save these people. And he talks about it like there's actually a person working in a lab in Wuhan studying the coronavirus and like woke mind virus. And for help me understand, woke mind virus for him is like trans rights, diversity and inclusion. Yes, yeah, yeah.
And we're making choices about their bodies like super, because I know he has a bunch of kids to counter at the woke mind virus, right? He does because I'm just trying to understand the philosophy if that makes sense. And maybe then I can I don't want to have empathy for Elon Musk because I don't think billionaires need empathy. Billionaires are people too. Billionaires are people too, but like they have feelings just like the rest of us.
They have billions more feelings than the rest of us in fact, a billion more feelings than we have that he's kind of like a cypher for like white men that get radical. You know, I won't even say white men because we live in an Andrew tape world and I yeah, Andrew tape fans love Elon too. So it's just like young men between a certain age who are radicalized and afraid of wokeness, the woke mind virus, but I don't understand how someone like Elon gets infected.
Yeah, but that that so maybe that doesn't want to get infected like help me help me get that. Okay, so this is how I understand the woke mind virus. I've been delving into that world, which Josh like he just just like casually strolls through this world all the time by the way. So we're going to rely on you Josh. Do you like take strolls through like the most poisonous parts of the internet and then just come out smiling. No, no, no, no, this is really what Josh does.
So okay, the way I understand the woke mind viruses this people go the woke mind virus to them is a bunch of people who are no longer able to look at the world logically and have become super soft and are all about inclusion and caring about other people, but at the expense of the planet and of people. And they sort of like think that women are superior to men and they think that up is down and down is up and there's no gender and.
You haven't said anything wrong yet. I'm like women better the man you had me back. So you have the woke mind virus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, okay, but Josh, do you do you understand it differently? Yeah, because this is how this is what I see it as. So it is just a sort of world view that a lot of these guys don't see themselves in. And so that's very scary.
Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of it is a is literally like one of the reasons that there's a whole talk about how the woke mind virus like thought leadership is a direct pipeline of like early to late stage divorce dad. So it's like I'm not saying people actually say this or believe it, but this is how it feels right is that no one really needs a dad.
So so then if you are a man as part of a family unit and then your wife divorces you and the kids live with her, there is this notion socially that like you are the least important component of that family unit. So then you are sort of off in the world by yourself. This is how like guys get redpilled is how a lot of guys like just fall into like these these rabbit holes right.
Well, with the woke mind virus sort of thing, it kind of it kind of tells you that a lot of your problems are not necessarily your own personal failings or anything that you can really do. It's more that there are like cultural movements and social ideas that are pushing your family away from you. So it's like any other thing where you could either take responsibility for yourself or be like there's a whole movement working against me.
You know what I mean? It's like you okay, okay, you could go to therapy or you could develop a stronger relationship with your children by trying to understand them or you could be like you all are sick and I'm the only one that's well. Got it. That's helpful. Okay, but but I doubt we're going to get to empathy at any point in this conversation. I want to I want to know in this one, I honestly don't know with you for Elon Musk, but okay, two things, Josh, one.
Firstly, maybe this is just me digging too deep. I don't understand how these guys have missed what the red pill was about. Like I find that ironic that all these people are talking about taking the red pill and they're like I've been red pill I see the truth.
And the red pill in the matrix was literally an allegory for being trans. So first of all, I think it's very funny that people who are anti trans use like the you know, the movie metaphor, you know, that the wakowski is created to talk about being trans. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is I would get it if it wasn't Elon Musk.
Everything you said, divorce dad economically, no job, no, that this man is a billionaire. So I want to know what is it in his brain that connects him to somebody who doesn't have a job, who doesn't have prospects, who feels angry and only important when they're on the internet hidden behind their handle.
Can I be a shit psychologist like Trevor, you're somebody that's in tamed like a lot of success, right? But when you look in the mirror, you're still by the grace of God, shout out to anti Patricia for the frayers, but when you look in the mirror, there's a part of you that's still like a young boy from South Africa, like, like the fame, the money and all of that, like who you are at your core, sorry, in a child, like the success doesn't change that who you are fundamentally, right?
