Pivot Extra: Inside “Musk”: Power, Family and the Making of a Tech Demagogue

It's Sunday and that means you get a special edition of other podcasts from the Cara and Scott universe. This week, we've got an episode of On with Cara Swisher. I hope you enjoy it and we'll see you again on Tuesday. Hi everyone, from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Cara Swisher and I'm Cara Swisher. The story of how Elon Musk went from an average tech entrepreneur to the richest man in the world has been told many times over the years, including by yours truly. But even I sometimes struggle to really comprehend it all. How did this man with a reputation for failing to deliver on so many big promises become the world's first trillionaire? How do you become such a dominant force in so many vital industries? Tech, yes, but also automobile, space, and communications. And now politics too. And why do we let him amass so much power and influence? And what is it all add up to? And also why does he want so many kids? Filmmaker Alex Gibney wanted to answer some of those questions. His new documentary Musk tries to connect the dots between Musk's many companies to tell a bigger story about the unique thread he poses to democracy. Of course, I'm in the film and so is Musk's first wife, Justine. She's speaking out for the first time in years both are here with me to talk today about the film, which clocks in at four hours. There's an intermission. Gibney is also no stranger to difficult subjects. His past films have a covered Scientology and Ron Elizabeth Holmes, WikiLeaks, and the US policy on torture during the war in Afghanistan. He's won Emmys and an Oscar, but the media environment is a lot different today because of how much power people like Musk have over the way information gets shared. And Gibney is facing a lot of headwinds to get this film out. I think this is a really terrific film. It is very long, but he manages to knit it together. And it is worth the time you spend on it because this is the singular most important figure in politics, in business, and in our society today. It's really revealing to put it all together. And especially for those who don't know the story. And then I think Gibney's been very fair to him. Musk says it's a hit piece. It is not. It's really important. All right, let's get into this conversation with Alex Gibney and Justine Musk. Our expert question comes from Kirsten Grine from The New York Times, who's covered Musk an awful lot and done some astonishing stories. This is one I promise you're not going to want to miss, so stick around. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow, none of them talk to each other. That's where Odo comes in. And all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all-in-one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and, best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at od.com/box. That's od.o.com/box. Are you a pet owner? Every six seconds. A pet owner in the US gets hit with a vet bill over $1,000. Always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats. According to ConsumerAdvocate.org, you get paid back up to 90% of vet bills at any vet in the US and Canada, with claims paid back in as little as two days. Go to FetchPet.com/save right now for your free quote. That's FetchPet.com/save. I'm Aina Garden, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by Nathan Lane. We talk about his critically claimed run in death of a salesman, taking his dog to therapy and winning an Emmy for all the murders in the building. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers. Alex and Justin, thank you for coming on on. I really appreciate it. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. First of all, amazing movie, an astonishing documentary. Very long, obviously. And I will say, Justin, I find you to be at the center of it. I think you're what you were saying was really important for people to understand, especially in the context of this very long story. Thank you. I appreciate that. So let's begin. Alex, you started work on this film in 2022, a little after Elon Musk first became the richest man in the world before he got involved with Trump. I'll also say when I was speaking to him, why did you want to make a film at the outset and talk about the changing nature of it when you were making it? Obviously, the big question for a lot of people that asked me is why does it need to be four hours? Well, it became a much, much bigger story. I mean, to be honest, we were ready in early 2024 to finish the film as a less than two-hour film. And you know, that film was about 21st century power, but is mostly economic power, not necessarily political power. And then when Trump was nearly assassinated and Elon Musk hitched his wagon to Trump, the story changed. And HBO actually were the ones who came to me and said, don't finish it, expand it. Because the story's gotten a lot bigger, so we expanded it. And obviously, the political dimension was huge. Even though I didn't really appreciate or understand that his political shift had really taken place in 2022, I just hadn't seen it or didn't know about it yet. Right. A lot of people hadn't. So just seeing you've largely stepped back from the public eye in the years since your divorce in 2008, with a handful of notable exceptions, you're a well-regarded writer. Interestingly enough, so as Mackenzie Scott, there's a lot of really amazing writers. I'm assuming you're still doing that, correct? Yeah. And talk a little bit about that. And why you decided to participate? Because you have been not in the public eye. And I know it's not a place you feel is comfortable in. Yeah, I sold three novels to traditional publishing companies in my early 30s. And the last one came out, I think, just when you and I were divorcing, separating, and then the publishing world was changing. And I became really interested in blogging. And so that took me away from normal writing. And I think I became aware that I just wasn't quite sure of the kind of writer I wanted to be after what I went through with Elon. He really did change my perspective in a lot of ways. And he's still doing that. You can't really get away from him. Right. Right. How do you mean change your perspective? I don't think that I would have been exposed newly as much to some of the same things if I had not married him. Because he really took me in deep into a world where my own interests and talents would have taken me elsewhere. And so I often felt like a stranger in that world. Definitely an outsider and an observer. And when you're living in a foreign country, it takes you a while to find your feet. And I don't think I really started becoming fascinated by it until after the divorce, actually. And I started to get more of a framework for what was happening in the kind of moment that I was in. And then I feel very lucky for that. And I like the way that Alex talks about 21st century power. Watching the arc of some of these guys. Because I knew Elon in college. I knew his brother in college. And his friend, I met. We were all in our 20s, you know, mid to late 20s, early 30s. So just the rise of them. I didn't know that they were going to take that turn to the right. That was a surprise. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. Why did you decide to participate, though? Because you've been relatively quiet. I was hesitant about it for a while. And I had several long conversations with Alex. And I felt comfortable with his worldview. And I knew at some point that I wanted to come out and support him, Jenna, my daughter. And there were things that I wanted to express to make sure that they were on the public record, so to speak. You know, I'm not so sure I can control the narrative, or that I would try to narrative-- that I would try to control the narrative. but I wanted the narrative to be something that I at least recognized. Yeah, Elon's a little loud. A little loud, yeah. And he tends to reshape things as he goes. Yeah, he tells the story to his own-- He tells the story. --to the way he wants it done. Alex, talk a little bit about bringing in the personal part, because Justine's really at the fulcrum of that, like discussing that. So people understand Elon as a person. He sort of formulated this character that he plays on television, essentially. And now he's become that person, I think, in many ways. And that happens a lot. Trump is that way, too. There's obviously a similarity. Talk a little bit about how you were thinking about that. Alex from a personal point of view, because this is a living person. Well, I mean, the first film before it expanded was really about his professional and business life. And it dealt with certain issues. But there was this idea of storytelling that was terribly important, even, in that iteration of the film, and how he was telling stories that weren't necessarily true, and grew further and further away from the truth. But when Justine and I started talking-- because it's always interesting, I mean, character matters. And you're trying to understand who this person is and how he does what he does. She said a couple of things to me that were very powerful that I felt that I needed it again. One is she said, the personal is political. And that in the sense that you have to understand the person in order to stand their political journey. And then she also talked a lot about the challenges that she had. She says something which she says in the film very articulately, which is that I first learned about gaslighting from Elon. That was a very powerful line. Which is to say, even in her personal life, she was dealing with somebody who was trying to redefine the reality around him. And I felt that that was a very powerful and potent notion in terms of how you understand what ultimately he did, both in the economic and the political sphere, this kind of fiction making or even science fiction making. And then the other thing that was interesting to me was trying to understand whether or not he changed over the course of time as he had created more power to himself. And that's something that Justine really had a lot of perspective on. Talk about that line of gaslighting. I thought that was a really important line because it does extend everywhere. It's a little like a PT Barnum. Edison did this too, by the way, in his time as an inventor. And so did Franklin in a weird, you know, they all sort of tell their own stories in that regard and disregard reality. Why did you think of that, both the personal and as it moved into the public space? You know, my mind immediately goes back to something I said to Elon when we had officially separated and there were lawyers involved. But we were still in the same house. And we were arguing a lot. And at one point I said something to him along the lines of, you know, this thing that you do with the truth. Like, I'm not having it. And I didn't really have a word for it because it's not necessarily a lie. But it's not the truth. And it's a way of pushing and pulling the truth and pushing and pulling or reframing things so that what you're trying to say has been twisted into something that you didn't mean. And that suddenly becomes the conversation. And so it's like having the rug jerked out from under you over and over and over again. And it's very difficult to live with. And it's very difficult to have a conversation with somebody when you're talking at cross purposes. And I became aware that he communicates in order to control. And it's all about control. And it's all about having power over you. It's all about dominating the room. In fact, I think that whole-- I don't know what to call it-- philosophy or worldview is about freedom through the domination part. And they don't really see any other way to be, especially when you're talking to a woman or a wife or a girlfriend or something on those lines. So that was crazy making. When you think about that-- because it's a bigger picture of what Silicon Valley does, create great things. And at the same time, lie. Feel the need to lie about their efficacy or their damage. Zuckerberg does it around Facebook. There's some good things. But he doesn't tell you a part that's damaging or wants to pretend they're victims of something that you misunderstand that meant a lot of ways. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just that victim thing. There's so quick to accuse other people of having a victim mentality, but they love to be the victims. I always say every accusation is a confession for these people, which is interesting. So this is the most powerful man on the planet, as far as I can tell, in terms of money, access, power, a stride, a number of key industries. A lot of important industries. It's not like he's running the taco stands of America or something that's not going to really affect people. But it's space, it's communications, it's all manner of media. How scared were each of you to do this? Why don't you start Alex and then Justine? I was foolishly not scared at the beginning because it felt like a continuation of a lot of the stuff that I had done. I mean, I had done investigation in the church of Scientology, the Roman Catholic church, the guys at Enron, the US government. So foolishly, I just thought, well, I'll just do my thing. It didn't occur to me. Once Elon Musk essentially became the shadow president or had this weird symbiotic relationship with Donald Trump. It was a different kind of power. And you realize that even the rule of law was not going to save you. And so then I began to be concerned. But it didn't stop me. How did it manifest the concern? It's something I'm asked all the time. How can you say such things about Elon? I'm like, what? I don't even think about it. But I should, probably. But how did it manifest for you? Well, once you realize that in a way, because he has the ear of the president, and this president is uniquely kind of transactional, and has turned the Department of Justice into his own kind of revenge mechanism. Suddenly, you begin to wonder, is that mechanism going to turn toward me? And there's history to this, right? But never so bald or blatant. I mean, obviously there was co-intelpro with the FBI back in the day. But now you have somebody who's literally turning his searchlight, looking for enemies or enemies of friends of yours. Call the eye of Sauron just to face it. Yeah, and this group loves Tolkien. As I do, typically, they all completely misunderstand Tolkien. They think they're the hobbits. And they're really Sauron and Sauromon, but that's another story. But so anyway, it just occurred to me that, wow, not only might I be sued, because that's the other fatal problem we have in this country, which is that the legal system is, in many ways, rigged for the rich, particularly in the civil context. And then you have suddenly a man who has the ear of the president of the United States and is willing to be vengeful. So it was, I think, rational to be somewhat concerned. Are you still concerned? We'll get into more specifics in a minute. Yeah, I mean, of course. I mean, look, he threatened to sue. It's still possible his sue. Other stuff could happen. And yes, and to be honest, I've taken certain precautions. But I think the best precaution is, as I think you have discovered, Carol, is sometimes you can hide in plain sight by simply speaking your mind. That's right. It turns out to be terribly important, because other people tend to agree. And these people care deeply in a way that I find interesting about what others think of them. And so speaking out is the best defense, I think. It often is. One thing someone told me, because I've been pretty hostile to a lot of tech people is like, how can you do it? I said, well, they're going to have to shoot me in front of everybody. That's what's going to have to happen here. So people can see. And that's one thing or the other is not going to be quiet. Talk about this with you just because you have a personal issue of children, and you're going to have a lifelong. I am blessed with the fact that my ex-wife is lovely. And we've gotten along really well. But this is like the ex from hell in this regard. You have five kids, correct? Talk a little bit-- were you nervous about saying something? Because you have been quiet, and I don't begrudge anybody. I know others in his universe that have been quiet. And they often call me and say, I'm really sorry. I can't say-- I'm nervous. I'm that kind of stuff. I hear from all manner of people that have been close to him. are not. Yeah well he's a