Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
This is a show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The
Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company and Neuralink.
And I'm your host, Will Walden. Back in December 17th of 2020,
two reported on Elon Musk banning numerous accounts
suspending journalists and the third largest Tesla shareholder
wants Musk to step down as CEO from Tesla.
We're going to do a rewind and look at this episode from back
then a couple years ago, see where we're at now compared to
where we were. Let's talk about a little bit of
Elon Musk controversy going on. There's been a lot going on with
Elon lately, especially on the Twitter front, and there's some
technical things we should talk about.
There's some business stuff we need to talk about, and there's
also some personal things. And one of the most prominent
users that has been tracking Elon Musk throughout the time
that they've had their account on Twitter has just been banned
for doxing. And if you're not familiar what
doxing is, it's basically sharing the location or other
details of a person with a malicious intent.
The account in question is at Elon Jet, and I used to use this
Twitter account to track and see when Elon Musk was coming to
Brownsville, TX. Because when you know Elon is
showing up in Brownsville, TX, it's probably something along
the lines of a very important test that they were doing with
Starship or maybe he was going there for some other reason.
That's important deal for SpaceX.
So I would use the account every once in a while.
I'd say, hey, Elon's coming down to Brownsville and like it
didn't really give you real time tracking information to give you
an approximate time when Elon would show up.
It says it's banned. Now you can't see a lot of the
older tweets that they had, but basically what they would show
you is a time when Elon would leave in approximate time when
Elon would show up in Brownsville.
So I would deduce from that that Elon was going to be, say, if
he's going to show up on a Tuesday.
And I'd be like, oh, Elon's going to be here on the in the
afternoon on Tuesday. So by the time Elon is here in
the afternoon on Tuesday, I'll have some news to report
probably the next day. So I would use it as a tool.
Now something else happened recently in Elon's life that was
a little bit more malicious according to Elon, and this is
his tweet ex pressing that he was stalked and somebody was
malicious towards him due to doxing.
According to the rules on Twitter, you are not allowed to
dox people. You aren't supposed to show
their exact location or their nearby location if they aren't
aware of it. So the account was banned, but
also Not only that, not only was the Elon Jet account banned,
there were several reporters and journalists accounts banned due
to reporting on this issue. The silencing of these prominent
voices raises regulatory heat on Twitter with the EU and possibly
Elon's other companies, including Tesla and SpaceX,
which is a big recipient of government funding through the
Department of Defense for SpaceX and Tesla for subsidies for E
VS. And there were online protest
news organization the Times, CNN, various other publications,
and online outlets. They all demanded Elon to
explain why he did this, and supporters of these journalists
argued on Twitter that the move was punitive at best because
Elon hasn't provided any proof that these tracking systems that
Elon Jett was using were harming him in any way, or anybody else
for that matter. And to top it all off, lawmakers
in the European Union may go offensive on this.
Vier Dorova, vice president of the European Commission, said.
This may have violated the E US Digital Services Act in its
freedom. Its Media Freedom Act, she
tweeted. News about arbitrary suspension
of journalists on Twitter is worrying.
This is reinforced under our Media Freedom Act.
Elon Musk should be aware of that.
There are red lines and sanctions soon.
The Digital Services Act serves as kind of a rule book for
platforms like Twitter servicing the The block the EU.
It goes into effect next year and it carries a fine of about
6% of global revenue for companies that break the rules.
Musk also suspended several other flight tracker accounts at
this time, which are dedicated to planes owned by Russian
oligarchs or the US government, and in a group voice chat on
Twitter Thursday night on a Spaces chat, what if the band
reporters defended the work to Elon Musk?
This is where it gets really interesting.
And they insisted he didn't publish the Twitter boss's
address, didn't say anything about where Elon was.
Musk got upset and said no, that's not true at all.
But then Musk left. The chat just left.
And I want you to hear this because I think you're gonna get
something out of this. You're gonna see how Elon acts
when he's confronted by these journalists.
Elon, thank you for joining. I am hoping that you can give a
little more context about what has happened in the last few
hours with a handful of journalists being banned.
