Elon Musk: Somebody That I Used to Know - On with Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say. So we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe. Expose corruption wherever we find it. And give fresh perspective on everything. From wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.

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Kara Swisher: Hello, I'm Kara Swisher. Today, we've got an episode of On, my other favorite podcast. It's about my history with Elon Musk and his turn from innovator to troll. Enjoy.

Kara Swisher: From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher with 20% fewer fucks given.

Nayeema Raza: Just kidding. I'm Nayeema Raza. I probably give like 20% more fucks.

Kara Swisher: Why did you take my job? You're like all about Eve.

Nayeema Raza: I am. And now you're supposed to say you're Kara Swisher, in case people don't know.

Kara Swisher: I am Kara Swisher, and it's going to be a bumpy night, Nayeema.

Nayeema Raza: Oh, I'm very excited. Do you get the reference?

Kara Swisher: You don't get the reference?

Nayeema Raza: I do. It's a whole black and white film. I know it.

Kara Swisher: Oh my God. So Kara, there is an avalanche of news coming out of Twitter right now, including big news last week that Yoel Roth, who was head of trust and safety, has left the company. Obviously a huge and a very visible loss.

Kara Swisher: Absolutely. He's been the reasonable guy and now he's out. He was the front person for Elon for the last week or so. The people they kept pushing to say everything is fine here. And now apparently it's not fine. It wasn't just him. It was a lot of people in privacy and compliance. And for a brief second, the last advertising person standing seems to have quit. And then they somehow lured her back. So Robin Wheeler.

Nayeema Raza: Yes. You know, amongst this sea of chaos, what we'd like to do today is to pull back out of the news and interview you to help make sense of Elon. Because you've had this unique 20-year reporting relationship with Elon and lots of long interviews with him over a decade.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I mean, I've known him for a long time. I actually, you made me go back and look at some emails and our emails are very funny. They're interesting. He's a very challenging person sometimes, but I'd forgotten how much we talked about stuff. And it's interesting to see what he's morphed into now. But yeah, I've covered him since 1999.

Nayeema Raza: Since the last century.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, last century. And you've kind of gone in your coverage and analysis from supportive of Elon to less supportive, particularly these days. But in this conversation, I want to understand that shift and whether you've changed, he's changed, or the circumstances have changed.

Kara Swisher: I call him as I see him. I'll support him when he's doing great things and I will tell him when he's being an asshole. It's how I do parenting. I don't know what to say. I'm not his mama, like I always say, but I'm going to tell him what I think. I always have. And if he doesn't like it, whatever, sir. You don't have to listen, but I'm telling you the truth.

Nayeema Raza: And let me just say, you've been covering Elon more as an investor and a tech pioneer, more so than covering closely his specific companies like SpaceX or Tesla.

Kara Swisher: Well, I've been covering the EV space quite a bit, you know.

Nayeema Raza: Yes, yes, a little bit more, but I'm interested in the business. And you've really, I think, covered very thoroughly Elon's rise and influence in Silicon Valley, especially since the death of Steve Jobs.

Kara Swisher: Right. I think he has sort of inherited that mantle a little bit, although he certainly is not living up to that right now.

Nayeema Raza: So you've been covering this unique personality for decades, and you've covered Twitter from the very start. I mean, social media was very much your beat. And so what we're experiencing now is the intersection of a person you've reported on, observed, understood over decades with a company you've covered from its inception, Twitter.

Kara Swisher: From before it was Twitter. It was called Odeo. I mean, I remember bringing a pie to the headquarters and there were like four people there. You know, it was really small on, I think it was Bryant Street, if I recall correctly. And so I've been covering Twitter from the get-go.

Nayeema Raza: So you're a major user on Twitter. You have 1.4 million followers. You tweet a lot. You're extremely engaged.

Kara Swisher: It's my hobby.

Nayeema Raza: It's your hobby.

Kara Swisher: It's like stamp collecting.

Nayeema Raza: It's my addiction.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, kind of.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah, addiction is a good word for it.

Kara Swisher: Oh, hobby. I like it. I enjoy it. It's also a medium. It's like an art, right? A craft. I'm always like I'm a professional Twitterer.

Nayeema Raza: Kind of make you a business card.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Nayeema Raza: I think people do want to understand what's your opinion, what's your analysis, what's reporting and how these elements intertwine, right? Because you have a lot of history that informs your perspective on Elon.

Kara Swisher: So people forget I was a beat reporter for many, many, many years. And everyone's like, you don't know what you're talking about. Like someone today was like, you don't understand this. I was like, are you kidding me? I know this company and all its players very well. And all the different people who've tried to come at it and the board members. I just, I think I could stand up next to anybody to talk about the history of this company and where it's been going.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. And our full episode is going to be unpacking your reporting. And I want to take a walk down memory lane of the Kara Elon situationship.

Kara Swisher: Well, you know, I'd like to say to start, I really have been very supportive of Elon, even when he's acted badly sometimes. And because I really do believe, you know, especially around Tesla and SpaceX and some of his other stuff, I think he's really visionary. So I've always been someone who's been much more supportive than other reporters. And I think I get dragged a lot for that. But there's a guy who had a rug store in Palo Alto and he ended up taking shares of people's startups rather than money for his rug.

Nayeema Raza: Shares or chairs because he has a rug store.

Kara Swisher: Shares. Shares. Of these startups. And he got very rich and he became a very good, a very smart, savvy investor. He said, Silicon Valley is full of really smart people working on small ideas.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: And I was like, big people working on small. That always stuck with me for years and years. That stuck with me. And Elon Musk was a big mind working on big ideas. And so I always appreciated that for sure.

Nayeema Raza: I agree with you. When I was in the Valley at Stanford, someone said this, I think, Silicon Valley has a problem? Because everyone was like, we're fixing the laundry problem. We're fixing the dry cleaning problem. We're fixing the scooter problem. It's like, what's the actual fucking problem?

Kara Swisher: Right. I used to say San Francisco was assisted living for millennials. You know, that's what they were solving, all those dumb problems. And Elon wasn't. These are big issues. And he was passionate and he was emotional and very approachable.

Nayeema Raza: We're going to get to the beginning of your relationship in a minute. You know, we'll get to all those early encounters. But before we go down memory lane, I want a snapshot so people understand as they're listening where your relationship with Elon is today.

Kara Swisher: He's not speaking to me.

Nayeema Raza: So one word to describe it.

Kara Swisher: I'm an asshole. He emailed me this recently.