So my argument with someone like Elon is that he's like a lot of people who do tech is like kind of a fear based job in a way like they're in the future because they think there's so much wrong with the president. And I don't think Elon's someone that's done the work to be like, I'm going to deal with the fears I have as a young white male in the world, because I do think their fears are valid.
I think we we dismiss them were like, oh, you're a white man, you don't have any problems, but still a human, right? He hasn't dealt with any of that stuff. So when he looks in the mirror, he doesn't necessarily see this like billionaire Titan, he's still like a scared young man running from whatever he's running from. That's why I think he's vulnerable to it. But Josh, I'd love to hear.
So I think outside of money, one of the biggest issues is that you look at in the political sphere, you take, take us out of that for one second. Elon's whole world view is is to to a certain degree what Christiana is saying. He lives all of his sort of world view and all of his perspective through that fear basis. It's one of the reasons he wants to like go to Mars because he's like guys as planets dying. It's one of the reasons he's so scared of AI until he can catch up to AI himself.
And the AI example that I just gave is taking it back to the politics for a second, you know, he seems like someone who has been fairly and we can talk, you know, we can obviously talk about what that spectrum is for him, but fairly conservative, you know, throughout the years and just maybe milder.
But conservatives, one of the one of the main ways that they address and mitigate their fears through control, right. So so they're afraid of something they're like we have to control it if they're afraid of another nation.
Let's beef up the military, whatever. And so you see him trying to control speech because he's afraid of the loss of quote unquote free speech. And so I think that a lot of his obsession with controlling and having a say in overall discourse and in cultural moments is because he is afraid of this same thing.
And a lot of what I was describing before with that sort of divorce dad to like radicalize pipeline, you can't buy this stuff. Okay, how much money you have you can't buy relationship with your kid. Okay, okay, this is this is this is interesting as an idea because you know when you when you plot Elon Musk's journey out, you know, I'll never say he was liberal. Please don't get me wrong.
But he at least presented a more neutral tone, you know, Elon would would commonly he'd commonly post he'd say he'd say like you know guys we got to focus on both sides. I think both sides of great great ideas. And even if you look at everything he created right he everything Elon made was for the bet like for the greater good for the environment for I remember a time when Tesla owners were seen as like people would call them gay, for instance, on the internet.
They'd be like, are you driving around in your gay electric car super progressive car. Yeah, it's like you got these and everyone in California had the think of all the places that bought Teslas first. It was like California and Norway, you know what I mean? This is where like Teslas were everything and then people in in like the red parts of America and conservative parts of the world were like I'll never drive that piece of trash.
I'm not going to have a self driving car might drive me to communism and then now now the cyber truck has become the symbol for like testosterone.
You know, you buy the cyber truck and a testosterone supplement comes free type thing is like yeah I read meat raw and and I don't know I. I'm actually intrigued I feel like you two are finding more empathy because there was a part of me that thought Elon was doing all of this because he saw it as a true business move you know like Elon realized if I can get Trump's base they don't question they they flip and flop as long as they with Trump they'll they'll stay on that course.
And so part of me thought is this guy thinking to himself if I can get these people to like my products then I'll always have a user base and it seems like both of you are saying no you think he's actually like scared in real life. I I don't think I I dug deep enough into this initially. But now both of you have made me wonder if Elon has felt a personal either betrayal or a personal seismic shift in his life because he has a trans child.
I think it goes before that and this is me being on my psychology do it. I think Elon had a child that died very young I think they were like six seven weeks old don't I can't I make don't quote me I may be wrong in the dates and I think that when you being around people who have lost children re long someone has miscarriages there's nothing that makes you feel more powerless.
Then something that you thought was going to be permanent being ripped away from you premature and after he had and it was a son that he lost and then after that they did IVF and had twins I think one of the twins now is a trans girl and I think he is still trying to recover from that wound of losing a child and has never owned to own up to it and he wants sons I think that he's like a real patriot. And there's between that loss and now having a son that he discovered is not a son.
