0:00

Hi.

0:05

I'm Erica Pandey, host of

0:07

this season of how it happened. We

0:10

waited a bit to drop our last episode as

0:12

we've been watching and reporting on

0:14

Elon Musk's leadership of Twitter.

0:17

A few months in, a narrative has

0:19

started to emerge. It's

0:22

been tumultuous. Both

0:25

Musk critics and supporters

0:27

have found plenty of reasons to

0:29

root against him and to cheer him on.

0:32

And as we watched Musk's takeover

0:34

play out, it seemed to mark a clear

0:37

unmistakable milestone in his career.

0:40

Axeos tech managing editor Scott Rosenberg

0:43

has watched Musk's ascent since the nineteen

0:45

nineties.

0:46

I think someone like Elon Musk

0:49

has had so many victories

0:51

in his career that

0:54

he sort of reaches the point of feeling

0:57

invulnerable Right? Like, he can't

0:59

lose. And this is the

1:01

logic of every sort

1:03

of conquering emperor. Right?

1:05

You just keep adding provinces

1:08

to your empire. Elon Musk

1:11

makes companies. That's what he does.

1:14

But every empire reaches a

1:16

tipping point. It grows so

1:18

large that it becomes unruly. Unrulable

1:21

even. It's possible that Musk's

1:24

takeover of Twitter could be that

1:26

point for him. It's

1:29

not just the chaos Musk's reign has brought

1:31

to Twitter. Tesla's

1:33

stock is falling. His biotech

1:36

company, NuroLink, is reportedly under

1:38

federal investigation. And

1:40

SpaceX is facing a complaint from former

1:42

employees filed with the National Labor

1:44

Relief board. No

1:47

one can put out multiple fires

1:49

at once. Musk, a

1:52

CEO times over, likes

1:54

to run his companies himself. And

1:57

right now, each one is facing a unique

1:59

set of challenges. There's

2:03

this kind of chaos

2:05

and indecision that's communicated,

2:07

which actually undercuts the

2:10

vision of Elon Musk as

2:12

this superhero who can

2:15

work miracles. Because instead what we're seeing

2:17

is a kind of slow motion train

2:19

wreck a lot of the time. Across

2:24

this season, we've charted the rise

2:26

of Elon Musk, Business Titan

2:28

and Tech Mogul. We've examined

2:30

his tolerance for risk. His

2:32

impulsive behavior online, and

2:35

the devoted fan base he's cultivated as

2:37

his conquered industry after industry.

2:40

From online payments to electric

2:42

vehicles to space and biotech.

2:45

In this episode, we'll go deeper

2:47

on Musk first months at Twitter.

2:49

He's disrupted Twitter as we knew it,

2:52

and it remains to be seen if it's for better

2:54

or for worse. And that depends

2:56

on who you ask. At the

2:58

same time, his actions have called into

3:01

question his leadership at the rest of

3:03

his companies. There's

3:05

always been a debate about how to view

3:07

Musk, his achievements, and

3:10

his behavior. It's never been

3:12

louder than it is right now.

3:15

For Maxios, this is

3:17

how it happened. Elon Musk

3:20

versus Twitter. Part five.

3:22

Cracks in the empire. stepped

3:33

into the role of Twitter CEO with a

3:35

must do list. He said

3:37

he wanted to change how Twitter handled content

3:39

moderation. He said he wanted to

3:41

change how the platform makes money, and

3:43

he made a bet on subscriptions. And

3:46

he wanted to add new features to Twitter to

3:48

dramatically expand the platform's role

3:50

in our lives. That was

3:52

a long list to walk in the door with,

3:54

and it's only become longer because

3:56

Musk introduced new problems to

3:58

Twitter himself. From

4:01

the jump, there were Twitter users

4:03

political figures and fellow Silicon

4:05

Valley Titans who applauded Musk's

4:07

fearlessness in laying off staff

4:10

and his relaxed boundaries on free speech.

4:12

Which included letting people previously

4:14

banned for hate speech back onto Twitter.

