Elon, Inc.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk occupied two entirely different worlds. Until they didn’t. In this episode, we learn how their paths as public figures — often informed and provoked by personal grievances — brought them together. Which snubs, perceived or not, prompted Musk to dip his toes in the politics pool?  We hear from misinformation scholars, right wing media experts, Bloomberg journalists, and p...

Elon Musk has made more headlines than usual as he travels all over Pennsylvania, working to help Donald Trump win the state in the Nov. 5 presidential election. As usual, the right-wing billionaire (Musk in this case) has been doing things his way, behaving like Trump by pushing traditional boundaries for campaigning, while also potentially violating election laws. Musk’s latest gambit, to offer...

Over the course of one weekend in July, the presidential election was turned on its head. This is when news organizations announced that Elon Musk was backing Donald Trump—and gave a real endorsement, something he said he’d never do. What does it mean that the world’s richest man has been united with not just any presidential candidate, but Trump? In this three-part series from  Elon, Inc. , we wi...

When sports, business and culture collide, there’s often a deal to be made. Join Alex Rodriguez and Bloomberg correspondent Jason Kelly as they get the inside track from corporate titans, sports champions and game-changing entrepreneurs on investing, strategy, reinvention and the ones that got away. The Deal is a Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals series that’s passionate, relaxed, insight...

In the wake of his disappointing “robotaxi” launch and Wall Street’s punishing response, Elon Musk had at least one reason to celebrate this past week: the successful deployment of a complicated rocket retrieval system. But that doesn’t mean we are done picking through the Robotaxi unveiling and how the Optimus robots weren’t really “robots.” To unpack these events, we have reporters Loren Grush a...

It was a late night for Tesla fans, investors and journalists as the much-discussed unveiling of Elon Musk’s “cybercab” (or is it “robotaxi?”) was significantly delayed from its scheduled 10 pm ET start. And while the aesthetics of the vehicle got some rave reviews, details on production of a new wave of autonomous vehicles—let alone their potential deployment—were scant.  To get a quick round-up...

This week was supposed to be all about Thursday’s big Tesla unveiling—but Elon Musk jumped (literally) on stage with his new best friend, Donald Trump, prompting all sorts of memes in a week when he may have revealed his real motivation for backing a convicted felon for president. On this episode of Elon, Inc., we preview what people can expect in a Robotaxi with Dana, Max and Bloomberg editor Cra...

As we’ve previously discussed here on Elon, Inc., the billionaire’s posts on X have grown more and more political—and right wing—over time. This week, we have Bloomberg’s Jonathan Tirone with us to discuss how Elon Musk, and his platform, have brought the once-obscure, White nationalist term “remigration” back into US politics. Then, tech reporter Kurt Wagner talks to Jack Sweeney, the young man w...

Feuds. Can’t beat ‘em, can’t stop ‘em. At Elon, Inc., we’ve long covered Elon Musk’s penchant for a public feud at the end of episodes, but today feuds take center stage. David and Max talk to Bloomberg emerging markets reporter Julia Leite, who is based in Brazil, about Musk’s evolving legal situation there. Then Dana joins to talk about the Cybertruck situation in Chechnya. We can't help ourselv...

As we chronicle every week on Elon, Inc., Elon Musk contains multitudes. He leads six companies, runs his own social-media platform and is now explicitly working to re-elect Donald Trump as president. This week, we talk about two very different kinds of Musk stories. One is about his behavior on X, and the rare tweet he took down. The other is about how his space company, SpaceX, is having a great...

Does Elon Musk consider all of his companies to be one giant company? That’s something that comes up in today’s episode as host David, Dana and Max consider a recent report on Tesla potentially giving up future revenue in exchange for access to Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI access. That brings up corporate governance issues.  And then, Dana speaks to New York Times reporter Kirsten G...

After months of back and forth, Brazil finally did what it’s been threatening to do: ban X. This comes on the heels of government complaints from Britain and elsewhere about false information thriving on Elon Musk’s embattled social media platform—some of it from Musk himself. In this episode of Elon, Inc., we dig into Brazil’s action and also talk about the Android app launch of X TV, a way to wa...