And it's going I mean like I'm a trans girl it split his brain in half and rather than deal with that grief because you read the testimony is a lot of parents of trans children and they're like it is a real grieving process right like you're losing one child and getting and you're gaining another and he is still in the loss and he is refusing to see what he's gained and he needs somebody to blame and it's not going to be a child.
And it's very different you can't blame someone for seeds if you lose a child very early you may blame yourself but you know that's not rational.
I think now having this trans child he's like I can blame Twitter so I'm going to buy that thing because they got all these bad ideas from Twitter and rather than being like let me just sit in the grief of like okay yeah I've lost the son but I've gained a daughter and he's not able to compute that and he's just doing what a lot of parents do when they you know find out they have a trans child and they do not have a child.
And they just look away and they rejected entirely that's how and I also do think he's a bigger but I do think there's like an emotional complexity of any parent you raise one thing and if that child turns around to you and says like if Obey came to me I was like I don't believe my name is Obey I'd be a fanny because I'm like Obey is a great name.
That's a form of. But then like you know a child comes in and says I'm a different gender. I thought about how would I handle that and I'm someone that's very progressive and I'd be like okay I'm supporting you 100% but there is a morning period and I don't think he's like I don't want to say sophisticated and I think he's just still in his very primal emotions of a dad and being like no you're supposed to be my son and I think anyone no matter your politics can kind of empathize with that even if we don't empathize with his like his best.
I'm just like I'm not going to be a child with his like his behavior afterwards which I think has been really disgusting. I'm curious. I'm curious. When you think about the parent thing before we jump into that though can I just say we have reached empathy for Elon Musk. You like at the beginning of this conversation. I think as a parent no no I mean he is so I have empathy of like the ego death that you need to experience as a parent.
He hasn't had the ego death he's just been like fuck you. I'm not going to identify. I'm not going to recognize your gender in the way I should. I think it's bad parenting which I don't have empathy for. Look I'm not I'm not labeling you as a fan or anything. I'm just saying Josh you are my witness and so is everybody listening to this. Beginning of the conversation Christiana was like there is nothing that will give me empathy for this man.
And now you saying that I'm not even joking obviously I'm teasing but yeah there's a part of me that now goes like out like oh man. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. We're talking about Elon Musk but I feel like because he is somebody who A is in a position to ascend to a high level of power. Trump has pretty much said if he wins he's going to put Elon Musk in charge of I don't even know what they call it optimizing the government.
Yeah. Yeah. Governments aren't supposed to be like that's another topic for another day but but I go okay if Elon is going to ascend to that position. And if the world is full of men who are experiencing the same feeling is there a way where we can figure out what the thing is. Yeah. You know I get what you yeah you know it's really funny because when we talk about like powerful white men who feel powerless which I think describes Elon and Trump.
And you know a lot of men who've been radicalized. People like myself generally say well white men still have the power which is true on like an objective factual level but we all know there's like a cultural feeling of change. Whereas it's like the world we are heading towards their future is not guaranteed in a way it was 50 years ago.
I don't know you know what's funny is I don't agree with that so I think the one thing the only thing that like powerful white men have lost in the in the grand scheme of things. Is their success and power being tied to their popularity that used to be part and parcel. You know in a way in a way we lived in a world where if you were the king then people clapped for you if you were the if you were the CEO of a company people loaded you and people and now in a way the one thing that they've lost.
It's just like the general swag on the street of someone being like yeah I don't think you cool I think you look funny when you stand on the back of your yard you look like the guy from do. My feeling is sure like they're not I disagree with the cool thing because I think for the last 50 years especially like in the American pop cultural imagination call has been a black man who plays athletics like black power though.
Different I'm like cool soft power and all different thing but I think what they're not used to is the scrutiny that comes with the job now. I think there's a name for this syndrome I forget what it's called like it's it's a thing that happens in society but. Often time we were in the virus no you as well.
There'll be a thing that happens where people will assume your level of success and knowledge based on previous successes and knowledge is it's the opposite of imposter syndrome it's like right right but basically we go because Elon Musk is a billionaire he must know more about ethics then we do but a lot of people don't seem to realize.