4:17

We reached out to Musk and his companies

4:19

for comment, and they did not

4:21

respond. As Musk

4:23

settled into his new job in November, Netflix

4:26

CEO Reid Hastings gave an interview

4:28

at the New York Times deal book

4:29

conference. In that interview,

4:32

He called Musk. The bravest

4:34

most creative person on the planet. I

4:36

mean, you know, what he's done in multiple

4:38

areas is phenomenal. You

4:40

know, his style is different than, like,

4:42

I'm trying to be, like, a really steady, respectable

4:45

leader. You know, he doesn't care.

4:47

But many of us at Axios who have been covering

4:50

Musk were shocked by some

4:52

of the things he did in the immediate aftermath

4:54

of his takeover. Especially

4:56

because the chaos wasn't playing well with

4:58

some important audiences. Ilima

5:03

started to really get in trouble with advertisers.

5:06

Sara Fisher, media reporter for

5:08

Axios. Musk

5:10

himself said in November that fleeing

5:12

advertisers caused a

5:13

quote, massive drop in revenue.

5:16

He started to tweet

5:18

misinformation, advertisers were

5:20

becoming frustrated because their points

5:22

of contact at the company were getting fired

5:24

or resigning, so to watch him

5:26

decimate Twitter's ad business. Is

5:29

shocking to me because somebody who wants to

5:31

really move fast and break things knows you need

5:33

some money to do it.

5:35

So far, pretty much everything that

5:37

Elon Musk has done at Twitter has

5:39

been an improv act.

5:43

Scott Rosenberg again. And

5:45

if he continues with

5:48

that, I think he will only

5:50

cause more chaos and

5:53

sort of disruption of value at

5:55

the company and as an

5:57

observer of social media and

5:59

of Elon Musk. Like, I don't think he has

6:02

yet really taken Twitter seriously

6:04

as a company or as

6:06

a platform for human communication.

6:10

For Rosenberg, there was an early

6:12

tell that Musk wasn't going to recalibrate

6:14

his use of Twitter, which is often

6:16

a reverend and can even be irresponsible for

6:18

a figure of his stature with the following of

6:20

his size. A conspiracy

6:23

theory about an attack on Nancy

6:25

Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, that

6:27

had been circulating on the far right,

6:29

made its way to Musk, and

6:31

he shared it. So on the weekend,

6:34

right after Musk took over

6:36

Twitter, he just casually

6:38

sent out this tweet about the

6:40

attack on Paul Pelosi in

6:42

a way that was so

6:44

collostally irresponsible. It

6:47

would have been irresponsible for him to

6:49

do this as a, you know, not

6:51

as the owner of Twitter. Right? Just as somebody

6:53

with a huge following, it would be a bad

6:55

thing to do. But he did

6:57

this within forty eight

6:59

hours of his assuming the

7:01

role as owner and effective

7:03

CEO of Twitter. And

7:05

I think everyone, not only at Twitter,

7:08

but I think the world at that moment sort

7:10

of backed up a second and thought, wait,

7:12

is this is this what we're gonna be

7:14

dealing with now that Elon

7:16

Musk owns

7:16

Twitter. Two months later,

7:19

the answer is absolutely yes. But

7:21

the fact that Musk himself over

7:23

the weekend tweeted a completely

7:25

unfounded conspiracy theory about

7:27

Paul Pelosi's attack last week and then

7:29

deleted the tweet. I don't know if

7:31

that bodes well. Meanwhile,

7:36

Musk also decimated Twitter's

7:38

workforce. Chaos.

7:41

Twitter continues. They may have fired too

7:43

many workers. Maybe fired the wrong

7:45

ones. Maybe fired them too soon. What's

7:47

going none. Well, a bit of a reversal

7:49

here in that Twitter is now

7:51

reversing some of the layoffs and bringing

7:53

back dozens of workers that were either

7:55

fired, erroneous, On

7:58

November sixteenth, Musk sent

8:00

around a note in the middle of the night

8:02

telling all employees there would be a new work

8:04

culture at Twitter. And that they could

8:06

opt in or opt out and lose

8:08

their jobs. Myaxxio's colleague,

8:10

Zach

8:10

Bosu, is reading Musk's letter.