Yeah. Well.
As I'm sure everyone of you who's been Dachshund would
agree, you know, showing real time information about
somebody's location is inappropriate.
And I think everyone on this poll would not like that to be
done for to them and and, but there is not going to be any
distinction in the future between journalists or both
journalists and and regular people.
Everyone's going to be treated the same.
They're not special because you're a journalist.
You're just. You're you're just.
You're you're a Twitter. You're just you're a citizen, so
no. Especially your docs.
Your docs. You get suspended in a story.
So and and and and and and Ban evasion.
Ban evasion. Or like or or trying to be
clever about it like. Oh, I posted a link to the real
time information. It's obviously that is obviously
simply trying to evade the the the meaning.
That is, there's no different from hidden paste than actually
showing real time. So when you're saying posting a
link to it, I mean some of the people like Drew and and Ryan
Mack from the New York Times who were were banned were were, you
know, they were reporting on it in the course of sort of pretty
normal journalistic endeavors. You consider that like a tricky
attempt at ban evasion. You show the link to the real
time information ban evasion, obviously.
I I drew I don't think you were posting the real time
information right? I mean, well you're you're
suggesting that we're sharing your address, which is not not
true. And you're suggesting that we're
we're posting we never I I never posted your address.
You posted a link to the address.
We posted a link we in in the course of reporting about Elon
Jet. We posted links to Elon Jet
which are now not online and now banned on on Twitter and and
Twitter also of course marks even the Instagram and Macedon
accounts of Elon Jet as as harmful using you know, we have
to admit acknowledge using the same exact link blocking
technique that you have criticized as part of the Hunter
Biden New York Post story in 2020.
So what is different here and there for me?
It's it's no more acceptable for me, For you, that is.
For me, same thing so. Anyway, so it's unacceptable
what you're doing. No.
What? Your your docs.
You get suspended and the story. That's it.
Elon, I have to ask. I mean, I think what everyone's
wondering is it, it's highly unusual for journalists at the
Washington Post and the New York Times to be how their Twitter
accounts suspended. And it just so happens that
it's, you know, the the boss in charge, you know.
So, you know, what's the deal there?
Oh, I think. I think Elon has has left.
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I guess that's unfortunate, because yeah, I mean.
Yes, what the difference is? There, you know not.
Trying to I was raring though guys, and some of the suspected
accounts belong to reporters who recently covered or tweeted
about the dispute between Musk and Elon Jet.
Now, Elon Jet, His real name is Jack Sweeney, and he's a
freshman in Florida. And he was tweeting about Elon's
private jet, the approximate location of it.
There's public flight data for his jet, and it's out there for
anybody else to find and to use and post anywhere they want to.
But Elon doesn't want it on Twitter.
So think about this for a second.
It's a private company, and private companies can make their
own rules as long as they follow the rule of the land.
So like we were saying before the EU, the Block, they have
some laws coming into the books early next year that will find
people and find organizations for this kind of behavior.
But also it's a private company in the United States.
So Elon can do whatever he wants to do to make the platform
however he wants to make it. And if he says the doxing and
real time data isn't a good thing on the platform, then
sure, he can ban those people and he can make a rule that
shows that that's not an acceptable use case for the
platform. And Musk also said that the
suspension of these accounts for the journalist had been lifted.
OK, so they've been appealed. Elon has lifted the suspensions.
But also Elon said they posted my exact real time location,
basically assassination coordinates, in direct violation
of Twitter terms of service. Seven day suspension for doxing
some time away from Twitter is good for the soul, Musk said in
a later tweet. But assassination coordinates,
because a jet was being tracked, I don't know if he was going a
little bit above in that, if you know what I'm saying.
If he's talking about, you know, he was afraid for his life, you
know, somebody literally jumped on the car of his child during
this whole fiasco That was the Elan jet fiasco.
And they rattled around a little bit.
And then Elon, which is a funnier thing, not even funny.