Tesla is often heralded as Elon Musk’s premiere company, the business at the foundation of all his other businesses. But as Tesla has struggled and lost market share, it’s SpaceX that keeps surging ahead of the competition. SpaceX is trying to add the first commercial spacewalk to its list of accomplishments, and is set to bail out embattled rival Boeing by retrieving astronauts stranded by its fa...

Reality TV stars are freezing their eggs on camera. Lawmakers in DC are debating federal protection for IVF. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in slick startups that market fertility treatments for all. But this rapid growth has revealed cracks in the system. Misconception , a new series from Bloomberg’s Prognosis, follows reporter Kristen V. Brown on her own intimate journey as s...

Last week, X users might have noticed a new kind of artificial intelligence-generated image proliferating: strange visions of Elon Musk next to Disney characters carrying guns, or Donald Trump in all kinds of, well, weird situations. This was what followed a new release of Musk’s Grok AI tool, which can now make images—unsurprisingly with fewer guardrails than other image-creating machines out the...

Monday night, Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Elon Musk on Musk’s social media platform, X. An unfiltered conversation between two of the most influential figures of the last decade? It was no surprise that over one million people listened concurrently in as they meandered across topics ranging from electric vehicles and immigration, to a play-by-play of the assassination attempt Trump...

As the world reacts to US Vice President Kamala Harris’s own vice-presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, our attention stays focused on Monday’s stock market selloff (though much was recovered on Tuesday). One of the big topics of conversation was, does the sudden dip represent a popping artificial intelligence bubble? And what would such a correction do to Elon Musk? On this week’s episo...

Presidential political news—and memes—continue to electrify the American public. And it seems they’ve had an effect on Elon Musk as well, seeing how the far-right GOP megadonor has been posting madly on his embattled social media platform. Among media shared by Musk—now a full-throated supporter of Donald Trump—has been a fake video of US Vice President Kamala Harris with the parody label removed....

When President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping his campaign for re-election, the news reached most people via the President's post to X. Some are calling that a win for Musk's beleaguered platform, but Musk himself seemed to be preoccupied with propping up former President Trump's campaign on X, a platform Trump himself won't even use. David and Max are joined by tech editor Sarah Frier t...

The fortunes of Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been converging for the better part of the past year. But over the past week, the union became official. On Friday, Bloomberg broke the news of a significant donation to a Trump Super-PAC. Then on Saturday, immediately after an assassination attempt on Trump’s life, Musk tweeted out his endorsement of the former president.  David, Max, and Dana are j...

Bloomberg reporters Josh Eidelson and Loren Grush recently went deep on a tangle of lawsuits orbiting SpaceX, all related to toxic workplace allegations including sexual harassment and retaliation. They join the Elon, Inc., panel to tell us what they found. Also, Dana and Max discuss a new feud developing between Musk and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman while delivering some thoughts on the fate o...

Tuesday was a big day in the world of Tesla, which reported its second-quarter sales numbers. After a disastrous start to 2024, and despite year-over-year sales being down, the numbers weren’t that bad.  David, Dana and Max talk it out with Bloomberg senior editor for autos Craig Trudell. Plus we have a lot of SpaceX and X news.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is Elon Musk so obsessed with birth rates? And what is he doing about it? Those questions are at the heart of today’s episode, as well as the Bloomberg Businessweek feature by Sophie Alexander and Dana Hull. They join David Papadopoulos to talk about their reporting (and their scoop on Musk’s twelfth known child). Plus, what’s happening at X? Falling revenues have led to a high-level shake-up,...

Last week, we wondered whether Elon Musk would get his pay package approved in a shareholder vote—and we got our answer. According to Musk and Tesla, over 70% of shareholders voted to approve his record-setting deal. But what does this mean? To help answer that question, Elon, Inc. has convened its regular panelists, in the form of Max and Dana, as well as Delaware courts reporter Jef Feeley. And...

Max and Dana recently joined Ashlee Vance as guests on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast for a special Elon Musk episode. The wide ranging discussion covered a plethora of subjects, like Starlink's influence on the amateur night sky photographer community, Elon's leadership style and whether all his efforts really is just a combined effort to take humans to Mars. Dana seems to think so. It was such a g...