8:13

A fork in the road. Going forward,

8:15

to build a breakthrough two point o

8:17

and succeed in an increasingly competitive

8:19

world, we will need to be extremely hardcore.

8:21

This will mean working long hours at high

8:23

intensity. Only exceptional performance

8:26

will constitute a passing green. Twitter

8:28

will also be much more engineering driven.

8:30

Design and product management will still be very

8:32

important and report to me, but those

8:34

writing great code will constitute the majority

8:36

of our team and have the greatest way. At

8:38

its heart, Twitter is a software and service

8:41

company, so I think this makes sense. If

8:43

you are sure that you wanna be part of the new Twitter,

8:45

please click yes on the link below. Anyone

8:48

who has not done so by five PM tomorrow,

8:50

Thursday, will receive three months of

8:52

severance. Whatever decision you

8:54

make, thank you for your efforts to make

8:56

Twitter

8:56

successful. Eilan. That

9:00

whole resignation wave of people

9:02

who didn't respond yes to Elon

9:04

Musk's hardcore was pretty significant.

9:06

You know, there's now

9:08

pictures going viral of beds in

9:10

Twitter and that's round up regulators in

9:12

San Francisco who, you know, wanna make sure

9:14

that corporate housing is being used for the right

9:17

stuff. Most of their big lawyers

9:19

and the folks that are responsible for keeping Twitter

9:21

out of trouble with regulatory

9:22

compliance, etcetera, are all out.

9:25

There was

9:25

product chaos when a new

9:27

process to verify users on the

9:29

platform went awry.

9:31

In the meantime, Wall Street is watching pharmaceutical

9:33

giant Eli Lilly today.

9:35

Its stock plummeted last

9:37

week after someone impersonated the

9:39

company on Twitter said it would

9:41

make insulin free. Twitter

9:44

had changed its It

9:45

was hard to keep up with all of the headlines

9:47

coming out of Twitter. Cable Networks

9:49

and news outlets covered the minute to

9:51

minute drama. Elon

9:53

Musk is making more waves

9:55

after his Twitter takeover tweeting

9:57

earlier that Apple

9:59

has threatened to withhold Twitter

10:01

from its app

10:02

store. And chief Twitter,

10:04

Elon Musk, said that Trump, who has been

10:06

banned since inciting an insurrection of the

10:08

capital on January sixth, is

10:10

now back on the

10:12

platform. Must tweeted at six forty four last

10:14

night with two popcorn emojis. He

10:17

alerted his one hundred and nineteen million

10:19

followers to a long thread called the

10:21

Twitter Files posted by sub

10:23

stack journalist, Matt Tyebe. Tyebe

10:25

said that it was the first installment in a

10:27

series quote based upon thousands of

10:29

internal documents obtained by sources

10:31

at Twitter Musk promised

10:33

that more is coming today. There

10:37

was this one news cycle where

10:39

I felt Musk was really flexing his

10:41

power over Twitter. And he was articulating

10:43

a very specific vision of free

10:45

speech. One that seemed to

10:47

actually exclude journalists.