Nayeema Raza: Yes. So let's talk about your last email exchange. You know, before this, I had asked him for an interview for On, and we had a great back and forth about what should be done at Twitter. And I was explaining what we had done with Twitter Spaces. And he said, I'd love your thoughts. And I'd love to come on the show, this and that. And I was like, oh, great. This is great.

Kara Swisher: In early October, I was on some of those email chains with you and Elon trading. And what he said is, he said he's going to come talk to us when the dust settles.

Nayeema Raza: Yes, that's correct. And then I tweeted something that he didn't like. I tweeted this Washington Post article, which cited an anonymous U.S. defense official talking about Starlink. The official said, Elon's going to Elon. And I wrote on Twitter, Elon's going to Elon kind of says it all.

Kara Swisher: So this is this mid-October reporting from Washington Post where Elon was at the time kind of wavering on whether or not he was going to keep funding Starlink. But I didn't agree with this defense official. I think they should pay Elon. And I said that. And so the next couple of tweets was like, I think he should be paid. He does have them over the barrel and can say what he wants because they, I think it was Defense Department's problem.

Nayeema Raza: And then on October 17th at 9.45 p.m. Eastern, you get an email from Elon.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, late. It's always late. Up at night having chocolate sandwiches. I don't know what's happening.

Nayeema Raza: And the subject says?

Kara Swisher: Just says you're an asshole. And a screenshot.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah, the screenshot was there, which is fine. And in this case, I was supporting him, which is really kind of ironic. And it's also weird that he doesn't follow you on Twitter, but he's aware of your tweets.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's his brother, I'm sure. The only way I can think about it is one of his minions or his brother, his brother responded saying no good deeds. And I go, indeed. I don't know. Who knows.

Nayeema Raza: Did you write him back at the email?

Kara Swisher: I did. I was like, are you kidding me? Like I was, I wrote him back saying, I actually was supporting you here. You obviously are getting bad information. I wasn't being obsequious in any way. I'm like, what are you talking about? First of all, whatever, he can call me an asshole. I don't care.

Nayeema Raza: Did you hear back?

Kara Swisher: No, no. And I explained it. I said, this is what I've been supportive of you here, here, here, and here. I don't know what you're talking about. You can attack me for other things. You don't agree with me. And I thought it was super thin skinned. I just did. I was wrong and thin skinned at the same time. But no response.

Nayeema Raza: So does this feel different to you? This kind of mad Elon, is it different this time?

Kara Swisher: No, I've been on the receiving end of this many times. I think he has people around him that agree, and people who know him. You saw Chris Sacca having that long tweet about that.

Nayeema Raza: Sacca's thread was really about how isolated Elon seems to have become. Do you think he's isolated right now?

Kara Swisher: I think he's got, you know, apparently goes to a lot of Hollywood parties now. He showed up, and he looked kind of good in that outfit that he had on, whatever the warrior outfit he was wearing, the Japanese warrior. I think he's, you know, I think as you get that rich and people tell you what a genius you are, you start to really believe it and you don't like people around you who disagree. And even if people think they're disagreeing around them, they're really not. They're not risking their relationship.

Nayeema Raza: You know, one of the things I've heard from inside Twitter, which is interesting, and I've heard this about him before, when he wants to do something, he wants to do it. And apparently he, down to like Oxford commas in text, in like communications texts and stuff and ads and things like that. He likes the Oxford comma, whatever.

Kara Swisher: That's the extra comma that I hate actually.

Nayeema Raza: But Elon likes it?

Kara Swisher: He likes it. And someone was like, you know, that's not how we do it. And he said, well, I'm the law here. That's what he said to them. I'm the law. He said it to several people. So I know it's true.

Nayeema Raza: I'm the law. It's true. He is. But God, saying it, yikes. So now I want to hit rewind. I want to go back in time. So it's like what? The late 90s, early aughts. You haven't yet had 100 kids and you're living in San Francisco back then. And you're at the Journal or all things D when you first met Elon?

Kara Swisher: I think I was at the Journal. I covered him. I covered x.com.

Nayeema Raza: Yes.

Kara Swisher: Which was, I can't find those stories. He loved cars and he was quirky and interesting. And I liked him better than a lot of the others. The PayPal guys included Peter Thiel and David Sacks. I didn't like them so much. And, you know, ultimately as a reporter, you're supposed to not think, but you know, you don't like people. You don't like them. You're like, ugh, that guy. So I met him around then and he merged. He had other founders there at x.com and he merged it into PayPal. And I covered it a little bit.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah, with Peter Thiel's Confinity to become PayPal. They've closed that by 2000. But, you know, they didn't like each other, x.com and PayPal. Elon got removed as CEO of PayPal because he was made CEO of PayPal, right? And then he was removed. The board replaced him with Peter Thiel.

Kara Swisher: I think it was when he was on honeymoon, by the way.

Nayeema Raza: Oh, really? They didn't get along. So he was part of the PayPal mafia, which included, of course, Peter Thiel, but also Reid Hoffman, who went on to found LinkedIn, Jeremy Stoppelman, who founded Yelp, Keith Rabois of Square and Open Door fame. And Max Levchin was very important.

Kara Swisher: And Max Levchin, of course. Lovely guy. Lovely, lovely. Ukrainian.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. How did Elon stand out in this crowd? If at all?

Kara Swisher: Not particularly. Reid Hoffman was really the, Peter sort of made himself the center of attention. And then he went off and did all his different investment funds and Facebook most, obviously that was a great investment. But he didn't particularly. He was sort of just one of the startup guys. There were lots of people like Elon back then, lots of people.

Nayeema Raza: So he was just like a Jeremy Stoppelman, for example, kind of blink and miss him in the group.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Well, yeah. You know, I knew who he was, but there were lots of them. They were all over the place. They crawling all over San Francisco.

Nayeema Raza: How did he emerge out of that pack to be the richest and most powerful? I mean, that's a very powerful little bunch of guys.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it was. They've all done very well, by the way. I'm not crying for any of them.

Nayeema Raza: No, some better than others.

Kara Swisher: So I ran into all of them. And so I was always attracted to Elon stuff because it was different. It was sure different, you know, the stuff he did in Tesla and the rockets. I'm particularly fixated on the rockets.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. By 2002, he'd moved on to SpaceX. And in 2004, he jumped into Tesla. That's right. Someone else started it. He was not the founder.

Kara Swisher: Exactly.

Nayeema Raza: And you knew him during this time. You talked to him during this time, right?