scary dude and yeah I was nervous I'm nervous now but I that also really annoyed me because I you know kept thinking well this is America you're supposed to be able to say your piece. Yeah say your piece you know free speech and this is my experience and this is my viewpoint and I didn't want to be intimidated into silence and you know I haven't been feeling well over the last six years I mean you know long COVID or whatever it was so that was the big part of it and then everything that happened with my daughter I mean I was watching that and of course I have opinions about it and it was more like you know at some point I'll speak when I'm ready to speak but watching her you know get out there and you know take the blows and the isolation I mean it's hard it's a little bit like yeah I I'm sorry I have to okay I have to reset a little bit I did you know remind myself I'm not here to chash him or you know be bitter or anything like that it was just I don't like what's happening with language as a writer you know watching everything get you know abstracted into algorithms and then the the personal details the things that make you you the way that they can kind of get you know stamped out or contaminated with other things I just it just seems to me like there's something here about truth and there's something here about storytelling that is really important and should be left to the hands of people who are trying to control an narrative instead of trying to explore it or you know surfacing the missing pieces movie back in a minute running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project one app for accounting another for inventory another for sales and somehow none of them talk to each other that's where auto comes in and all in one business management software that brings every part of your business together from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing all in one powerful platform no messy integrations no bouncing between tabs and best of all no spreadsheets stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system try for free today at odoo dot com slash box that's odoo dot com slash box what if we told you there was one thing you could eat to reduce your risk of death by about a quarter interested and what if we added that this magical substance can dramatically lower your cholesterol improve your mood and keep your weight stable no it's not protein it's actually fiber the least sexy most overlooked nutrient of all but what is fiber how could one nutrient do all those amazing things and how can you get enough is a powder you start into some water gonna do it for you all that plus the strange tail of the gorilla poop obsessed father of corn likes in the latest episode of gastropod find gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts everyone's talking about the prospect of a democratic wave in the midterm elections but here's something that matters just as much the battle to control state legislatures that's the most important thing we should be focusing on right now the GOP has a trifecta in 23 states which means if they control the governor seat plus the state house and the state senate for democrats it's 16 states meaning that the opportunity to pass the policies that the majority of our state supports things like increasing minimum wage legalizing marijuana codifying abortion if democrats flip just a handful of state legislatures the majority of americans will now live in the state under full democratic control which could have big policy implications that's all on the table with the democratic trifecta this week on america actually we're in Wisconsin and we talk to friend shesca hong we have an opportunity through Wisconsin to actually start improving the brand for democrats catch us every Saturday on youtube or wherever you get your podcast Alex right off the bat musk refused to sit for an interview with you obviously but in place of him you earned a team created a database of everything he'd ever said using technology to do so and then used his words you create a computer generated simulation of elan which is kind of fun given how he's obsessed with simulation the words are all his it's not a bot tell us how you landed on that decision and the ethical considerations you took into account as a documentary filmmaker and obviously it's all his words it's not anticipating what he might say it's what he did say yeah and it's not a manufactured replica of his voice it's all his voice it's audio recordings of what he said I mean you know to some extent I've had an experience in in terms of trying to put people who didn't want to speak for one reason or another or couldn't speak or couldn't show themselves you know in other films in client nine there was an escort who I who agreed to talk to me but didn't want her identity revealed right doing shadows I know I got an actress because I felt that that would be more compelling I didn't want to do her in shadow because that would have made her look like a kind of I transcribed our interview and then had an actress performed I revealed it in the film but I felt it was more human and more compelling in another case in zero days a film about the the the Stuxnet computer worm I got a number of people from the NSA to talk and then I created a composite character with their transcripts in and had it voiced by an actress who was kind of weirdly digitized in in ways that seemed appropriate for that film in this one I thought well he's not going to talk but I really want to present his point of view and in some case I want to have an argument with him so I'll create this character but I was fascinated how much he went back to this idea of the simulation he's obsessed with that idea for all sorts of reasons I think and so I thought well okay how about a simulated interview that would be interesting and we we went and designed you know two camera angles with our my partner's own visual effects called make make and decided what he would be dressed like and you know that you'd be in a gamer chair because he's obsessed with the video game thing and that that would become the interview and interestingly that also feathers into to issues of AI and how we feel about AI and this weird personal transference that takes place with AI bots or LLMs because people have told me as they watch the film they know that the the interview of Elon which I I should say it makes them look pretty good I think but that after a while I forget that it's very flattering I forget that it's not real and they start to identify and engage with it as if oh my god I'm because we purposefully have the avatar look directly into the camera so for all those reasons it seemed to make sense to me cinematically and yet I could defend it journalistically because those are Elon's words you also dressed him in his typical way which is I think a late 1980s lesbian kind of look he has to that's his kind of clothing these days just realize it was the eye contact yeah in the movie because he he often is like his simulation is often looking at the camera he's looking directly at you and in real life he's like usually often like he's distracted he's on his phone so I think yeah it's it's I mean the word uncanny keeps coming to mind and it was strange it was him and not him something about his eyes and his manner I was often reminded of Errol his father and so there was there was that element in terms of I definitely recognize the words I recognize the attitude and it just made me realize that the thing about AI and the thing about like large language models and all of that is that you don't really get to say anything new you know there's there's a point where the evolution of of the thinking you know stops and it like freezes from place and so it's seems like an interesting possibility that you can kind of like tell when that yeah when that conversation froze like we'll be able to to track that person's yeah no I thought it was really interesting at first it's uncomfortable you're right it's because they he is looking at the camera and he doesn't that's another thing but at the same time it feels simulated it has a simulated feel to it the empathy yeah part you know that was kind of a little bit of a revelation for me I wasn't explain um this idea that empathy is is the suicide