10:50

In December, the

10:53

Twitter accounts of several prominent

10:55

reporters who cover Musk were suddenly

10:57

suspended. First,

10:59

Musk banned the account, ElonJet,

11:01

which tracks the location of his private

11:03

plane. He said this account threatened his

11:05

privacy and safe fifty and violated

11:07

Twitter's guidelines. But

11:10

then, the journalist reporting on

11:12

Elon Jack getting banned got kicked

11:14

off Twitter themselves. And then,

11:17

at least one journalist reporting on

11:19

those other journalists losing their accounts

11:21

also got banned. To

11:24

Musk's fans, banning

11:26

journalists from Twitter felt like a fresh

11:28

interpretation of Twitter's free speech

11:30

rules. suspension's review

11:32

is justified to those who didn't trust the

11:34

mainstream media. But to

11:36

others, it looks like a zero tolerance

11:38

regime. With new rules meant to

11:40

serve the new CEO above

11:42

anyone

11:42

else. Breaking news overnight, Twitter

11:44

suspended multiple journalists from prominent

11:46

outlets, including the Washington Post, the

11:48

New York Times and CNN, Nuno

11:50

and Elon Musk claimed a violation of

11:52

policy. The suspended

11:54

journalist tried to press him on why they were banned in

11:56

a Twitter basis conversation. And

11:58

Musk offered one

11:59

defense, but then quickly dropped off the

12:01

call. Oh, I think I

12:03

think Elon has has

12:06

left. The

12:07

day after the Twitter spaces with the suspended

12:09

journalists, Musk tweeted

12:11

this. So inspiring to see

12:13

the newfound love of freedom of speech by

12:15

the press. Smiling face

12:17

with three heart synergy. This

12:20

kind of open trolling of the

12:22

mainstream media seemed to many on the

12:24

right as payback. For what they

12:26

saw as quote unquote liberal

12:28

shadow panning. They felt

12:30

social media algorithms had been stacked

12:32

against them. Deamplifying their

12:34

posts to favor liberal perspectives.

12:40

Taken together, Musk's

12:42

individual actions and decisions pose a

12:44

question. Was all this

12:46

chaos a means to an end? I

12:48

do believe that when new owners come into a

12:50

company, there is value or they often view there as

12:52

being value in shaking things up, particularly

12:54

if it's become a state and kind of

12:56

complacent company. Dan

12:57

Primack, business editor at Axios.

13:00

There was a group of people who

13:02

viewed Twitter as something that needed to be

13:05

burned down to be rebuilt, not

13:07

just tinkred with, not just playing around the

13:09

edges, but really had some

13:11

creative destruction here. And musca

13:13

think to a certain part was part of that group. And

13:15

if that's your belief, then

13:17

when there is destruction, whether that be in

13:19

terms of employees or even certain

13:21

technologies or even reputations, what

13:23

so many people kind of flinch at and say, oh my

13:25

god, what's happening there? These people look and say,

13:28

yeah, that's what we have to do. When

13:30

you speak to folks including investors

13:32

in Twitter or an Elon Musk's version of

13:34

Twitter, they always go back

13:36

to he ran SpaceX and

13:38

Tesla like this to some extent Sure.

13:41

Holding up his successes at Tesla and

13:43

SpaceX can cast Musk's

13:45

management of Twitter in a new light. But

13:47

the chaos at Twitter is arguably

13:50

overshadowing those very same successes.

13:55

Until April, Elon Musk was

13:57

best known for SpaceX and for

13:59

Tesla and for every now and then being a

14:01

little centric or or being a bit

14:03

of a a troll on Twitter. But I

14:05

think even the trollishness on Twitter

14:07

was was very much overshadowed by what

14:09

he'd done at Tesla and SpaceX. III

14:11

think that's way, way down on the

14:13

resume. I think right now if you ask people what does

14:15

Elon Musk do, Twitter would be in the

14:17

first sentence, if not the first word of what

14:19

most people would respond. And it

14:21

hasn't gone great. I even must, you

14:23

know, keeps talking about how the company is

14:25

in tough financial shape. He's gone from

14:27

WonderKind to to kind of

14:29

a little bit of a laughing stock it comes to

14:31

Twitter. That perception could

14:33

be because this is all playing out

14:35

on a split screen. On one

14:37

side are headlines. About Musk's

14:39

decisions regarding Twitter. And on the

14:41

other are his tweets

14:43

that continue to often come across

14:45

as crass or out of touch.