Kara Swisher: Not a lot. Not a lot. You were kind of in his orbit.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. You couldn't get an onstage interview with him until 2013. Why?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Well, we didn't pursue it that much. You know what I mean? We asked him, but he wasn't at the top of our list. We were interviewing Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Nayeema Raza: The interview that you finally got in 2013 wasn't easy to book. It took literal legwork from you and your former business partner at All Things D, of course, longtime Wall Street Journal columnist, Walt Mossberg. You and Walt tracked down Elon at South by Southwest. Here's how Walt starts to tell it, because I spoke to him the other day.

[Clip plays]

Walt Mossberg: You know, we were walking down the street at South by, and it was very funny, actually. This part has nothing to do with Elon. But people were yelling to us and saying hi to us every minute walking down the street. We were like celebs, you know, and we were together so it was very funny. And I said, so what are we going to do? And she said, well, he's at a private dinner that we're not invited to, but we're going to go, we're going to walk into the dinner and we're going to try to persuade him. And she said, and I can't do it by myself. I haven't succeeded so far. So I need you. And the two of us together will do this. So I said, well, not my style to crash people's dinners, but sure, I'll do it.

[End clip]

Kara Swisher: By the way, first of all, everybody was looking at Walt, not me. Walt was a real star, like Elvis at CES. It was like, here's Elvis. I can't explain to you how famous Walt was among techies. But we went to this dinner and I remember what the restaurant had a window and, you know, everyone's jammed in and they were having dinner and Elon was there. And I sent Walt in because I had been nagging Elon.

Nayeema Raza: And you guys went and cornered him, right? You literally put him in a corner?

Kara Swisher: Yes, we cornered him and we stood on either side. And I said, I brought in the big guns now, Elon, you have to say yes. And so he said yes to Walt. He did not say yes to me, but he did say yes to Walt. And he did it. And it was a great, great, great interview.

Nayeema Raza: So his big idea in 2013 back then was about electric vehicles. And specifically, you know, he kind of went from doing yellow pages and payments to space and, you know, autonomous vehicles, which was a huge jump for him. And you guys asked him about that in the interview. Let's play a clip from this 2013 conversation. You'd asked him, why did he want to do this of all things?

[Clip plays]

Elon Musk: The reason for Tesla was it's not because I thought that there was some huge opportunity in electric cars or that I thought it was some rank-order best way to get a return on investment or something like that. In fact, I think starting at a car company, particularly an electric car company, would have to rank as one of the dumbest things you could possibly do on that scale.

[End clip]

Nayeema Raza: He goes on for a while, but ultimately he lands at this kind of idea that even though it was dumb, even if he wasn't the best fit for it, no one else was going to do it. Let's hear that.

[Clip plays]

Elon Musk: The easiest thing for me to have done after PayPal would have been to start a new internet company. That would have been like falling off a log. I mean, it would have been quite really easy. And so the reason I did it was because it was clear that we were not going to see electric cars from the incumbent manufacturers.

[End clip]

Nayeema Raza: So I mean, what does it sound like to hear him now? You probably haven't heard that clip in a long time.

Kara Swisher: I haven't.

Nayeema Raza: Wow.

Kara Swisher: That because I liked him. I was like, good for you. I literally was surrounded by people pitching me the stupidest, stupidest, stupidest startups and they were making a fortune. And part of me hated them for that because this was a chance to change humanity. I got into this because I love tech, and I think tech has these amazing breakthrough qualities. He was the, I can't think of another person who was talking like this. And he was talking about cars, which were important and a big problem with, he was talking about climate change very early. Space, and not in a stupid way, in a really like, we have to become a multi-planetary species. And I wasn't buying into the hype. I thought it was, they were big ideas and there was no way not to be excited by it.

Nayeema Raza: When I hear that clip, I hear shades of why he might want to have bought Twitter, you know?

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Nayeema Raza: A consumer social app. He has no past experience. It would have been easier for him now to do a product, like a consumer product. But it suggests he knows very little about how to do this, but no one else is going to make it better. That's kind of what we saw in some of his texts with people. Do you hear something similar in that?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. You know what? Honestly, when he started going after it, I thought, this is the best person. Yeah, he could do it. Like, yeah, I think I said that and a lot of people were like, no way. I was like, you know what? He is. There's very few people that could bring together the kind of people needed to make this thing better.

Nayeema Raza: We're going to get to Twitter a little bit later, but do you think he gets off on being an underdog?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I mean, that's okay. I don't mind. Someone had to do it. It should be me. I will go in and save.

Nayeema Raza: So what drives him? I mean, this is opinion based on your reporting and relationship with him. What do you think motivates him more? The desire to do something big or the desire to disprove people who are naysayers?

Kara Swisher: Well, you know, all really good entrepreneurs are contrarians. They just are by nature. So, and he's taken it to an extreme in lots of ways. But I would say on good days, I think he really, and I'm using a Steve Jobs term, he wanted to make a dent in the universe. He does. He does. He thinks that one time I caught him when he was very emotional after he had a very difficult period with Tesla, another interview I did later. And he was almost crying because he said that the earth is going to die. And if I heard that from most people, I'm like, get out of here. You're a liar. You are. So in the best case, I think he wants to make a dent in the universe. In the worst case, massive narcissism. But they sometimes go hand in hand.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. And he's rising at the time where Jobs is gone.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Nayeema Raza: But Elon was very emotional. And in 2013, he had a very complicated relationship with the press. There's a big backstory here, but he got upset by this bad review of the Tesla Model S in the New York Times. Do you remember that?

Kara Swisher: Oh, yeah. I asked him about that.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. And he claimed that that reporting, that article was fake and it went back and forth. The public editor, who is Margaret Sullivan, who you just interviewed, you know, got involved and weighed in. So you asked him about that in 2013. Here's the clip.

[Clip plays]

Kara Swisher: Is that why you hit back so hard at the Times? I mean, we joke about it and stuff like that, but many people don't do that. What was the reasoning? I know you've said a lot about this, but what was your reasoning? Is it like, you're not going to take this?

Elon Musk: Yeah, well, I thought about it a fair bit before actually responding. So it wasn't sort of just a totally off the cuff thing. But when the article was published, we saw a significant decrease in sales, particularly in the New York Times main readership area, sort of in the Northeast, particularly in cold areas.

[End clip]

Nayeema Raza: He said it wasn't off the cuff. It wasn't. He thought about it. So what do you think now? I mean, this is early on in his friction with the press. Obviously, these days he's tweeting about the Times like Trump was.