How hard it is to lose money when you are ability like it's very difficult Donald Trump is a perfect example that man has done everything that you can do to lose all your money and he somehow keeps bouncing back just because he has it it's it's
a point that I cannot I need to see this man broke before I die because how do you own a casino and lose money that's like back take back in the day right imagine back in the day if a plantation owner had to shut his farm down and goes you know this economy no no the labor is
no man and so that what gets me about so to your point Trevor yes but also to Christian point we used to equate we in the 90s and the early 2000s really equated large sums of money with the genius like you'll you'll see a lot of people in old interviews and everything be like no 재받은 짓 팬들의 when it comes to many things. You can be a tech genius, but be completely inept at understanding
society and sociology and how humans actually work and function. But here's you know who I blame, I blame maybe I think Obama has a lot to I think Obama should be blamed for a lot of this actually. Tell me more. I think I think Barack Obama didn't just take the idea of who the president of the most powerful nation should be. He also imbued within it a level of coolness
that nobody could achieve. You know maybe like more country concerts and maybe like I don't know I think Obama like sort of he did what do they call it in baseball when you when you like round the plates and you do a little dance and you know when they go like that's excessive celebrating. Oh, that's in the NFL. I don't know which sports it is. Well, the point is I blame what you mean. I see what you mean Trevor, but he was just being black. I like I can't I can't stress
just enough. This dude this dude already did well to not drop an inward on Mitch McConnell the entire eight years that he was in office. I don't think we could go back and and like scrutinize later because I think that to a certain degree nothing he ever did was going to be enough. There was there was actually no there was no tight rope that he could walk tight enough to like navigate
that. I think we can I think everyone is familiar with code switching and I think I think I think Barack Obama stunt a little a little too hard in the final position of power and I think people like Elon Musk looked at him and they were like what has my world become and who am I in in this in this future world. The president the president was like that last position. Yeah black black men were always cool black people were cool. Yeah, in music they'd take in sport, but there was one
place. One place that I must stress didn't involve entertaining people. And that's a really important one is that like you didn't know. You're drawing a straight line from 2008. Yes Obama becoming president. Yes. And imbuing this very official office with some call. I'm trying to follow your argument here. Yeah. Yeah. And then up into all the things that happened whether it was black lies, my army to trans inclusivity like all the social movements that happen in that time. Yes.
Yes. And then we come to present day Elon Musk who has seen how Trump is ascended to power as a react Trump also being a reaction to Obama. I'm just trying to track it all now. Because I'm trying to say is that Trevor's blaming a black man for all of this. And then what I'm what I'm seeing is I'm saying we must do you think he'll know he's do you think he's aware of the forces he's reacting to because we're trying to say that this guy is fairly intelligent.
That's because you're intelligent doesn't you're aware you know. So you think he doesn't even know that like I am so afraid of not just black male power but feminine power and trans power that I'm willing to like become a full on right wing bigger. I'm not even I'm not even like convinced. I'm just trying to find the other thing because and I know it seems like I'm just trying to turn it on its head but I'm not the the way Elon talks about like a woke mind virus like he's he's
almost got like a like a broke mind virus. In fact, in fact, Kristiana, I'm I'm even going beyond this. I'm not just going I'm I'm going to take a brave step and I'm going to ask the question here. I'm going to say not oh, but I'm not even just saying Obama. I'm asking this question.
Is it possible that the left has radicalized white men? And I know this is a controversial question to ask but I'm going to ask it because we have to discuss these things because we cannot act like these people are not getting radicalized and I would like to know why. Okay, to to go back just to step because I actually don't everyone knows I'm an Obama hater if you know me in life, you know, I'm not I think he's a gorgeous man and I'm happy he's
rich because I love when black women have rich husbands. That's the most I really want to hear every single word that you have to say, Chris, but that is I think pinnacle. This is going to go down as a benchmark in my life. Well, the most hate or things a person could say because you literally say I hate him, but I'm so glad that his wife is black and he's rich because you know, that's black women. We don't always win when it comes, you know, I'm at anyway, I'm going to behave. I'm
not trying to get cancelled. I'm coming I'm coming back. I'm coming back. So as an as the resident Obama hater, I actually don't find him that progressive. I don't think he's like bar his identity, there's nothing like revolutionary and radical about him. So I struggle with the notion, if we are tying the left to Obama, that is hard for me because I think he's just a centrist.