14:47

He seems not to understand that

14:50

running a company is not the same

14:52

thing as being the most visible and obnoxious

14:55

executive in a company. Tom

14:59

Nichols is an author and academic

15:01

focused on international affairs and political

15:03

leadership. He wrote a book on

15:05

the death of expertise, examining

15:08

figures who came into power because they

15:10

rebuked conventional wisdom. Twitter

15:13

was perhaps his biggest mistake because

15:15

this was the one place he

15:18

was going to have complete

15:20

control and be in charge

15:22

instead of being a kind of

15:24

wealthy in regent who

15:26

who tasks things out

15:28

to experts. In

15:30

this case, he said, okay, I'm gonna get my

15:32

hands right into it. I'm gonna

15:34

plunge my hands into this problem.

15:37

And he's completely flirted up because he

15:39

really has no idea what he's doing. Musk's

15:41

disruption is celebrated by

15:43

some. But in the eyes of

15:45

Nichols and others, Musk has

15:47

been flailing. And from their

15:50

perspective, that flailing is

15:52

taking a toll on perhaps his

15:54

most valuable

15:54

entity. The Elon Musk

15:57

brand. I think Musk's

15:59

brand has always been this kind of

16:01

superhero world changing

16:03

tech CEO who

16:05

was going to convert the

16:08

auto industry to electric

16:10

vehicles and bring

16:12

humanity to Mars and

16:15

save human civilization. And

16:17

he's tried to tie his acquisition of

16:19

Twitter to that by

16:21

talking about how he is

16:23

going to preserve the

16:25

public square and make it

16:27

safe for free speech and

16:29

the future of human consciousness.

16:31

But what people are seeing as his brand,

16:34

at least since he's been running

16:36

Twitter, it has become much

16:38

more chaotic much

16:40

more partisan, much more tied

16:42

to a kind of

16:44

almost like a Robert Barron's CEO

16:46

who comes in and fires

16:48

three orders of the company and

16:50

says you have to sleep in the office

16:52

now. And the only way

16:54

we're going to survive is if you

16:56

are hardcore with me.

16:59

Musk

16:59

is giving so much time and

17:01

energy to Twitter, and that has

17:03

consequences.

17:04

It will become tiring and exhausting, and

17:06

it's already hurting his other business.

17:08

That's where we're going. How

17:10

the drama at Twitter is impacting

17:13

Musk's other companies. And whether he

17:15

can sustain an empire that has

17:17

become this large, we'll

17:19

be right back. Hi.

17:29

I'm

17:29

Nilebudu, coast of Axios today. It's

17:31

a daily podcast that gives you

17:34

the latest goops and analysis to power your day, but we don't

17:36

just run through the headlines. We provide

17:38

the important stories you won't get

17:40

anywhere else. Everything from

17:42

politics to space to race

17:44

and justice. So grab a cup of coffee or

17:46

a cup of tea for me and join me

17:48

for ten minutes every morning to get

17:51

up to for the day ahead. can listen to Axios today

17:53

on Apple, Spotify, wherever

17:55

you get your podcasts. We're

18:03

back. When Musk took

18:05

over Twitter, It became

18:07

another province in his already

18:09

massive

18:09

empire. Musk's empire

18:12

now is huge. Right? Its heart is

18:15

Tesla, but he also

18:17

owns SpaceX, which has become

18:19

a hugely important company.

18:21

He owns Neuralink, which

18:23

is trying to embed chips and the

18:25

human body. He owns

18:27

the boring company, which is digging

18:29

tunnels under cities. Musk

18:31

runs his empire in a unique

18:34

way. He tends to share resources between his

18:36

companies. He spreads his own

18:38

leadership as CEO across all of them

18:40

for example. But

18:42

this means that shocks in one part

18:44

of his empire reverberate throughout

18:46

the

18:46

others, each of which faces its

18:49

own challenges. Let's start with

18:51

Tesla. Tesla

18:54

is facing some pretty serious

18:57

problems And if it were any

18:59

other carmaker, I think

19:01

the CEO would be intensely

19:03

focused on trying to correct

19:06

the course and and it would be all hands on

19:08

deck. Joanne Mueller,

19:10

Akceo's transportation reporter.