Kara Swisher: He was very strategic in that regard. I mean, nobody punches back like he does, and he punches back very similar to Trump in that regard. But he felt he was wronged. Like he had more data than the journalist driving the car. That was part of his argument, right?

Nayeema Raza: He did, but it was the beginning of not tolerating real feedback around issues around Tesla. One thing I did think was unfair was, look, there are car accidents every day because of car makers or because of people driving them or whatever. And every time there was a problem with an electric car, the press piled on like one and there were thousands of accidents.

Kara Swisher: But that's covering a new technology. That is correct. Correct. It was overdone. Just like when websites first came along. I think I wrote 10 stories. So Discovery has a website. Wow. Yeah. He's been working very hard on this. And I think he didn't agree with them. Now, he went a little personal. You know, for the most part, I think he's gotten very fair coverage. I think he's gotten a lot of slavish coverage, a lot of slavish coverage, and a lot of unfair coverage, and mostly fair coverage, I think. But he only sees the stuff that's unfair.

Nayeema Raza: He seems to be fighting, like he seems to be justifying his emotion with rationality. He's saying, I have this data, and you are driving down sales. So he's like an engineer approaching an emotional problem. Is that a fair way to characterize him?

Kara Swisher: I guess. I just think he's much more emotional than you think. It's just that you don't think these people are emotional.

Nayeema Raza: But does he let himself be that?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's clear. He gets mad. Why would you write a, me, you're an asshole. No, nobody does that. Like, not because they're scared of me. It's just like, just take a minute, right? And so he didn't ever take many minutes. And he just sort of, and he loves communicating. Like, you can see it. You can see it. Twitter became his vehicle in that regard.

Nayeema Raza: But he seems to feel like he's right because he's armed with some kind of data that makes him right.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Nayeema Raza: Right?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. That's a little what's different about him because other people, you might say, you and I could argue and I could say, I'm very emotional about this. No. Everybody, lots of Silicon Valley people are like this. If you understood, Kara.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: If, you know, I'm very rich, Kara, in this area and therefore I'm an expert in this area. I mean, every one of them.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Every one of them. Jeff Bezos is particularly bad that way. He says that to you a lot in interviews. Elon does. You're not understanding me. You don't understand. You don't get it. You don't get it. Okay. Well, then explain it to me like I'm stupid. That's what I often say to these people.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah, which is a great way to get the answer out.

Kara Swisher: They assume malevolence when you're just like, huh? Explain it to me. They don't like that. And he has not liked it more and more as time has gone on.

Nayeema Raza: In that interview, you mentioned that you guys had laughed about it, I think, earlier in the interview. And there was a sense of comedy about the spectacle Elon was creating about this coverage. But do you think you were understating something that seemed like maybe a one-off but became more problematic in Elon? Do you think you recognized at that moment just how big a deal this pushback against press was?

Kara Swisher: I didn't mind him doing that. No, I didn't mind him doing it. He should be able to do what he wants. I'm often like, do what you want, but reap the rewards. So if he wanted to push back, I mean, you know, there are some people who think that reviewers had too much power, not just car reviewers, but all kinds of reviewers. And so it's okay to say, hey, just a minute. And, you know, Walt, speaking of people who had real influence, Walt could make or break products. And so if he was wrong, you know, Jobs used to call him or Gates would call him after he reviewed a product and, you know, started yelling at him.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah, I'd asked Walt about those kind of interactions with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Let's hear a clip.

[Clip plays]

Nayeema Raza: You've talked about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates having heated discussions and arguments with people like Steve and Bill when you wrote things that were critical of them or, you know...

Walt Mossberg: They'd be mad at me for a day.

Nayeema Raza: So what would they do, not respond to your calls or write you a huffy email? What would they do?

Walt Mossberg: Bill would write me an email complaining and Steve would get me on the phone and complain. And then, you know, a week later, we'd be okay, you know.

[End clip]

Kara Swisher: Yeah. It was normal. Oh, they'd call right away. Walt would know when the column dropped because it would be like 11, whatever, at night in the old days. And he got a call in two seconds from Jobs or Gates.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: He said Jobs would always call and Gates would write him an email.

Nayeema Raza: Yes, probably. Angry. Type, type, type, type.

Kara Swisher: He has a case he made because Walt's reviews of Microsoft was, well, that sucked. Well, that didn't suck so bad. Well, I thought it would suck and it was okay. That was pretty much all of Walt's reviews of Microsoft products. But Apple was like, I thought this was going to be even better, but it's only kind of great. And Steve would be angry. You know, he would argue with me. I mean, I would argue with Steve Jobs. And I don't think particularly, we didn't have, you know, we knew each other pretty well, but not like him and Walt. And not like you and Elon.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah, sort of. Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a minute.

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Nayeema Raza: So Elon does get powerful. So you interview him in 2013, and then he comes back in 2016. Again, now it's Code Conference. This conversation was important and also nerdy. It was mostly about space and AI and whatnot. But there's one moment that's very curious around the elections. Because back then we were in primaries with Hillary and Trump. And you guys asked him, or you asked him, Kara, are you backing either of the candidates? Let's play the clip.

[Clip plays]

Kara Swisher: Are you backing either of the candidates at this point?

Elon Musk: I'm trying to stay out of this situation.

Kara Swisher: Because?

Elon Musk: I don't think that's the finest moment in our democracy.

Kara Swisher: Well, given that it's not the finest moment in our democracy, do you think the best thing is to stay out? Or to get in and try to head off the worst?

Elon Musk: I'm not sure how much influence I could have as one person on the outcome. So, I mean, if I think I could make a difference, I would probably do something. But like I said, I think I'm just glad that being the U.S. president is like being captain of a large ship with a small rudder. And so there's just a limit to how much good or bad a president can actually do.

[End clip]

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. Large ship with a small rudder. He's right. And he's right?

Nayeema Raza: He's not unwrong. He's not unwrong. Does he have a large ship with a small rudder right now? No, he's got a large ship with a big rudder. And he's running it. So, yeah. He was being coy or being genuine? Because when Trump won, Musk served on his Economic Council advisory board with leaders like Travis Kalanick and others from Silicon Valley. Did you talk to Elon around that time about Trump?