Here's what I'm saying, just to answer that point. Think about how many black people were dating a white person, were hanging out with white people, just wanted to eat food in a white restaurant. Their policies, we didn't even really know, does that make sense? Just their existence and their presence in that space made them radical. And so I'm saying I don't disagree with you in terms of how radical Barack Obama was, but I do think him occupying that office was a radical act for many
people. Yeah, it's a radical symbol. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a radical symbol. I so and I want to not conflate my issue with leftist because I think like this, their default position is not to attain power, it's just a critique. They just want to be like, oh, you're this, I'm making you feel bad. Oh, that's not enough. I hate this person. I hate that person. And then okay, what's your solution? We're not here to talk about solution.
We're here to burn it all down. You know, there's a foolish. So it's just like, and that type of very annoying person being around them all the time can push a certain type of person to the right. Yeah, I believe that was always in them, right? Because like, I'm somebody that like on the hierarchy, I'm like at the bottom, I'm like, foreign and black, I'm a woman, I look very African. But I'm not like, I hate white people. I'm like, I take them by a case by case basis.
Individual applications, please. Yeah, no, because it's just like that hate is not in me. So when when we say this argument of like sure, the leftist can be really annoying and hectoring and lack empathy for the point and quote the other side. But that doesn't justify you then being like, Oh, I'm going to keep these not see accounts up. I think that there was always a part of you that was quite dark. And now you have an excuse. We have a reason we can be like,
Oh, it's because of the left that we're getting these elons. And I'm like, no, these were kind of broken young men and boys before the left even said or did anything. That's kind of my position on it. So he has one counterpoint I have to this. I do wonder sometimes if we've created this world of buffet politics that has sort of meant that people who like one aspect of certain politic find themselves with a group that they may not necessarily agree with initially, but then
slowly come to agree with on everything. And I think one of these spaces is humor. You know, it's funny. Like we're saying this joking here. We go, I don't want to get canceled. But there's also like a true element, you know, beneath that, right? I've definitely noticed that when Elon really started switching over at least publicly, it's when he would tell jokes online. He told he would like, he would post jokes a lot of time. They were retweets. It's not like he was
writing any comedic genius, but he would retweet something that he thought was funny. It was lured. It was sexist. It was racist or whatever it was. It might still be funny, by the way, but it was it was those things. And the response that he got from, let's say, left-wing media and all of it was always Elon, how could you post this? How could you do so? And people were like, ah, Elon, you need to be canceled. And I noticed a lot of guys on the right were like, yeah,
that's what we need. A powerful CEO who's not afraid to tell a few jokes. And while I would never say that this is the only lever, I do think some of the sway that the right has gotten has come from them successfully co-opting comedy. Like, I don't know about you, Josh, but when I when I started comedy, comedy was like the bastion of the left and it was like a progressive thing, you know, like right-wing people used to complain about comedy. And then now they're the ones going,
we believe in humor. We, now whether it's true or not, it's almost irrelevant. But they go like, yeah, come on, you can't take a joke. Come on. Yeah, I know it's racist, but it was just a joke. Can't you? And I look at how many people have sort of gone down that path, right? It wasn't about policies, it wasn't about ideas. It really just became about, are you allowed to be, quote unquote, yourself and be welcomed by people. And I feel like that part of the journey also makes Elon become the
Elon that we know today. Yeah, I think that the same way that we, you know, we were having that quick discussion earlier about how we used to tie someone's money to their level of genius. I think we also used to tie subversiveness with what had real power. Because for a long time up
until recently, what had real power and what had social sway were like one in the same. So when you talk about comedy and you talked about being subversive, it was subversive to be a comedian and talk about things like desegregation or gay rights because those things, those people didn't have those things. But now liberals and or leftists have the sway culturally, but they're still a huge conservative power going on. So that's why now you see Elon, you see Maga, you see Black Lives Matter,
you see liberals all thinking that they're taking the side of the resistance. Like I don't know if you saw the tweet that Elon, he like just tweeted this meme that had already been going around. You watch the Hunger Games inside with the resistance, you watch Star Wars inside with the resistance. So that thing, right? He really thinks that somehow as a billionaire who's supporting
another business, he's the resistance. So that's where you see the split and that's why you see him thinking he's like the only guy that can save the world because he's the only one still paying
attention and like can cut through all the noise and everything. It's like it's like that exact thinking and I think that's why the humor was a tell because he was like, well now being subversive in humor is to be sometimes a little bit more conservative because these are the jokes now that you don't say and the jokes that you don't say are what the edge lore comics were always trying to be.