This is kind of a, it's a, it's a it's a horrible thing to do to
somebody. He basically doxed a person, his
own Twitter account with 150 million followers.
But Elon posted a video on his Twitter account of somebody
sitting in their car. They had a mask on.
They had a, you know, they had a hat and a mask on.
They were dressed in black. He didn't have any proof that
this person was doing anything wrong, but he posted this
person's likeness, and not only that, their license plate number
on his Twitter account and said and asked if anybody had
information about this person. So he's basically asking
somebody else to dox this person for him.
Hey, do you have any information about this person?
And if you do send it over to me, if that's not something that
we should be informed about and aware about and think about in a
little bit broader context, I don't know what is.
So the little bit more context about the the rattling of Elon
and his child. I'll get into that in one
second. And in order to unsuspended all
of these accounts, Elon posted a poll on Twitter.
Now this is where it gets a little bit more interesting too.
Posted a poll on Twitter to his 141 million followers.
The poll was unsuspended. Accounts who doxed my exact
location in real time now there's 4 answers here, now,
tomorrow, seven days from now and longer. 43% voted for now,
4% voted for tomorrow, 14% voted for seven days from now, and 39%
voted for longer. So seven days from now and
longer got the most amount of votes together and now and
tomorrow equaled 47%. So seven days from now and
longer have more than 50%. So people thought that maybe
people should be banned for a little bit longer than a day or
two, you know, So Elon posted that and he apparently didn't
like the way that that turned out.
He, I guess he didn't like the way that the poll ran and it
wasn't. You know we don't really have
any back end information to see what Elon was thinking with this
poll if he should have made it easier, but he did.
He made it easier. He made it easier into a a poll
with just two question or two answers here.
So as opposed to the four he did 2 answers, one was now and one
was in seven days and the tweet said unsuspended accounts.
Who docks my exact location in real time.
The first answer is now and the 2nd is in seven days now got 58
percent, 58.7% of the votes and in seven days he's got 41.3% of
the votes. So now one easily with 58.7% of
the votes. So and that was December 15th
2022 at 11:34 PM and we have a verdict for this.
Everybody has been unbanned that has been suspended for doxing
his exact location in real time. As Elon puts it, he he didn't
put it in quotes, he just put it as my exact location in real
time and remember these his assassination coordinates as he
put them and he wants to unsuspend them now.
Does that seem safe to you? Just think about that for a
second. If these people are going to
really dox you. If Elon thinks that there's a
harm being done by these people, would he unsuspend them?
Critical. Think that for a second.
If you know people are out to get you, would you unsuspend
them now or in seven days or ever?
So he left it up to the voting on Twitter, which I don't know
if you trust that there were 3.690639 votes, 3.69 million
votes on this, and 58.7% said yes, now do it.
So Elon said, OK, we're going to do it.
So he unbanned those accounts, those people that were tweeting
his exact assassination coordinates.
So, and and I I see this as somebody who likes to think of
both sides of things, you know, even something like this, you
have to be journalistic about it.
You have to think of both sides of it.
Were these journalists thinking, look, we're just reporting out a
story, You know, this is going to grab headlines, This is going
to make us some money. This is going to drive people to
our article, which is going to bump up our numbers.
We can keep our jobs for a little bit, you know.
That's kind of how journalism has always gone.
There are journalistic in integral parts of our
communities, right? So we have people that just
report the news. No spin, no catchy headlines,
Just a picture of the thing that's going on or a video of
the thing that's going on and facts, right?
Or you can write about some stuff with some crazy headlines
and a crazy content that'll get a bunch of clicks.
And these people were reporting on the Elon Jet account and
saying, yeah, OK, he's following.
He's been following Elon for the longest time.
But also in an earlier tweet about three months ago, Elon
posted that when he takes control of Twitter, he's not
going to or is 34 days ago, I believe less.
It was about a month ago. He's not going to ban the Elon
jet account because why would he?
It's free speech, right? Elon is a proponent of all free
speech. Everything should be allowed.
And if this data is public data that anybody can go out and get,
it's literally transmitted over the airwaves for pilots and for
airports. Anybody can tap into this.