in western civilization yeah that's their new thing yeah yeah yeah yeah um the Pope is doing his level best to push back but but they all have that version I think it's I think it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard you know thank you I think it's really really uh intellectually vapid but that's you know another conversation well they say a lot of things that are in like what it's just nonsense is what what I feel like that said the film is still making Hollywood and tech nervous. Universal has denied reports that's getting cold feet about releasing the film outside of North America. They have international rights. Alex, you've expressed fears about the Paramount Warner Brothers merger. It is being bought by a man who is close friends with Elon, Larry Ellison. As much as you want to talk about David Ellison, Larry Ellison is the wizard behind and the money behind it all. The film is supposed to hit HBO early next year. HBO is owned by Warner Brothers. Of course, there was a recent incident about ads on platforms where some of them have reversed themselves. I can believe they made a mistake in some cases. At other times, you do start to get in the conspiracy theory, like that they wanted to see how far they could push it. SEM of poor report of the Ellison's may ask Musk for money to help finance the merger. Alex, you start. What does it say about the state of the documentary business that a filmmaker with your reputation is facing these kind of headwinds? And then I'd love to know what you think about the use of power here in media. Well, I mean, it really shows you the level of consolidation, whether it's a soft consolidation, which uses a series of rules to enforce a certain permitted kind of discourse or hard consolidation, which is basically we're putting our foot down and we're either going to censor stuff we don't like or we're not going to allow it to be seen. So it really, it brought home in a very personal way just how pernicious this consolidation is. And also, to some extent, and I can't-- I mean, universals on side now, and we're going to have a discussion with them later this week about their release pattern. Great. But for a long time, they were kind of missing an action. And I think in part because they were sort of-- I don't want to speak for them, but it made me that they were concerned. Do we want to go up against this oligarch? And at this point, they're kind of the good guys in a weird way, like-- Sure, they are. --because they're not in sort of the transactional camp. In other words, we'll make our peace with Trump. And we'll do what he wants. And then he'll look the other way when we want to do what we want. Like have this ridiculous merger, which clearly violates all sorts of anti-trust and free speech principles. But it's going to go through anyway, because you have a Justice Department that just doesn't care, so long as Trump says it's what he wants. So you really see the face of power and how it's defining discourse and how the rest of us have defined sort of offbeat ways of speaking back-- To getting through. So are you worried about HBO, which has a stellar reputation among documentaries and everything else, not releasing this? Well, I am. I mean, first of all, I should say that HBO has been great. I mean, the people who are there now are just magnificent. They're so supportive. They're the ones who encourage me to make it longer, which is rare for a director. Make it longer, please. And they've been great. On the lawyer's side, I went through the trial of fire with them with Scientology. So they've been awesome. But it has to be a fool not to think that something bad might happen if Elon Musk were to help the Ellison's. And then suddenly, the guy who's an owner in the platform is now the subject of a critical documentary about him. So I'm concerned. But the benefit that we have is it's about to open in theaters. So you'd be trying to put something that's already been seen back into the box. And so that's the benefit of the Bleaker Street release, which I should say they've been great, too. But now we're back in this era where suddenly theatrical distribution becomes a mechanism for saying stuff that you can't say on these services, which are conflict diverse, or literally propagandistic. Yeah, you're not getting ads on X or Twitter, correct? Anyway, that's OK. He can do it, says he bought it, and he can do whatever he wants on it. How do you look at this? Because you just were talking about you wanted to say the truth, and you thought we live in America. When you think about the consolidation of power here, it does feel disturbing the non-ability to tell the truth, or being censored in a lot, which is, of course, what they complain about themselves, again. Well, it goes back to what you were saying about. They don't want to let anybody else talk. And I just remember dinners when I was married. And Elon's family had this-- they would talk about his father, Errol, and how Errol-- or there was this-- Tosca was joking about it at Kimberl's wedding. This is a sister. Elon's sister, yeah, that in the Musk family, women are in the same category as dogs and children to be seen and not heard, basically. And so again, it's that overlap of the personal and the political where you see this idea that there's only one group of people who get to express their narrative, because it's my way or the highway. It's my story. And it's not just my story, but it's my-- It is the story. Yeah, it is the story. And then there are more and more and more layers put in between that and the actual assemblage of facts that you experience. I mean, it's not just the map being confused for the territory, but it's like the map becomes the territory. And then the map is going to be drawn beneath your feet. And they can only do that if they lock other people out of the conversation. I mean, that's not democracy. I mean, democracy is a conversation. And if anything, it's the responsibility to protect the parts of the conversation that are not the dominant forces in the culture. When you talked about that dinner table, you're not like this. Was this something that was surprising to you or did it get worse over time? Oh, you don't seem to be a shrinking violet, I suppose. That comes and goes. There were times when I would get so bored. And I wouldn't be able to hide it. And you know, I'm going to get angry with me afterwards. And then I want to apologize for that. I want to apologize a lot, but it was always men talking and men monologuing. And I don't mean to say that as like a feminist rant because I've been accused of doing that. No, I didn't there. Yeah. But it's like, you could really see where the power is at those tables. And it's always the same people saying the same things. And then the inability to listen to other viewpoints becomes those other viewpoints don't exist. I mean, you're either like a friend of mine recently said something along the lines of, oh, he's a non-Republican. And that didn't mean Democrat. And then she said, well, nobody's really a Democrat anymore. And I was thinking, well, you're saying this in California. But it's like if you're a Republican or a non-Republican, then like a Democrat, like as a word or as a concept, like that no longer exists. It's just a way of shaping the conversation. Let me move on to something else. Elon's also obsessed with the idea of presenting himself as an engineer. He fetishizes it. I have noticed this for many years. What do you think that's so important to him? I mean, obviously, it's an imposter syndrome thing happening there because he's not the greatest technologist in most of the rooms he's in, but he presents himself as thus. And there are some very significant engineers around, by the way. Certainly he's technical. But how much of that image he projected was real? Because it reminds me of him trying to sort of play Steve Jobs. So Steve Jobs never did that. He was very clearly not the technologist. Wasniak was, he never presented himself that way. He certainly was tech savvy. But he never needed to say, I made this. I'm the engineer. I think-- I'm not an engineer. So that was completely outside of my Ken always. It is the way he likes to see himself. Or at least that was always my view on that. But I always saw his genius in