It's just edge or just to be more left leaning. It's interesting again to your point, they go like we are the resistance in Star Wars and I'm like, once again, if you watch the movie, like the Jedi and all of their allies are super diverse, they all have different skin colors, different types of aliens, different vibes. The Jedi have ponytails, earrings and they wear dresses. You know what I mean? It's like it's weird that they would be like, yeah, that's us. I don't know, maybe we watch movies
differently. We'll be right back after this. Here's a question. Maybe it's just me. I don't feel like the world is as too cited as it was a while ago. I also don't feel like the world is as extreme. I know this may be an unpopular opinion. When Elon's talking about the woke mind virus, it feels like Elon Musk is fighting a battle that no longer exists and sometimes I even feel like his echo chamber. He bought Twitter but then he's a victim to how Twitter makes people
think the world is actually happening. As my brother always says, whenever you think Twitter is real, go touch gross. Do you think it's as like war of the worlds as Elon thinks it is? No, not at all. I think that when you talk about woke and how woke has become a catch-all for everything, I think that railing against it is going to lose market share in the economy of ideas.
I hear you. It's going to become less populism. It's going to become less popular. I do think that when the social attitudes towards him finally shift to apathy because right now he's a very controversial figure. Then the half life of controversial figures is that nobody cares. I think that when nobody cares, that's when the time for any potential healing or understanding can actually start. Then Elon can always shift, but I think this woke thing, you see people in America, the most divided
country that's not having a civil war right now. You see politicians on the Republican side on lower-ticket races losing because they're running on like, I'm going to stop the woke school system or whatever people are like. It's played out. No, I don't care. It's played out. Okay, but maybe to bring it all back around. Something that is difficult to accept or even deal with is whether we agree with it or not. Elon Musk is a very public and powerful example
of a person who has been indoctrinated and maybe even hurt. He's been wounded by the world in some ways and he's acting that out. Then it makes me think about how much more apparent or how much deeper is that wound when it's happening to somebody who literally wields no power in their world. Sees no future for themselves. Does not understand how to get out of a hole that they were told they're not supposed to be in. Does not know how to attain the success that they were told should
be theirs because of how they look. I didn't think I would get you to this feeling. I kid that rejects them. You have to be such an asshole to not care if your kids go no contact. Your kid goes online and says, these are all the reasons why I think my dad is an idiot and I disagree with him. That to me, nothing would break me more than my children coming out being like,
you're a bad parent. That's a wound that whether he wants to deal with it or not, no one can overcome that, especially if you think of a man who's like super powerless, a divorced dad, seizes kid every other weekend and the kids like, I actually don't want to see you anymore. Yeah, I mean, I've never heard of this in history but I think this is just my pitch. This is me getting in my psychology just for a quick second. I think maybe Elon even had those extra kids at her.