19:12

She's watched as Tesla's stock has

19:15

plummeted. It's down roughly

19:17

forty six percent in the last six

19:19

months. And the

19:21

company missed its deliveries goal for twenty

19:23

twenty two. Tesla alone

19:25

accounts for about ten percent of all

19:27

retail investors' portfolios.

19:29

That's according to a recent Vanda research

19:31

report. At one point,

19:33

the stocks downturn had erased

19:35

nearly seventy eight billion dollars

19:37

of individual investors wealth.

19:40

This isn't hedge funds or index

19:42

funds. This is mostly average

19:44

people who are investing their money

19:46

by themselves. Mueller says the stocks

19:48

fall is a reflection of a few

19:50

things. Tesla is seeing

19:52

some pretty significant weakening

19:55

demand in China which has

19:57

been one of their biggest markets.

19:59

On top of that, you have all the COVID

20:01

shutdowns that have affected

20:04

production. So that in itself is a

20:06

giant headache. And the other thing is that

20:08

Tesla is also having issues

20:10

ramping up production

20:12

in Germany and in their new

20:14

plant in Austin, Texas.

20:16

And they're trying to put

20:18

in some really new

20:20

high-tech manufacturing processes

20:23

and having trouble getting it right.

20:25

And this too is a major headache

20:27

for any automaker. And

20:29

they've had some logistics snafus

20:32

that have delayed the delivery of

20:34

vehicles. So you have

20:36

macro issues, you have

20:39

Tesla issues and then you

20:41

have the Twitter chaos

20:43

and the leadership vacuum

20:46

that I think people are fear.

20:48

And then

20:50

of course, there's this other thing. By

20:52

the end of twenty twenty two,

20:55

Musk sold off roughly twenty three billion

20:57

worth of Tesla stock.

20:59

Possibly using his profits from

21:02

that to fund the Twitter acquisition. But

21:04

flooding the market with that much

21:06

tesla stock at once has driven

21:08

down its price. As

21:10

you might imagine, some of Tesla's investors

21:12

have concerns about how things

21:14

are going. In

21:17

twenty eighteen, one shareholder

21:19

sued Musk for his financial compensation

21:21

package from Tesla. There were

21:23

specific concerns that he was overpaying

21:26

himself, but it opened the floodgates for

21:28

other kinds of criticism. Recently,

21:31

a Tesla investor filed a separate

21:34

complaint, alleging that Musk has done

21:36

irreparable damage to the company's reputation.

21:39

Musk is also facing an additional

21:41

lawsuit related to his twenty

21:43

eighteen tweet that he'd secured funding to

21:45

take Tesla private. As

21:47

of this recording, that suit's trial has

21:49

just begun. In November,

21:52

Musk appeared in court in Delaware for

21:54

the compensation lawsuit. Where

21:56

he denied having a role in putting

21:58

together his compensation package, which is

22:00

potentially worth more than fifty

22:02

five million dollars. While

22:04

he was on the stand, another recent issue

22:06

came up. Musk said the

22:08

Tesla engineers were examining the code

22:10

that underpins Twitter. It

22:13

almost seems like he thinks of the engineers

22:15

he's hired as one army,

22:18

able to flip between provinces within

22:20

the Musk

22:21

empire. So much to fix a Twitter

22:24

sigh. I have to

22:26

wonder what can a car

22:28

or software engineer for an

22:30

automobile company do at

22:33

Twitter. But you've got to wonder what that

22:35

means for Tesla.

22:37

Like, if you're sucking out the

22:39

brains of Tesla,

22:42

shifting it over to Twitter, who's

22:44

running the shop at Tesla? Elan

22:46

later said, he took some criticism for

22:48

this, and he later said that, you know,

22:50

all these engineers were just

22:52

volunteers and they were working after

22:55

hours. But that's hard to believe when you

22:57

consider what is happening at

22:59

Twitter and how urgent the needs

23:01

are over there. You

23:03

don't just pull in volunteers after

23:05

they've spent all day trying to

23:07

solve Tesla car problems.

23:09

So while Musk has been making

23:11

changes to Twitter's policies and company

23:14

culture, he's also been facing

23:16

this Tesla shareholder's lawsuit.