Kara Swisher: Yes, a lot. A lot. Quite a lot. He didn't like Trump. He thought the immigration thing was terrible. We thought the gay and lesbian stuff was terrible. We'd go back and forth on phone and texts and emails. And one of the things I said when he went to that Trump meeting that I broke the news about, which was in December of 2016, all the tech leaders went. Most of them ran running from me when I found out about it. They didn't want anyone to know they were going. They really wanted to keep it.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah, it was like Sheryl Sandberg, Jeff Bezos, and Jared was there. Jared was there. Everybody was there. And it was organized by Peter Thiel. Elon was going back and forth on whether to go, actually. Was he asking you for advice? On whether to go? Or do you remember? What do you think?

Kara Swisher: And I was like, oh, God, you have to say something about immigration. You're an immigrant. I was really struck by the immigration stuff for tech, that Trump was really vile about immigration. And I said, there's going to be a Muslim ban. And he's like, no, there's not. We can convince him. I can convince him. And I go, all right, Jesus. Sure. I call them Jesus a lot, like, yeah, right. I'm like, you can't, you can't. This guy is a dyed-in-the-wool racist. So I, you know, he did ultimately go because he thought he could make a difference. The same thing about joining on the council. When a bunch of anti-gay stuff, executive orders were coming up, he was on the phone with them. I know he was, but he tried to make changes. He did. He would call them. He said, I'm on it. Like, I would bug him. And at one point, when the Muslim ban happened, I had told him before that, once he does it, you're going to write me an email and call yourself an idiot. And he kind of did. He's like, oh, I guess you were right.

Nayeema Raza: I was in Silicon Valley at the time. And I remember that was also a time where there was just this big move for the rationalist movement, a big movement. You know, there was Me Too was happening and people felt like it was swinging too much in one direction. And Peter Thiel and others were pushing back and becoming more conservative, right?

Kara Swisher: They were. Yeah, he was not. He was not. He wasn't particularly political. I would not say he was. You'd be surprised. He loved Obama. I remember he didn't like Hillary. And later he didn't like Biden.

Nayeema Raza: Why didn't he like Hillary?

Kara Swisher: A lot of people didn't like Hillary. It was one of these, I'll look at the candidate and then decide. He wasn't an ideologue.

Nayeema Raza: So after two interviews that you and Walt did in 2017, this is a year later from your last interview, Walt was retiring and you and Lauren Good at the time were putting together a kind of goodbye episode for this podcast you had. It was called Too Embarrassed to Ask, right? For Walt.

Kara Swisher: We were putting a goodbye for Walt, yeah. Because Walt was retiring. And lots of people came on and asked these kind of personal, it was like Bill from Redwood or whoever. I'm making this up, but who joined? It was well-known people. Mark Cuban, I think, did. Bill Gates. Sheryl Sandberg did it. Susan Wojcicki. And they were doing like, hi, I'm Bill from Redmond. Or I'm Sheryl from wherever she lived at the time, Menlo Park or Palo Alto. But Elon from Los Angeles or Austin wasn't there.

Nayeema Raza: Why didn't he show up?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I wanted him to do it. This was really weird. So he, you're getting all the stuff that's going to be in my book, but okay. Get the scoop, Karen. He was angry about a tweet that Walt did.

Nayeema Raza: What did Elon respond to you?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he wrote back, and I'm going to just paraphrase it. He was like, you know, is this the Walt who attacked me on Twitter? And I was like, huh? It was not an attack. And there was no, doesn't this suck? Wow, Tesla's a loser company. How could it be? None of that. Lots of people did that. Walt never did things like that. And so I was like, what are you talking about? I spoke to Walt the other day. I asked him to remember that quote unquote attack, which was pretty much a mundane tweet. Here's Walt talking about that tweet.

[Clip plays]

Walt Mossberg: My feeling about market cap. I don't believe market cap is an important measure of a company's value because I think the stock market is kind of out of sync with the real economy in many cases or the real performance of a company. That the way to value a company is what really are their earnings, what really is their profit margin, what really are, you know, what products do they have? And I still believe that. Yes. But one day there was a tweet about Tesla, I think it was, reaching a certain like a market cap bigger than GM that day or something and I jumped in and said I really admire I wish I had the tweeting part of me I really admire Tesla and SpaceX and everything done but I don't think market cap is the best way to measure value. And so I didn't attack him. What I attacked was using the concept of market cap. He then responded to me and said, et tu, Walt? Et tu, Walt. That's an et tu, Brute reference, a Brutus reference from Julius Caesar, which for those who don't speak Latin basically means, why did you fuck me, my friend?

[End clip]

Kara Swisher: Yeah, essentially. You know, it was so weird because it was supposed to be lovely. Like, Walt is a legend. And gosh, Walt was so nice to him to do all the interviews. I was tougher during interviews than Walt was. Walt was a big admirer of Elon's in many ways and was always very supportive. And again, this one tweet bothered him and I don't, I don't know what was going on. He goes up and down in these moods and it's really, if you get them at the wrong time, you're going to get sort of angry, Elon. And it was so wrong. I was like, this is not what he said.

Nayeema Raza: So did you stand up for Walt in the chain?

Kara Swisher: I did. And he didn't, he was mad at me. Don't even email me again. He said, I was like, what do he, I was like, do you know what he said here? Are you paying attention? I just, you got that wrong, bro, you know, and, and he wouldn't listen. It was weird. It was so weird. We didn't talk for a year or more. Yeah. That was May of 2017.

Nayeema Raza: What I find remarkable is like for someone who seems to value loyalty around, because I mean, he has a lot of sick fans in his tribe. And for someone who seems to value facts and data, he, here you are with facts and data, standing up for your partner. Of course. And Elon's like, don't ever email me again. He doesn't respect those values in you that he seems to value in himself.

Kara Swisher: Well, it was, it was, yes, I just, I was angry because it was the end of Walt's career and I thought he deserved better from all the people that he wrote about. And he just could have been a bigger man. I just don't, but he shouldn't have been mad at him by the way. Yeah. He was wrong.

Nayeema Raza: How long did you get the cold shoulder? How, how did, and how did you and Elon eventually kiss and make up?

Kara Swisher: We didn't kiss. We never have kissed.

Nayeema Raza: Thank you, Kara, for clarifying that fact.

Kara Swisher: He wrote me or something like, how's it going? Like, I think he forgot. Like he forgot. He forgot. That's what it was. I must have, because I asked him to come to an event and he said yes. Yeah. And 2018, I think actually you interviewed him in person.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. He was already a huge super user of Twitter at this time, but a lot's going on with Elon in 2018. This is when we start to see the dumpster fire of Elon's Twitter start to happen. And you wrote this New York Times column in fall of that year, 2018. The headline was Elon Musk is the id of tech. At the time he was big on Twitter. So talk about that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. He was like, what was interesting. I had done an online interview with Jack Dorsey and he said Elon was his favorite Twitter user, which was interesting. This was all online on Twitter, which was, it was like a goat rodeo. Jack didn't want to face me in person, which was very typical of him. And so I just thought Elon really was the id. He loved the product. Boy, did he love the product. Like I did.

