Elon, Inc.

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Everybody's Business: Tariffs, TikTok, Torpedos Apr 04, 2025

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In the first episode of Bloomberg Businessweek’s new podcast Everybody’s Business, Max Chafkin and Stacey Vanek Smith try to make sense of “Liberation Day”—Donald Trump’s recent introduction of steep tariffs on imports from seemingly every corner of the globe. Will these taxes "fix" the economy like a hammer helps a headache? Or are they a tool to change an unsustainable system of global trade?

Then Businessweek editor Brad Stone joins to discuss reported recent attempts of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Oracle’s Larry Ellison to acquire TikTok. After a dramatic near-decade of politicians trying to cancel the app in the US, will an unlikely cabal of investors manage to save America’s new favorite pastime?

Also, Max shares what story he thinks deserved more attentions this week. It’s all about bats.

Everybody’s Business is a Businessweek production. It will live in the Elon, Inc. feed for a few weeks until it gets its own home starting May 16th.

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Elon Consolidates His Empire Apr 01, 2025

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On Friday night, news broke that Elon Musk was merging his company X with his company xAI—a move that this very podcast, Elon, Inc., had predicted last year. This week, a campaign for the Wisconsin Supreme Court looms very large, as Musk is again spending millions of dollars to (Democrats contend) try and tilt an election in the Republican Party’s favor. Today, we talk about what the Friday night news means for Musk’s financial world and what the Wisconsin race means for his political future. This episode features social media reporter Kurt Wager, Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull, Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Max Chafkin and host David Papadopoulos.

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What Musk’s Millions Mean for Wisconsin—and Congress Mar 25, 2025

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Elon Musk’s leverage over the Republican Party, made plain by his threats to finance primary challenges against anyone who fails to fully support Donald Trump, comes from his multibillion-dollar bank account. Recently, he’s decided to spend some of that money on behalf of the party. In Wisconsin, Musk has spent upwards of $13 million to sway a state supreme court race that has ramifications for Republican control of the US House of Representatives. To discuss this, host David Papadopoulos is joined by Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull, Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Max Chafkin and politics reporter Ted Mann. Then, later in the episode, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Steve Man joins to talk about his optimistic view on Tesla sales.

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Bonus: The View from Musk Watch Mar 20, 2025

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Elon Musk has been making news at a furious pace as he seeks to dismantle wide swaths of the federal government at Donald Trump’s behest. His behavior has certainly been enough to fill the pages of Judd Legum’s new publication, Musk Watch. The newsletter, an offshoot of Legum’s Popular Information Substack, launched on Inauguration Day. Since then, he’s used his background in law, journalism and digging through public records to keep track of the South Africa native and what he and his “Department of Government Efficiency” have been doing.

How does one keep track of someone like Musk? In this special episode of Elon, Inc., Bloomberg technology editor Sarah Frier sits down with Legum to talk about his work, the potential legal consequences for Musk and his minions and an alternate universe where Musk behaves in a less controversial fashion.

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Elon’s Brand Dilemma Mar 18, 2025

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In some ways, Elon Musk had a quiet week—if making news on a daily instead of hourly basis counts as quiet. This week on Elon, Inc., the panel— Max Chafkin, Dana Hull and Bloomberg Businessweek columnist Amanda Mull—discusses Mull’s latest story about the wrong turns Musk has taken with the Tesla brand.

And while Tesla dealerships and Supercharger stations are increasingly the focus of anti-Musk ire, the panel ponders the future of SpaceX and Starlink, especially as the latter is seeing growth among its competitors.

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The Week Everything Went Wrong Mar 11, 2025

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He may be the world’s richest person and a personal pal of Donald Trump, but even Elon Musk can have a bad week. Not only has Tesla stock continued to crater as consumers worldwide turn their back on the South Africa-born multibillionaire (some violently) but his right-wing social network X was hit by sporadic outages he blamed on hackers. Even one of his SpaceX rockets blew up, raining debris down on the Earth and endangering passenger airliners.

A big part of Musk’s waning popularity is of course tied to his starring role in gutting the US government on behalf of Trump—and even there he’s not as loved as he once was. On this episode to discuss all of this are Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Max Chafkin and Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull. Later, Bloomberg stocks reporter Esha Day talks about how the markets have been treating Musk of late.

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How Tesla Became Elon’s Collateral Damage Mar 04, 2025

Show notes

While Elon Musk is busy in Washington, his publicly traded company has been suffering. Having skyrocketed in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s election, Tesla is now in free fall and increasingly a target of protesters. Every weekend, more people have shown up at Tesla dealerships across the US with signs and chants, demonstrating against Musk’s effort to gut federal regulators and agencies while firing tens of thousands or workers with Trump’s blessing. Overseas, it might be even worse for the carmaker: Tesla sales have collapsed in Europe. Maybe betting on Trump boosting Musk’s companies wasn’t the smartest move for investors after all?

To debate that and more, David Papadopoulos is joined by Bloomberg editor Craig Trudell as well as Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull and Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Reporter Max Chafkin.

Also, after a lull, the feuds are back, and this time they’re bigger than ever.

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DOGE for Dummies Feb 25, 2025

Show notes

Personnel Management (OPM) sent out an email seemingly to all federal employees instructing them to send back a list of five things they accomplished the previous week. Over on X, Musk posted that failure to do so would be tantamount to resigning.

Confusion reigned as departments scrambled to advise employees on whether to follow the order from Donald Trump’s wealthiest assistant. This week, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Max Chafkin chats with Bloomberg social media reporter Kurt Wagner about this email and more.

Then we hear a segment of the live show last week at On Air Fest, where host David Papadopoulos was joined by Chafkin, Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull and Wired’s Makena Kelly, who has been covering politics and Musk’s new government career for some time now.

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DOGE Powers On, A Cybertruck Order Disappears, xAI Looks for Money Feb 18, 2025

Show notes

Elon Musk and his assistants have reportedly spent the past week dropping in on federal agencies ranging from the US Department of Education to the Department of Energy, the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. The result has been the potentially illegal disclosure of personal financial and health data belonging to tens of millions of Americans. Accompanying these visits has been the summary (and again potentially illegal) termination of thousands of federal workers by President Donald Trump. To walk you through these historic developments, David Papadopoulos unpacks it all with Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull. They also talk about recent protests against the multibillionaire at Tesla showrooms, a potential new round of funding for his artificial intelligence venture and the $400 million government order for armed Cybertrucks—to be paid for by American taxpayers—that disappeared from the State Department procurement website.

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Getting Inside Government Is Good Business Feb 11, 2025

Show notes

Federal judges continue to declare most of Elon Musk’s activities in Washington to be probably illegal as the question of whether his 78-year-old boss will trigger a constitutional crisis becomes more pressing. At the same time, Musk has been making news in Silicon Valley, with a report Monday that he and others want to buy OpenAI. The proposal may have been a feint, but Sam Altman did take the opportunity to make Musk look small. The OpenAI chief executive said no thanks to the $97.4 billion offer, but added he’d be happy to buy X off of Musk for a pittance by comparison. From Washington, reporter Josh Wingrove joins host David Papadopoulos and panelists Max Chafkin and Dana Hull. Plus, New York magazine tech writer John Herrman comes on to talk about how Musk’s businesses may be benefiting from his role as Donald Trump’s hatchet man.

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