It's just data, you know. Do you suppress that free speech
by suspending that account, by doxing a location?
That's what Elon says. It's a it's a dox of a location.
Do you suppress that as free speech?
If it's free and open data, is that free to use?
Is it, you know, it's out there in the airwaves.
Anybody can get it. Think about it for a second.
What would you do in this situation?
Elon says it's a it's a security risk for him and his family.
And I totally understand that. And I'm I'm not trying to invoke
any emotions with anybody here. But if if it's going to harm you
and your family or anybody else's family or anybody else's
children, anybody's, parents, grandparents, friends, anything,
should there be limitations on this sort of speech?
Is that sort of the going into a a movie theater or a public
place in yelling fire? Is that the same thing?
I want to think about that for a moment because I'm doing
reporting on the incidents that happened.
But also this is a broader sort of conversation that people
should be having about a social media at this time.
Because somebody just took over one of the biggest social media
platforms on earth and now has the reins to it and it has all
of the power over and can make kind of arbitrary choices what
the rules are. So is this OK to track
somebody's plane? Due to public information, you
know, can you use public information information for
that? So that's where Elon is at right
now. He believes it's doxing and he
unsuspended the accounts who doxed his exact location in real
time. He unsuspended all of them.
So he was true to his word in that sense, suspended them, gave
him a little warning and said, hey, don't do this again.
And those accounts have been published again.
They can publish things in their past tweets.
If they are doxing, they've been removed.
But also if you try to post links to other websites or other
apps that track Elon Jet, there's a new Reddit, there's a
new subreddit about Elon Jet, and it tracks Elon's real time
in his jet. And you cannot post to that
anymore because of Twitter's new rules banning any sort of real
time exact location data that you post to Twitter.
So just something to think about.
And on November 9th Elon Musk tweeted, Please note that
Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.
We will keep what works and change what doesn't.
So you have it right there from Elon that he said we're going to
make mistakes. And if you see the banning of
Elon Jet or those journalists as a mistake, that's a possibility.
Investors in Tesla that are worried about what Elon's doing.
Over at Twitter, Elon has promised that Tesla would
benefit from his Twitter buyout. But Wall Street is thinking the
other way and he's some people at Wall Street are thinking that
he's using Tesla as sort of a bank account for Twitter.
SEC filings revealed Elon sold $3.6 billion in Tesla stock.
So analysts have been speculating that this money will
help cover Twitter's deficits. And that's kind of a concerning
thing for a lot of investors. You don't want the head of the
company to draw money out of that company and put it into
something else that you don't know what this $3.6 billion or
how this $3.6 billion is going to make you money.
That's what you're in it for, right?
So you buy stocks in a company because you want to make money.
You want to support their company.
Of course you know you want to support Tesla in whatever they
do. But also you put money into this
company because you want to see a return on your investment.
If you put $100 in Disney in the beginning, you are rich beyond
compare. I don't know if you're rich, I
don't know what the numbers are to be honest with you, but you
have you have a good a good amount of money.
Now if you put 1000 dollars, 2000 dollars, $3000, $20,000
into Disney at the at the beginning, you have a pretty
good chunk of change. And you know there's there's a
bunch of people at these at these meetings and these
investor meetings that are saying we don't really like
this. We don't understand why you're
taking 3.6 billion dollars of your stocks and trading them
out, selling them all and then taking this money and putting
into Twitter, which that doesn't have anything to do with Tesla.
Why you? Why you spending $3.6 billion of
your stock? And mind you This is Money that
Elon has earned through his his options through the company.
So it's his money. But also these stocks are going
out to other people and not being held by Elon at this
point. So this brings the total of
Tesla stock that Musk sold this year to $23 billion.
People thinks this is kind of a shake up, because if you take
$23 billion away from Tesla and you give it to other people, you
know, sell it to other people, of course you're gonna make the
money. Elon's gonna use that money for
things like SpaceX. He's gonna use that money for
things like Twitter, Boring Company and his charitable
endeavors, but also this recent $3.6 billion.