Nayeema Raza: But talk about what he was tweeting. Cause he was tweeting crazy. He's calling someone a pedo. I mean, can you just talk a little bit about what was happening back then? The funding is secured. So this is, just give us the context.

Kara Swisher: He was going through some personal things, I think. And he said the funding is secured. He was a public company person and he was talking about selling the company. It was against SEC rules, I think. Then he attacked, there was a whole thing in Thailand with those kids that were stuck in that cave, underwater cave. And he was trying to help. And then he got in a beef with the guy who was really running the thing and he called him a pedo. Like it was so, um, hair trigger. He was just tweeting anything. And at the same time he was treating funny stuff, memes and pictures and, you know, some of it's quite delightful, but then every now and then he'd drop a piece of shit in there.

Nayeema Raza: What do you think that Elon found on Twitter that he didn't have elsewhere or what did?

Kara Swisher: I don't know. Reaction, instant reaction, a way to outlet. He's a very joking person. He tells a lot of jokes and he likes, he does a lot of jokes. It's like his standup comedy. Well, he likes to like, he's so smart. It must be, he's just got a lot of energy. And so it has to have an outlet. If you look at some of the timestamps, they're one after the next. I get that way too. So, and it's, and Twitter is addictive. And so I just think he wants to talk. He wants to talk. He just wants to, I have to say it must be lonely. Even though he has a million kids in the position these people are in. Their worlds get smaller and smaller. They have more and more minions around them and it's more and more comfortable. I've been taken to call it recently a Kashmir prison is what it is. And so he wants an outlet. This is his outlet to real people who he can spark with.

Nayeema Raza: In this New York Times column you wrote, is Elon Musk the id of tech? And it starts with this kind of question. A lot of people have been asking me for my take on what's going on with Elon Musk these days. But what they're really asking is obvious. Is he crazy? Not crazy like a fox, but crazy as a loon. And then you answer it. Why don't you read that actually?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I got it right here. Let's see. No, he's not. Not at least in my various encounters with him over nearly two decades, including recently in which he has been alternately funny, rude, compelling, obnoxious, accessible, easy to deal with, hard to deal with, always on, outspoken to a fault, even when he might be at fault, angry, charming, intense, and also strikingly confident, which is a long way of saying deeply human with all the positive and negative characteristics that suggests. And that is why, to me, Elon Musk has become the id of tech, but his desires and needs are never unconscious or hidden. They are all there in the brightest technicolor for all to see. In the oddest of ways, he is transparent, so utterly direct that is unsettling and even painful at times to those around him. I think that was pretty accurate. I'm a good writer.

Nayeema Raza: Did you hear from him after that call?

Kara Swisher: Maybe. He liked that one, I think. I thought it was fair. I think he thought it was fair. Maybe, I don't remember. Maybe it warmed it because it's a year after he threw the toys out of the pram.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. By November 2018, he comes to your Recode Decode podcast.

Kara Swisher: He does.

Nayeema Raza: And you ask him about kind of how he, this new ecosystem of Twitter followers that love him and journalists who he feels are attacking him slash reporting on him and how he kind of swirls this into a maelstrom.

Kara Swisher: Yes, he does. Let me just say, we did it at Tesla headquarters. It was on Halloween night. We did the interview, me and Eric.

Nayeema Raza: Did you wear a costume?

Kara Swisher: No, I was wearing all black. I have a picture that we look great together, actually. It's a really nice picture. But, you know, I was there. It was very empty. He was there working away. And he had gone through, he was trying to save Tesla. It was in real trouble. And it was, he's, you know, the whole sleeping on the floor of the factory, et cetera. But he was really, had been beside himself. So in a lot of ways, I kind of, I understood what was happening when he sort of had that get upset. At one point he said, the world's existence hangs in the balance, something like that. And I was like, whoa, he really did genuinely believe this. It was, you just could see it all on his face. He didn't hide it. So many people are good at hiding their emotions. He was not. And I think he was genuinely exhausted. I think he wasn't taking care of himself. He was trying to save his company. And he thought his company's destiny was linked to the destiny of humanity. He really did. He really, you know, we need to move to electric cars. We're going to kill ourselves. Climate change was top of mind for him. He says that year was the worst year he'd ever had. You could see it. You could see it.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. I know that experience, by the way, when you have a friend who's in a really dark hole or when you're in a really dark hole and then someone comes and sees your house or what you're living in, like the dungeon, the den. You asked him a question about this new army of Twitter fans around him and how he mobilizes them and his reactions on Twitter. Let's play a clip.

[Clip plays]

Kara Swisher: Do you think you're particularly sensitive?

Elon Musk: No. Of course not.

Kara Swisher: All right. Count how many negative articles there are and how many I respond to.

Elon Musk: 1% maybe. Right. But the common rebuttal of journalists is, oh, my article's fine. He's just thin-skinned. No, your article is false and you don't want to admit it.

Kara Swisher: Right. Do you take criticism to heart correctly?

Elon Musk: Yes.

Kara Swisher: Such as? Give me an example of something.

Elon Musk: How do you think rockets get to orbit?

Kara Swisher: That's a fair point. Yeah, not easily.

Elon Musk: Yeah. Physics is very demanding. If you get it wrong, the rocket will blow up. Right. Cars are very demanding. If you get it wrong, the car won't work. Right. Truth in engineering and science is extremely important. Right.

Kara Swisher: And therefore?

Elon Musk: I have a strong interest in the truth. All right. Much more than journalists do.

Kara Swisher: But what I'm trying to get to is you want to acknowledge when you do this, it does set off like people beyond you that listen to you. You have a fan base that's quite rabid, I would say.

Elon Musk: No, I wouldn't say that.

Kara Swisher: No?

Elon Musk: I think they're great.

Kara Swisher: Okay. All of them?

Elon Musk: No, not all. I mean, not all of them. Right.

[End clip]

Kara Swisher: Yeah. That was a good exchange.

Nayeema Raza: Wow. You're giving him leash? Are you impressed with your own interview skills, Carol?

Kara Swisher: I am. Wow, that was good. I haven't listened. I don't listen to interviews after I do them. That was a good interview. It was. That was a good interview. I really liked that interview.