how he puts things together. He pulls ideas from different domains. And he pulls people from different domains. And then he really drives it towards a very, very particular result. It's very Henry Ford like actually. That's who he is in a lot of ways. He's not Edison. He's Ford, which is a very different talent. And I agree with you. I think that is an astonishing talent to find things, put them together, and shove them through. It's a real talent. But he really does need to be seen as a techie in a lot of ways. And in fact, that's not his greatest asset. But I think tech rules, especially in that world, I mean, if you're a non-tech, you're a lesser being. And-- He considers himself hardcore and I think, you know, the hardest of the hardcore is tech and so I think that's just the essence of how he sees himself, especially when he has to justify his lack of empathy by by saying, well, you know, empathy is is, you know, the ruin of civilization itself. And this is what he does. He kind of like like engineers reality or the reality around him to fit him and to fit the version that he's selling to you. Right. Exactly. So Alex, let's talk about that. One of the main takeaways from your film. And I think you got this correct is musk's great invention is really himself. And he used his call to personality reward hack the market. It's an idea that he can defy economic fundamentals because people want to invest in him. Even if things he's promising are based in reality, like going to Mars, fully autonomous cars. So talk about that the the constant lie and I lie is probably a harsh word, but I think that's the correct word here. Well, it starts out with fibs and then it becomes big, big, big lies and and that was one of the interesting things I discovered early on. You know, I made contact with a guy named Ed Neetermeyer who's in the film briefly who had written a book called ludicrous, which really looked at the vast disparity between what Elon Musk said Tesla was and what Tesla really was and it's not like there aren't great cars. I mean, I still talk to people who wraps it eyes about their Tesla S, you know, and great, you know, but but it doesn't nearly justify the stock price. But he learned early on to do certain things in order to be able to find the money to be able to float Tesla because I think in a way his genius is his talent for risk and also his ability to sculpt this story. Which allows him access to the equity markets that otherwise he wouldn't be able to get or or to reward hack because that's the other important part of this in other words explain reward. Reward hacking is this idea that you you fulfill the conditions of a government award like, you know, doing battery swaps, which is the idea that you could pull into a gas station and have somebody swap out. A thousand pound Tesla battery in a matter of minutes, it was just ludicrous, but he convinced people that it was possible and that would have solved the biggest problem that everybody has in the electric car, which is range, but then he said, oh no, once, but but it was tethered to this inducement from the government of California that if you could prove that you could do it once you'd be the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars of tax benefit. So essentially you're saying, tell him, tell him what they want to hear, tell him what they want to hear and come up with a fib or a wink and a nod, you know, fake it to you make it. That's it, you know, so I think that that it was the creation of these larger and larger fictions, which was and one of the biggest fictions was this idea that he was an engineer like because because when I talked to people at Tesla, I said, is he a great engineer, they were like laugh, but they wouldn't ever say it on camera because they were afraid. Of Elon, I heard, I've heard that over and over again, but that idea, then if you don't see the reason to, you know, buy in to Tesla stock through the economic fundamentals, there's always Elon, and Elon is Leonardo. And then it's a stock play and then it's a stock play that why not get in on it and then make it go up to think, talk about that idea of like performative versus real because there are real things here, like as you said, he does put it together. Nobody was doing the car before him. And one of the things that I found really interesting is these were big ideas, space, cars, solar, climate, big ideas and everyone else was doing like a digital dry cleaner. It was exhausting and he wasn't and some of these things did result in real products that were terrific. Why was that not enough that the slow moving acceleration, it had to be we're going to live on Mars and then you say, well, you know, you have to be underground in Mars and it's this way to get there and we will lose our bone structure will probably become dumb. No, no, we will be living there. Like why the need to take it to the, you know, put the volume up to 12 when seven was fantastic. He's impatient. I just, you know, it's just, I think he has a different sense of time. I really, you know, Elon time, it's, it's Elon time. Like, I can't explain it. It's one of those things that sometimes you can feel when you're with him or around him, but there is this. Other humans seem to fit very awkwardly into the reality that, you know, he is sculpting and, you know, like there's that joke that he used to make like safety third and, you know, when we're going into the era of AI, you have to wonder about that because of his sense that, you know, it has to be now, now, now, no matter the cost and the pain and the trauma that that other people go through because of, you know, the way reality gets wrenched around or the way that value gets determined, who has it and who doesn't like that doesn't matter. That's just, you know, feelings. So we'll just, you know, brush that aside. I think this is who he is and this is what he's comfortable with. And so if he's comfortable with it, then full speed ahead and he doesn't want to spend any time in those areas where, you know, his, his strengths aren't necessarily on full display. So those are the unnecessary areas that has to move on. We'll be back in a minute. Now, you mentioned Errol Musk, his father. He sat for the interviews. Every time I see him, I just, my skin calls. I have to say the two of a deeply strain relationship. I remember him talking about how much he didn't like his father. He called him a terrible human being. And the New York Times investigation found that Errol had been accused of sexually abusing five of his children. He doesn't talk a lot about his father, but he's around in the film. Justine, you said you understood him so much better after you met Errol. Oh, gosh. A little bit of a sensitive topic. Errol is, there's a lot of silence around him in the family. Nobody wants to talk about him. And I think journalists have commented on that. The stories around Errol when I first entered, you know, that world. The Musk universe. Yeah, they were hard to believe. And they were just, you know, my tendency was to assume that, oh, because May was the one who was telling them while she's exaggerating or she's distorting. And then his mother, yeah. And then he visited us in Palo Alto and I spent a couple of days like, you know, walking around and talking to him and. And first impression, he's, you know, like a nice guy is charming. He compliments you. He seems to be willing to get along. But then, you know, over time, things start to slip a little bit. And Elon would say that, you know, Errol can behave himself for three days, you know, at the most. And then he turns mean. And what I noticed was that when Errol would get insulting, he would use the same language that Elon would use to insult me. And so that was a direct and powerful lesson in how patterns, you know, yeah, they just pour through other relationships or you become what you hate sometimes. Yeah. And I was thinking about that actually because one of the, there's a moment in the movie when I think Errol is saying, yeah, Elon, he's just like me. He's just like me. And when I was married, there would be certain relatives of the family who would try to. Rain Elon in a bit when he was being difficult or, you know, when somebody was having an Elon problem as Kimmel once described it. They