It was in the same time frame that Elon took over Twitter.
So Elon promised that in the long haul, Tesla would benefit
from his ownership of Twitter, though, and analysts aren't
really on board with that. Dan Ives at Wedbush wrote in a
report Thursday that Twitter remains a nightmare for
investors because Musk has been using, quote, Tesla as his own
ATM machine to keep funding. End Quote.
So ATM machine. I've always had a problem with
that because ATM means automated automated teller machine.
But if you do ATM machine, automated teller machine
machine, it's always silly. But I I digress.
Twitter's you know their their stock's down a little bit too.
There's some shareholders that are not really happy.
The third largest individual shareholder calls for a new CEO
as Twitter continues to take the money away from Tesla.
So patience and Tesla is wearing thin and Elon is spending a lot
of his time running Twitter at this point.
But Elon tweeted not so long ago that he is not really in the
day-to-day operations of both SpaceX and Tesla at this point.
He does help out, he does his thing.
Now Elon has people in charge to do the day-to-day operations for
Tesla and SpaceX, Boring Company and Neuralink as well.
Those companies aren't small, fast, nimble startups anymore.
They're legit companies, and they're making millions and
billions of dollars hand over fist.
So he doesn't need to be there every day, sleeping on the floor
like he used to, because that's something you would do at a
startup. You'd spend all of your time
there because you need to make this thing work.
Tesla's third largest individual shareholder, Kogiyang Lio is
calling for a new CEO of Tesla, which would allow Musk to focus
on his other ventures like SpaceX and Twitter.
Aleo said Elon abandoned Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO.
Tesla needs and deserves to have working full time CEO.
That's what they tweeted on Wednesday, and they have a 22.7
million share position in Tesla as of September and it's worth
$3.57 billion. They built their stake in Tesla
during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the
stock traded at a split and adjusted price of about $40
compared to today's 150. Some odd dollars and it
fluctuates a little bit. It was $155 at the time of this
recording. It's been going down a little
bit and Tesla shares are down 55% Year to date.
In The stock has erased about $225 billion in market value
since Musk close. His deal to buy Twitter in late
October raised about $225 billion in market value, and the
decline came at the time when the S&P 500 climbed more than 3%
up. So investor concerns are real.
Wedbush Dan Ives called Musk's Twitter venture circus and quote
the Twilight Zone. So Elon is in charge of Twitter,
taking time away from his time at Tesla and $3.5 billion Stake
investor wants more time with Elon or wants a new CEO.
If Elon doesn't want to leave Tesla, he could have another
role in the company. Still get his shares, Still get
his money and use that money for Twitter.
Use that money for SpaceX. Every year he takes up money for
his ventures on the side. He's an employee, according to,
you know, some people in the company, you know, some higher
ups. The stock holders there, they're
the people in charge. They're the people that have all
the money invested in Tesla. So if they call for a new CEO,
they could get a new CEO. They could, they could force a
new CEO. You know, Tesla's grown up.
Tesla is a big company now. They're a corporation.
They, they make vehicles. E VS for millions of people now.
And it's a thing to be in the business and to be in charge of
the business and be there in day-to-day operations or to have
five other things going on like Elon does.
And if you can take care of those five other things, that's
great. Most people can't.
If I have 5 things to do, I would go crazy, especially on
the scale that Elon has. I mean, I don't think anybody
could really take care of that in such a way that it would be
beneficial to everybody involved in every single one of those
companies. If I were in charge, all the
one, all of those companies wouldn't make it, to be honest
with you. But Elon has a way about him
that he can do multiple tasks in a very, very high level that
most people can't even think about doing.
So is it OK for him to be let go as the CEO and take another role
in the company, maybe head engineer, you know, something
like that? Who knows?
We'll see you in the next few weeks, maybe a month or so to
see what the shares do at Tesla and if the stockholders, if the
shareholders are going to put Elon's feet to the fire and
either have him spend more time on Tesla or get rid of him and
put somebody in his place. Hey, thank you so much for
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