Nayeema Raza: That exchange captures not just his frustration with the press, but like how he's like, I'm on to bigger things. I got big things. I'm putting rockets into space and into orbit.

Kara Swisher: Oh no, he was like, if I am stopped by these press people, I shall, humanity shall die. That was sort of the idea. And I do believe he believed it. And he was very emotionally involved with his company. He was giving it his all. He was exhausting himself from a health point of view. It wasn't good. So you could see, you could start to see the anger. Like, and of course, blaming the press, like that's the problem. That's not his problem. They're not hindering him. And he really began to really focus on the press in a way that was really odd and kind of creepy, I thought. That kind of like, I have to save the earth and you're in my way.

Nayeema Raza: That reminds me of, you know, working in the Middle East and, you know, having worked around people like Muammar Gaddafi or others who had kind of saved the country at some point. They had done something heroic at some historical juncture. But they felt like the world's success or the country's success was tied to them.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's the hero of his story, for sure. The hero and the dictator.

Nayeema Raza: Your next interview with Elon happens in the pandemic. It's September, 2020. You interview him again. This time I was there. It was for our old podcast, Sway, at the New York Times. And I remember that because it was a Saturday. He only took interviews on Saturdays. And he had a press person back then. But when he first got on the line, there were these cats going around. He was on the laptop. People were setting it up around him. And there had been headphones. And Elon's like, do you want to do the interview? Or do you want me to wear headphones? You pick. So we did the interview without headphones. It seemed like a reasonable give. And it was going just fine until you asked him about COVID because he had wanted to keep his factory open. And you were asking specifically about the concerns that Tesla factory employees might've had. He had national security perfume. He really didn't believe in COVID. So he threatened in the midst of this COVID conversation to end the interview again. Let's listen to that moment.

Kara Swisher: Oh God.

[Clip plays]

Kara Swisher: Do you feel a duty to pay them and make sure they're okay? Despite the fact that you don't agree with how they feel about COVID versus how you feel about COVID.

Elon Musk: Just move on. Just move on. That's what you want to do. Cara, I do not want to get into a debate about the COVID situation.

Kara Swisher: Okay. All right. Okay. I want to finish up talking about-

Elon Musk: We want to end the podcast now. We can do it.

Kara Swisher: Okay. What did you say? No, we don't. I don't want to end it. I just want to understand where you've got.

Elon Musk: But I do. I feel like I understand where you are. So one of the things- And I should say, we've also spent quite a lot of time with the Hobbit epidemiology team doing antibody studies. Tesla makes the vaccine machines for CureVac. Gates said something about me not knowing what is doing. It's like, hey, knucklehead, we actually make the vaccine machines for CureVac, that company you're invested in.

Kara Swisher: Seems like you have a lot of passion around this topic. Like that you feel this has been blown and that there are better ways to do it, which is what you do in your other parts of your life, correct? Whether it's Tesla or...

Elon Musk: SpaceX. The rockets aren't being reused. The cars aren't electric. The way we address viruses is irrational. It's very irrational. I probably should allocate some time to this. I mean, I have allocated some time to this, but only less than 1%. So maybe it should be more than 1%.

[End clip]

Nayeema Raza: What do you think of your interviewing skills in that moment?

Kara Swisher: I think I calmed him down very nicely, didn't I? I was like, whoa, whoa, little horse.

Nayeema Raza: You were nervous for a second.

Kara Swisher: Well, I've been through it with him. You know, I was like, whoa. And I, but I think I got some answers out of him, right? Like he was, he could have stalked off. He could have easily stalked off. He's like, let's move on. Let's move on. And you're like, okay, let's move on. He's like, but let me answer your question. Yeah, exactly. That's right. That's what I was getting at. I think that was an interesting exchange. And of course he's like, we make the machines. Of course, that wasn't exactly true either. A lot of the stuff, but you know, he had opinions about COVID. He thought it wasn't a big deal. It turned out to be he was wrong.

Nayeema Raza: But you sounded like his shrink there or his hostage negotiator. What do you feel that was?

Kara Swisher: I didn't want him to leave and over something so stupid. He was obviously it was a sensitive thing and he didn't like the attacks he was getting for saying things that might have not been completely true. And so he was not comfortable talking about it. And so I wanted to at least get a sense and move him to. That's why I mentioned Tesla. Another, oh, you've done this before, Elon, you've been in this situation. I wanted to make him feel comfortable enough to be able to answer and get him down from the tree. He was like a cat that ran up the tree.

[Ad break]

Nayeema Raza: I remember at some point we asked SpaceX for an interview with Gwen Shotwell, who's the president and COO. And we got back this answer like, Kara interviews Elon, doesn't interview Gwen. Which is funny. Why do you think that?

Kara Swisher: Because there's something about- I'm his, I guess. I don't know. Who knows if he thought that? I don't, sometimes-

Nayeema Raza: But people also think you're like the go-to person for Elon.

Kara Swisher: I've interviewed him more than anybody else extensively. So yes, I suppose I am.

Nayeema Raza: And do you like that kind of like chief Elon psychologist? Do you think they have like a PhD or what is it?

Kara Swisher: No, I want to talk to him. I wish I was talking to him now. I wish we were talking because I have a lot of things to say about Twitter. And he asked and then got mad about a dumb tweet.

Nayeema Raza: If you interviewed him today, what would be your first question?

Kara Swisher: What are you doing? You're better than this. What are you doing? I can sort of see the good parts of what you're doing. Some of the moves he's making are correct, but the way he's doing it, the cruelty about people leaving, the dragging people, what are you doing? When Mark Zuckerberg looks like a classier guy than you, you're doing something wrong in terms of these layoffs. Mark Zuckerberg did a great job.

Nayeema Raza: That seems like an answer, not a question, Kara. What would your question be?

Kara Swisher: What are you doing? What's going on here? Yeah, and I would want to know when he changed his mind. I want to know what is it about what disagreement gets through his high fence? I don't know now. I don't know. I have less hope than I ever did. He usually does listen and now he doesn't need to.

Nayeema Raza: When you interview him, it's funny. He seems fickle at being uncomfortable. And then he kind of reflects like we saw that in the COVID clip. Yeah. Do you think he's reflective? Do you think he's capable of change?

Kara Swisher: Yes. I wouldn't. Yes, of course. Of course. He's very thoughtful. He just has this layer of just completely, and it's gotten worse and worse over time as he's gotten richer. He's thoughtful until he's not.

Nayeema Raza: Well, it's just the adulation and the money.