23:19

And on top of all that,

23:21

SpaceX has been dealing with a complaint from former

23:23

employees to the National Labor

23:26

Relations Board. The

23:28

employees argue they were unlawfully retaliated against

23:31

after openly complaining about Musk's

23:33

behavior on Twitter. Compared

23:36

to Tesla, SpaceX is

23:38

the piece of Musk's empire

23:40

that's always appeared to be

23:42

the most stable. But right

23:45

now, SpaceX is facing unprecedented

23:47

challenges. Miriam

23:49

Kramer is the space reporter at

23:51

Axios. She's been following how the Twitter

23:53

takeover has been affecting workers

23:55

at SpaceX. Cracks in

23:57

the SpaceX veneer are

23:59

starting to show. And they have to do with

24:02

Musk's Twitter. In June, a

24:04

group of SpaceX employees sent a

24:06

letter to management saying in

24:08

part, quote, As

24:10

our CEO and most prominent spokesperson,

24:13

Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX.

24:15

Every tweet that Elon

24:17

sends is a Acto public statement

24:19

by the company, adding quote,

24:23

Elon's behavior in the public

24:25

sphere is a frequent source of

24:27

distraction and embarrassment for

24:29

us particularly in recent weeks. SpaceX

24:33

alleged that the letter was

24:35

distracting from the greater company mission

24:37

and some of the employees involved were

24:40

fired within days. Those

24:42

recent weeks the employees were referring to

24:44

were back in May and June. When

24:46

Musk declared the Twitter deal was, quote, on hold.

24:49

And he openly trolled Twitter's executive

24:52

team by replying to then CEO

24:54

Parag Agarwal with a

24:56

coop emoji. He tweeted about voting

24:58

Republican for the first time in his life.

25:00

He undermined the trans community

25:03

And he also threw in a meme

25:06

about Dildos.

25:11

A complaint with the National Labor Relations

25:13

Board was filed on behalf of eight

25:15

of those terminated workers. I've

25:18

spoken with several of them. SpaceX

25:20

and Musk himself have not

25:22

publicly responded to the employee complaint.

25:25

One former SpaceX

25:27

employee involved in the letter

25:29

and complaint Tom Olin, told

25:31

me that Musk's tweets had a clear,

25:34

downstream influence on his employees.

25:38

Whenever

25:38

you would tweet something that's

25:40

to be classified as, like,

25:42

sexist or anti

25:45

trans or and you think of that It had a direct

25:47

effect of people. Like, there's a lot of male

25:49

engineers within the company who,

25:51

like, echoing whatever

25:54

Elon says, and they would, you know,

25:56

start directly translating those tweets

25:58

into, like, behaviors, you

26:00

know, making jokes with, like, any sort

26:02

of women engineers that might be on

26:04

their team. As well as sort of, like,

26:06

giving them an excuse to,

26:08

like, bring out their, like, worst behavior.

26:10

SpaceX

26:10

is currently under investigation as

26:12

a result of that complaint. And

26:14

it's happening as the company tries to maintain a very

26:17

precarious balance. So

26:19

on the one hand, the

26:21

company is so intertwined with

26:23

Musk that employees were told in a

26:25

meeting that SpaceX is Elon

26:27

and Elon is SpaceX. But

26:29

the company also wants to seem distant enough, removed

26:32

enough from his drama

26:34

that NASA and other US agencies

26:37

and private companies will

26:39

keep entering into multimillion dollar contracts

26:41

with them. From my

26:44

reporting, I've learned that this is all taking a

26:46

toll on employee morale. Musk's

26:52

companies have to keep up morale

26:54

because Musk may be the

26:56

vision

26:56

holder, but it's not like he can build everything

26:59

himself. He

27:00

pours a lot of money into it and unleashes

27:02

a bunch of very smart engineers

27:04

and the engineers say, okay, you know,

27:06

self driving electric car

27:08

that does cool things. We've got

27:11

it. Meanwhile,

27:14

Musk's lesser known companies boring and

27:16

neuralink have their share of

27:18

headaches too. Local state and

27:20

federal government officials told The Wall Street

27:22

Journal that Boring has ghosted on its

27:24

contracts to build transportation infrastructure

27:26

in some American cities. And

27:29

Reuters reported that NERELINK, the

27:31

brain chip company, is under

27:33

federal investigation for its treatment of test

27:34

animals, after it's discovered that about fifteen

27:37

hundred animals died in experiments.