would tell him that he was being like Errol or he was turning into Errol or, you know, there was, there was something there that Elon did not want to be. Which he didn't want at the time, which he did not want to be Alex. Talk a little bit about this. You know, he has become his father in a way that I think he tried to avoid. I do believe he had to stain for him. I thought that was genuine when he said it to me at least. Well, and I don't want to blame his father. He's an adult fucking man like he can get some mental help if he really wants to not. Sure. And it could be an explanation. It's turned into an excuse perhaps. And I do think I mean, one of the reasons I included a section on Errol in the film was because, you know, I felt there was an element of the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He has become his father to some extent. Yet, at the same time, I think it's fair to say that, as Elon did say that he suffered greatly at the hands of his father. In terms of this kind of psychological abuse that Kimball also talks about, and Kimball also talks about in the film, this is an audio recording that we found about how you could never believe anything that Elon's dad said, which I felt I had to put in there, as if to say, like, don't believe everything that Errol says because he's a gas lighter. Well that was interesting because what happened to Elon, he became a gas lighter. There was also this very uncomfortable moment where I asked Errol Musk about this incident where intruders came into his house and he claimed that he killed three of them, or three intruders with two bullets from a 357 magnum, but then one on and on and on, which is some of which is included in the film, about the different colors of the blood that spilled out onto the floor, as if he was still all these years later reveling in the violence. So it's complicated character, but I included him because he clearly feels very strongly about the fact that he and Elon are the same, and I think in many ways they bear an uneasy resemblance to each other. Yeah, I would agree. Now one of the ways which I think Justine and I'd love you to comment, one of the things that really got me, soured me, lots of things, but two was the obsession with insulting gay people and trans people, and then it extended to Jenna in a way that was shocking, violent, heinous. I don't know what I would do as a parent, I mean I know I would do what you have done. Can you talk about it a little bit because I think part of your speaking out has to do with your children, presumably? Well, I mean, I recognized at one point that Jenna and Elon were on a collision course, and I would send Elon long texts about it, you know, kind of like warning him or saying, like, you have to recognize who she is, you have to accept her for her. I respond to her differently, but I wasn't really interested in my parenting opinions. I mean, at one point, he kind of like dismisses it all as maternal spam and-- Maternal spam. Maternal spam, yeah. But, you know, I wanted the kids to have the best relationship possible with their father for as long as possible, and I wanted to protect any ability that they had to do that. I think fatherhood is, I know, crucial. Absolutely. And I certainly don't take it lightly, but she was in Japan when he gave that interview with Jordan Peterson, and that was really a game changer, and when he came right out and said, you know, I was tricked into signing this release, I mean, I mean, I felt like that, while that was, you know, directed at me, I was supposed to react to that, and I felt like I might be being baited a bit, but his decision to sign that form was actually an act that made me respect him more, you know, it gave me some hope, yeah. And then I think he had to fix the narrative, like, going into this increasingly Republican direction, and he says in the film that he's socially progressive, which was another thing that confused me, because there were times when I was like, like, he doesn't really care, you know what I mean? Like, this is the kind of thing where-- No, I don't think progressive is-- he doesn't care, you're right. One of the things that was interesting was, I would struck me as someone who liked having children, or bearing children, or creating children, but didn't really like the children part. Or the mothers. Or the mothers. Yeah. He doesn't really seem to have much use from motherhood, you know. He wants the mother influence, kind of like sideline and neutralized. So when that happened with Jenna, who was not in the film, I mean, obviously it would anger you. And certainly, when I started to see it, it was really astonishing-- largely because I recall a conversation we had, we called me in the middle of the night when Trump was going to put an executive order against gay and trans people, and they said, I'm going to do everything to battle this. Now, I'm not sure why he needed to perform for me on that at all, but did it shift or was just that not true, either? Any of it true. I don't know. Trying to find a way to explain it to himself, to kind of like heal some whatever kind of cognitive dissonance you might be experiencing, he feels he has to believe and promote a very particular perspective that really has caused him, you know, his daughter and created like a lot of division and pain in the family and the extended family. So I don't know, but the whole woke my virus thing too, I-- It's part of it. Yeah, I was like, oh, this is the origin story of my, you know, rises of Republican, I'm getting revenge for like the evil that it's done me, and it was a WTF moment for me. Yeah. You know, like-- And you weren't expecting it? No, no, you know, and he was reacting more to Jenna's rejection of him, but Jenna's rejection on him was based on her rejection. I mean, sorry. Of his rejection of what his rejection was at a young age, you know, like she has to say what she feels and she has to be who she is. She's one of the most authentic people you'll ever encounter. And so-- It must terrify him. The price that being in his presence was demanding of her was too high. And there are people and I'm one of them that when you spend time in his presence, you come away feeling really terrible about yourself and you're not sure how that happens, but he communicates his disdain. Alex, talk a little bit about this because it does manifest itself politically too. It's this you may not be the way you are. There's a woke mind virus. You're being controlled when, in fact, they're trying to control you. Well, yeah, and he's always been somebody who doesn't want any constraints and he wants to be able to exert his power and to control people. And if you have a child who's learning to be herself, that's very natural. It's what every kid does ultimately is to break free of their parents' control. It's part of growing up, but he couldn't accept that. Because it can't be personal with him. It's got to be bigger than that. So it becomes this rationalization for why he's growing up. Using Jenna as a, using Jenna as a foil to explain why he's going maga. But we now know why he went so hard, maga, and it had nothing to do with that. It was much more transactional. I know. It was an existential crisis if Kamala Harris had won, you know, with that regard. He did good protection and not to mention all the civil investigations into his companies, which have now been utterly swept aside, you know. So. I actually said that at the time and all his minions went after me. They're like, no, no, it's about a bigger, I was like, no, it's about money. Like it's about investigation. Well, that's what they're all in it for. I mean, he's not unique in that way. It's just he came up with a different rationalization for. Right. So in that, the shift towards conservative politics, and again, it happened, COVID was when it sort of seemed to happen. But I think he knew the jig was up on many things, like it was moving that direction. He obviously got angry at Biden over over the car stuff. I remember him calling me over and over again, that he wasn't invited to some dumb get together, which you chronicle in the in the film. But but he buys Twitter in 2022. He becomes extremely online, which is an expression I use. Like in a way that I think he went down that rabbit