Huh, that's interesting because here's the thing. Okay, let's say you walk in a room and the rooms got 12 people in it and two of them hate you. That's an unsettling percentage. But if you add a hundred more people to the room and two of them still are the only two that hate you, now I can feel a little bit better about myself. Most of people in this room like me. Yeah, but Josh, damn, damn, I'm by the way, can I just say I know that neither of you are qualified,
but I would pay for all your therapy. Your guy is, your psychoanalysis is way more exciting than most people keep. This is great. This is great. Don't pay for my therapy. Don't pay for me. Now I'm worried about you, Trevor, and your current therapist is that you listen to me and Josh, you're like, no, I need to excite them. I'm saying this is so exciting. No, my therapy is bad. I believe in revenge. Well, Josh, maybe I should see you because I believe in revenge.
Wait for a while. You were going to say you were going to say I do think where he has been radicalized is that part of the internet that is into the great replacement theory and like the white supremacist arguments that people having the children are all the brown people and the immigrants and the poor people. And there's this kind of tech libertarian movement which says us superior specimens, we should be having more children. And I do believe Elon, he has been radicalized
into that real right wing kind of trad wifey. We touched on it a couple of weeks ago, agenda, being like, we need more good white children. And I, you know, I think that's a bit weird. So is he a lost cause? What do we do? Like, because I mean, I don't think we can give Elon a hug at this point. I have a pitch. I have a pitch since you guys have seen kind of like my pop psychology skills for like $100,000 an hour, I would gladly sit with Elon and just try and work
through his stuff and see if he's a lost cause. The issue is that he's got so much money, power, and influence that he's kind of unchecked. And that's what scares me about him. It's the kind of thing. Yeah, I wish, I wish that the regulation was like, you shouldn't actually be able to buy Twitter cause now you own this huge publishing platform. And what scares me about Elon, he's like, he's relatively young. He's still got like 30 years of craziness in him, at least where he's lucid.
So I think it gets scarier from here. Josh, you got any pitches? Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's going to, it's going to be tough to help. My fear though is that we've talked about Twitter and we've talked about his overall like spat with Brazil. But we aren't talking about the satellites. We're not talking about the fact that this dude can like control so much of the internet. Like there's, there's just whole people who have access to the internet because he gives it to him. That's too
much power. So I said all that to say that I think I knew he was too far gone with this Brazil thing because that's a government. And if I even get a letter from the IRS, I get a little nervous. I don't even know, they could be giving me money. I never know what it is. But as I'm opening the letter, I'm like, damn, I'm thinking about everything I ever bought this year. Oh, man. I, yeah, that's a, that's a, it's a sobering and terrifying point because I don't think
you, I don't think either of you are wrong in many ways. I think, okay, so my, my pitch is this. We need Elon to meet with more people who don't look like him. I think that would help. But I think in the world of like billionaires and Silicon Valley, they probably aren't that many black people or people of color in general. So I think the solution Josh is, we just get you as many views on YouTube as possible. We get you to that crazy level. I know it's risky, Josh, but you've got
to take this for the team. We get you, we get you up to like beyond Mr. Beast levels. And then you, when you have that money, you'll be in the room with Elon Musk. And then you, you just, you do your Josh thing, you know, you're very, you're very disarming. You just slowly do your Josh thing on him. He'll be like, man, you know, I don't know how I feel about them, but Josh, he's a pretty good guy. And then slowly, slowly, you just like, you just warm him up. I feel like a warm
up. I'd rather be like, y'all, I'm so sorry. I think I made it way worse. No, but I, I, yeah, look, I'm saying this half joking, but it's, it's true. I think without exposure, it is very unlikely that he'll change because who in his world would nudge him? Nobody. All right. This is our mission, everybody. So this is your mission, Trevor. You got to get the
road with you think you both South African. Yeah, exactly. You think that a South African from not Elon's side of the road is going to shape his view on the like I, I think I'm the worst person for this mission. No, I'm bringing him. I'm, I'm bringing him. I'm virus. Doll. I had it. And now I'm cured. Oh, man, from one South African to another Elon, I had it. And now I'm cured. I can, I can feel the change Elon and I'm on your side. But let's watch menace to society first
before we, before we make it a decision. What now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sonaziamine and Jody Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackel. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannah Sprout. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now. This is what now. So this has been what now. And thanks, thanks
for listening everybody. Yeah, I hope you, I hope you really, really enjoyed it.