27:40

To many musk

27:43

observers, the most likely path

27:45

Ford for his companies is that he hands

27:47

them over to other people who know

27:49

how to run a company in these specific

27:52

industries well. Here's Tom

27:53

Nichols again. Find the

27:56

bet, I would say he his

27:58

ego will not allow him to just

28:00

walk away and wash his hands of it

28:02

and dump it. My guess is that he would

28:05

do probably when he's done other places,

28:07

gonna find a CEO get a group of

28:09

adults who know how to

28:11

run something like this and say, okay, I'm

28:13

still the chief Twitter. I'm

28:15

still the boss. I'm still in charge.

28:17

And a bunch of guys behind them are gonna

28:19

say, alright, you know, quote

28:21

unquote boss. If you just step over to the

28:23

left here while we you know,

28:26

get the fire extinguishers and put out

28:28

this smoldering wiring over here.

28:31

You're still the boss. The

28:33

current picture of Musk empire isn't

28:35

pretty. Cars delivered late,

28:37

investors as wealth erased,

28:39

offensive tweets that could have

28:41

real world consequences. Employees

28:45

terminated for speaking out and stock

28:47

gains lost. On

28:51

December eighteenth, Musk did something I've

28:53

never seen a CEO do

28:54

before. He put up a referendum on his

28:57

leadership of Twitter asking

28:59

users to vote on

29:01

whether he should continue to run the

29:03

platform or hand it over to someone

29:05

else. Should

29:07

I step down as head of

29:09

Twitter? I will abide by the results of this

29:12

poll. About two hours

29:14

into the poll's twelve hour timeline.

29:17

Presumably, as he was watching the results

29:19

roll in, Musk tweeted this. Those

29:21

who want power, the ones who least deserve

29:24

them. Over twelve

29:26

hours, seventeen and a half million

29:28

votes came in. And fifty

29:30

seven point five percent of voters

29:33

said yes, you should

29:35

step down. Musk's poll

29:37

and his results raised a

29:39

lot of questions. The

29:41

biggest one is whether he will follow through

29:43

and step down a CEO of

29:46

Twitter. And if he does, could transitioning

29:48

Twitter's leadership to someone else

29:50

be enough to rebalance

29:52

his many responsibilities? Musk's

29:56

business empire could hay

29:58

in the balance.

30:09

I'm Erica Pandey. Amy Padula

30:11

is reporter producer. They owe

30:13

me shaving a senior producer.

30:15

This series was reported by the Axios

30:17

News Room, including Dan Premack,

30:19

Sarah Fisher, Miriam

30:21

Kramer, Joanne Muller, Havier E. David,

30:24

Donovan Swan, Nina

30:26

Fried, Hope

30:26

King, and Me. Fact

30:29

checking by Jacob Knudson, Zack

30:31

BOSSu is reading Elon Musk's

30:34

tweets. Scott Rosenberg and Alison

30:36

Snyder are series editors. Sarah

30:39

Keilani Gu is the editor in chief and

30:41

executive producer. Mixing and

30:43

sound design by Ben O'Brien,

30:45

music supervision by Alex Suyara.

30:47

And theme music and original score by

30:49

Michael Hamm. Special thanks

30:51

to Axios co founders Mike Allen,

30:53

Jim Van de High and Roy Shore. And thanks

30:55

to Lucia Oterreina, Priyanka

30:58

Vora and Brian Wesley. If you're

31:00

enjoying the season so far, please

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take a moment to rate and review the

31:04

show. Thanks for listening.

31:12

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31:16

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