hole of online conspiracy theories, combined with a number of other things well reported in the in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal about drug use. But it's more it's all of them together. It seems like, but Twitter seemed to be the the sort of fulcrum of that kind of stuff. Eventually, teams up with Trump. He spends nearly $300 million to help get him elected as reward as the creation of Doge. Alex, on its face, Doge was a failure. It cost the government more money than it saved and Musk went on to say the government is, quote, basically unfixable. But you argue he did fix the government he fixed it to work for him and other tech leaders. Well, I mean, we now know, you know, in 2022, he was putting his money all in for the Republican party, you know, way before and which is, of course, bears out the theory about COVID. But to take your point about Doge, I mean, it was never about waste fraud and abuse. I think it was about destroying the government. And if you destroy the government, you destroy any constraints on you, meaning you the, the businessman, you the person who needs and wants power. The other interesting thing that we discovered was that these Doge boys who went into agency after agency and had zero understanding of how those agencies worked and didn't seem to care. But they were very sophisticated about one thing. And that was how they access the data. And they were granted something called super admin status, which meant that they could they had total access to the data of those agencies which meant, in many cases, our data. Now, which has never been collected together. People, this is something I talked about at the time. I was like, this has never been. It's been in all kinds of places. And we can, we don't know that it was taken to SpaceX, but we do know that if you have that kind of super admin status, taking that data to SpaceX would be as easy as taking a computer file and putting it in a folder. You don't need to hack in. You have complete and total access to all the data of the government, which is our data, which is purposefully siloed in order to protect us. And so, it raises the question, as is raised by Jeffrey Hinton, you know, the Godfather of AI, and also Katie Drummond from Wired of whether, if he has that data, and I suspect he does, but I can't say for sure, then what happens if he's training an AI on that data? And, and what is that going to do for our midterms coming up? So, there's always bank shots with Elon. In other words, there's always the stated idea, and then there's something else that he discovers. Just like in Twitter, you know, I think he bought Twitter on a dare. It was sort of fun and wacky. But then he turns it into a propaganda machine for himself. Yeah, I think so. One of the things I was told by Mark Cuban at the time whenever he was talking about, he just likes being online. He likes tweeting. Mark Cuban actually called me, said, "No, he's buying it for influence." That's what he's doing. Cara, just understand that when he goes into a meeting in India as the head of Tesla, it's one thing. It's just like going in as the head of Ford or whatever. When he goes into the head of Twitter and Tesla, it creates a whole new thing. Justine, when this started happening, obviously the first indication was Jenna, right? Was the beginning of it. When you saw that right, where did you think it was transactional? When he realized that Trump was a coin-operated president? I think you saw somebody that he knew he could work with. I think there are a lot of affinities there. Jeffrey Epstein is kind of like a ghost in the background, but Jeffrey said some things about women that mesh really well with things that Arella has said about women. When you extend that outwards, I think you have a philosophy on how to live and how to create order that not only makes a lot of sense, but it starts to seem like the only sensible way to live. Yeah. The only future to bring into being. The future, the only future, it's the dangerous future that's going to destroy us all, unless they are put in charge of it and they save us. It's monarchical and you are an NPC, right? That's one of Elon's favorite things. These people are NPC. These are so many times. They're not religious, but they're the messiahs. One of the things, he was one of the earliest people to voice skepticism about AI. First person I heard say anything negative. Most tech people are up and to the right. He was very smart about this, as I recall. At the same time, of course, he sees to get while the getting is good and developing his own AI through XAI and his chatbot Grog. It's not keeping up as much as the others, but he's going for it. He's going for it. One of the things you do well in the film, Alex, is you connect all these dots, AI with space, with cars, with government power, government ties and starlink. I remember when you discussed that idea for the first and great idea, great big idea kind of thing. That data, of course, is routed through SpaceX. Tesla's cameras and microphones can be used to collect data. What do you think it's all adding up to each of you at this point where we are in the game? Alex, first. Well, one of the scariest things is that he seems to be a person who's psychologically unhinged, and I think he grew into that within enormous power, enormous power, but power that he doesn't really know what to do with. There's a kind of chilling moment toward the end of the film where one person says, "Well, why is it so important, Elon, for you to accrete all this power with the satellites, the space, and everything else into one sort of global business?" And there's like a two-minute silence. He can't answer that. It's like Ted Kennedy being asked, "Why are you running for president?" He has enormous power, but no idea what to do with it, which is maybe the most chilling thing of all, because the hardest thing to do in this film was to at once communicate the deadly seriousness of this massive oppression of power. And at the same time, understand that there is fundamentally something so unserious about him, in terms of his perspective or his ability to see the world in some kind of holistic fashion. Yeah, one of the things you wrestle with these two contradictory ideas, the public has of him. One is that he's a genius set out for world domination, the other that he's kind of a hapless chaos agent. He cannot pay attention to details and succeeds in spite of himself. How do you reconcile them, Justin? I once described him, this was many, many years ago, but this is what comes to mind. I once described him as somebody who can jump off the edge of a cliff and invent a parachute on the way down. I think he thrives on chaos. When you read about PTSD, when you get to know more about how that reshapes the brain, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me, because if you listen to the language that he uses, and even taking into account that a lot of it is a pitch, it's performative, but everything is very, very urgent. We're going to die. The world is going to be destroyed. It's a suicidal, almost a suicidal apocalyptic. Yeah, everything is life and death. I think he really lives like that. He really lives with that pitch of intensity, and that's the place where he feels comfortable. If he's too comfortable, he looks for that chaos. He brings him with him and he has a way of sucking you into it, and at first, it can look a lot like excitement. It's that intensity. I think he really needs that. I always assume that there's a method to his madness. A lot of slight of hand sometimes, oh, look over here, and then he's doing something. Right, a trickster, yeah. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of engineering of language, engineering of belief systems. To take that from that kind of systems thinking is like working with something physical and tangible, then you've put rockets into space, then let's go after human minds. That's such a key idea and science fiction. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert here is yours. Hi, it's Kirsten Grind. I'm an investigations reporter at the New York Times, and I've covered Elon Musk for a lot of years now. My question for you is about his legacy, actually. I'm wondering if at this point, with everything that's happened with him at the helm of X, with everything that's happened in Washington with his problematic reputation, does that at this point out way, whatever contributions he's made to society and technology along the way? Thanks. This is a point made to me by a lot of people. Well, he makes rockets. Well, I met the good outweighs, the bad. Alex, why did you go first then, Justine? So I would say two things about that. I mean, I would say in general, the damage he's done does outweigh the good that he did, particularly when you look at Doge and the catastrophic and also what he is effectively done by finding a way to surround himself with this much power through reward hacking, which started with the Obama administration, and ends with a transactional president like Trump. But I would say one other thing too, because I get this to some extent from, you know, in Q&As from the fanboys. So like, can you imagine a world, you know, without Elon? And, and here's what I would say to that. I mean, I give him tremendous credit for creating a sense of mission at Tesla and SpaceX. And that sense of mission attracted a lot of very talented engineers and executives who've done a pretty good job of running those companies. Elon didn't, you know, he didn't screw in every screw. He's not the inventor. He's the investor. The Willy Wonka idea. This idea that he is the only person in in those companies and everybody else is, as you say, an NPC. I just think is a wrong headed way to think about it. He was an important catalyst for getting these companies off the ground. And I guess that would include, you know, the satellite business. Starlink. Starlink. But it's not the only person. There are a lot of talented people that made these companies. And yet we've lived in a world where the only person that's important is Elon. And you've got to accept the bad with the good, which is sort of the theory behind Walter Isaacson's book. You know, it's like he did so much good. So you have to accept the fact that he's cruel. No, I don't accept it. And the cruelty took us to a terrible place in terms of where we are in this country, the damage that is going to have to be undone at some point in terms of what was done during Doge is really-- Yeah, the conflation of Trump and Elon is really to a one-two punch for our country in a lot of ways. What do you think? Two of the favorite quotes, they always come across in Silicon Valley. The future is here. Already, it's just unevenly distributed, and then the best way to predict the future is to create it, to invent it. So what is the future that he is deliberately trying to create? And one of the things I noticed about Elon is that he is often guilty of the things that he's accusing you of all the time. Yeah, it's the best defense is a good offense or something along those lines. And when he announced on-- it was Twitter at the time, when he announced on Twitter that he was a Republican now, he accused the Democrats of being like incredibly polarizing and divisive and the party of hate and anger. So then going along that theory, as he playing to his strengths as a warrior, as a storm god come down from the mountains, that there's no war. You don't need a war god. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. You're absolutely right. Yeah, that war stuff is strange. This is sort of my last question. It's two parts. At one point in the film, you ask Alex, a series of questions. What are Elon's goals? What are his actual motivation? And do we actually know the man at all? Are either of you closer to answering those questions? Alex? We're closer to knowing them in some ways and yet, maddeningly, unable to answer them at a fundamental level. You know, what does he really believe? If he's the trickster, what do you really believe? And at some moment, you know, is he honest enough with himself to-- Or can he be given-- Can he be honest enough to go there? And I'm not sure that he is yet at the same time, I think we have a much better understanding of the levers that he pulls in order to create the Oz-like image of himself. And so in that sense, I think we do know him better. Justine? I used to think of anyone really well. You know, he has a way of commanding focus, like even now we're sitting here and we're talking about, you know, Elon, Elon, but, you know, Elon comes with-- Well, the film is called Musk, of course. Yeah, but even like Musk, it's, you know, Musk could be many people, but there's only one Musk in its Elon. Thank God. But he, you know, he's surrounded by, you know, a cast of characters and they are remarkably consistent and, you know, they bring in their set of influences and there's a very definite worldview that's emerging. But I think, you know, you can go back now and when you know what you're looking for, you know, you see the, the tracks and the traces early on. How you got there? Yeah. And I do wonder about that. I wonder about, you know, those leverage points when it could have gone in a different direction. Absolutely. That's what I think about all the time. Yeah. It could have. It could have. It could have. That's what a lot of people give me a hard time for liking him back then. I'm like, you don't understand where it could have gone. Right? There's unique individuals that can change things for the better. And yeah. And then it, then they become villains. And you're like, it could didn't have to be that way, which is what I think about a lot. I think ultimately, I mean, he, he has this incredible energy that needs something to work on. Otherwise, I'll, like, you know, not his own ankle off. He just, he needs to be working on a giant massive problem. But it removes him from people. And when you think about, you know, those accumulating layers of tech space, the world gets smaller and smaller. And the people get smaller and smaller. And then you get to a point where everything looks like your toy chest. And people are your toys. And the one thing about Elon is that he absolutely cannot stand being bored. You know, and part of him really does want to play. So, you know, I think trickster might be a good. Yeah. So my last question. How does the story end? All stories end. Or maybe they don't. I don't know. I don't know how it ends. You know, Elon has hitched his wagon to somebody who benefits his short-term goals. What happens when that person is no longer in power? He's created a lot of damage and created a lot of enemies for himself. Does the pendulum swing back? Or is it too late? That sort of Katie Drummond's point in the film. He's accreted so much power. It may be too late. I hope it's not. Justine, you get the last word. Is it? And I don't know. I think we're heading into a new type of 1984, you know, eyes everywhere. And, you know, Einstein has that quote about how imagination is more important in the knowledge. What separates us from animals, our ability to imagine a future that's different from the past. And so I guess now the challenge to men like Elon is what can you imagine for us that is different from the past. You know, all these empires that have crumbled and they've died, you know, all these wars that have destroyed-- Ozymandas. Worlds. Yeah. Babylon was. Yeah. How can you create Babylon is? That's a great way to end. Thank you so much, both of you. It's a wonderful film. And you would particularly or stand out, I have to say, in a film of standouts. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Cara. Thank you. Thank you for the conversation. Reveached out to Elon Musk for comment, he did not respond. Today's show is produced by Vicki Vergolina, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Milstop, Madeline Laplant, Dubie, and Megan Bernie. Nishaat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer and podcast, special thanks to Annika Robbins, Jim Mackle, and Manolo Moreno. Our engineers are Fernando, Aruda, and Riquan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already falling to show, you're living in reality, not a simulation. If not, we're sending you to Mars. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, serve for on with Cara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Cara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media podcast network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.