Kara Swisher: I don't know if the money, I don't think he spends that much. I mean, I don't think he's particularly than anyone else. But the adulation from the fanboys has gotten out of time, including the ones around him. That's my only guess.

Nayeema Raza: You've seen that change over time. You think you've seen him become more and more encircled, more and more powerful, more and more.

Kara Swisher: They get isolated, isolated, isolated. And their circles become ever smaller. They never meet real people, except online. That's not real.

Nayeema Raza: I think in that regard, you and Elon are very different. I would never say that you're an isolated person. But do you think that there are certain things that you share in common with Elon?

Kara Swisher: Oh, I'm much more risk tapered than I am. I was offered jobs at all the internet companies and I didn't take them. I don't think we're very much alike. Curious, wanting better, wanting better. I think if I had to say a positive thing, we both want better for tech. Yeah. And a negative thing that we're both a lot alike, we get tweaked pretty easily. Yeah.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. You're both addicted to Twitter.

Kara Swisher: Yes, we are. You don't like to have assistants and other people. We don't like assistants. You like to have your own control. Yeah. Yep.

Nayeema Raza: Do you empathize with him? Because you've known him for a long time.

Kara Swisher: I feel sorry for him right now, even though I think he's being a jerk too. I know people will say, Cara, you need to attack him. Dark Cara is the better Cara. It's not. It's not the better Cara. I feel sorry for him right now. I do. I don't know why. And I think he could be the one to fix it. So it's killing me in that regard. Maybe he will.

Nayeema Raza: The Paul Pelosi tweet. Yeah. This fake news source that he shared. That has really soured you on him. Really?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there was enough little stuff happening. There was a lot of stuff happening and I was defending him. And then I was starting to feel really bad about defending him. And I'm like, he'll pull it out. He'll pull it out, right? It's like sometimes having a kid who turns out to be like James Spader in Some Kind of Wonderful, the jerk. And then you're like, oh my God, my kid's a jerk. Oh my God. But I still love my kid. I don't love Elon, but you know what I mean? Like, you're like, oh wow. You see, you see people you care, care about. And I'm not saying that in a, you've devoted time to thinking about and think are important and they, they're doing incredibly jerky things. And you wonder if that's what they become. Right. And I, so I feel sorry.

Nayeema Raza: Do you think that's what he's become?

Kara Swisher: I don't know. So he is capable of such great things, and he's so indulgent with so many stupid things. And I don't know why he can't stick with the good things.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah. Let me go into the Pelosi thing. That's why it was too far. I want to talk to you about that.

Kara Swisher: Okay. So I believe he has a trans kid, for one. He said several things about trans people. One of his many children is trans, from what I understand. I've read about it. I've never met these kids. And I couldn't believe he was doing some trans things. I did have some knowledge that before it got out, I was like, how could you, I mean, I think it did strike in with me. My mom was really terrible to me when she found out I was gay. And I, if she had had Twitter and done it, oh my God, I would have just, I was already hard enough in a one-to-one setting. And so I think it probably set off those feelings. Like, why are you saying mean things about trans people? Your kid is trans. Like, don't do it. Like, what are you doing? And then this Paul Pelosi tweet. And then he did that. And I was like, these are the tropes from when I was coming out about gay people that there, it was like, there was so many like depictions of gay people that, oh, it's a gay lover thing. This isn't this. And by the way, I know Paul Pelosi. So it was even worse. I like Paul Pelosi, not via his wife through a lot of other ways. What a lovely man he is. Let me just say, Paul Pelosi has had problems. And he'd been attacked in his own home. And he was attacked in his own home. And then he uses an anti-gay trope. I was like, there's so much levels of bad here. It broke me. It broke me. I was like, no, this is not acceptable. How dare you? How dare you? And then also, you didn't apologize when you were so obviously wrong when all this stuff came in. You just deleted it. And it was one of his first acts as CEO. I was like, no, you can't do that. That's enough. That's enough. I've been tolerating all your ridiculous hijinks for long enough. And I haven't liked a lot of them, but boy, don't I like this. You guys are going back and forth, him supporting same-sex marriage, same-sex rights. 100%. I'm not a particularly sensitive gay person, but you cannot do that. He can do it, but boy, does he have to pay the price for doing it. And I just was like, what an irresponsible, terrible thing to do in one of your first acts as CEO of this site is to talking about misinformation. By the way, I'm also angry at misinformation and the impact. So misinformation, anti-gay, plain mean to a guy who got attacked, everything about it was loathsome. And I just, that's enough. That's how I've had it. I've had enough, enough.

Nayeema Raza: A little break from Elon and insight into Kara, because like maybe I am to you what you are to Elon, observing things about you. But people often ask me, how come Kara is so woke, quote unquote?

Nayeema Raza: They'll say, you know, here you are, a young woman of color, and Kara's taking the more liberal perspective than you. And there's a moment we had, a conversation we had, Kara, where I forget something had happened. It was something around trans rights. And you said, it was just like what they did to the gays. It was the Josh Hawley conversation with the woman who testified. And you said, this is what they did in the 80s. They come in these small ways. And I think that experience has really shaped how you see the world.

Kara Swisher: 100%. It was terrible. And I've done better because of it. It makes you stronger, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think I'm particularly woke. I just don't like bullies. I really hate bullies. I hate them. I can't stand it. And I think it's unfair. I think people would be surprised how conservative I am about lots of things. I think people like to put labels on you. They just want to put you in a box.

Nayeema Raza: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Keith Rabois, for example, is like, "The advertisers are woke." I'm like, no, the advertisers would advertise. Stop using it as a lazy term because you don't have any other good arguments. Maybe they're not advertising because he's being a jerk. Maybe that's it. Maybe they don't feel safe. And they're capitalists.

Nayeema Raza: This "woke" thing is why Elon bought Twitter in some way. It was surprising when he bought Twitter because this is a market change for him. In 2018, when you asked him, he wasn't interested in buying a media company. He wasn't. Or really buying anything at all. So let's hear that clip. And just for context, Jeff Bezos had recently purchased the Washington Post right before.

[Clip plays]

Kara Swisher: You're not buying a newspaper, are you?

Elon Musk: No. I don't generally acquire things. Just curious. I create companies, but I don't really acquire them. Right. So I wouldn't, I have no plans. It just seems to be popular these days.

Kara Swisher: It is, it is. Bezos bought one.

Elon Musk: Yeah, yeah, totally.

[Clip ends]

Nayeema Raza: Why do you believe he wanted to buy this company?

Kara Swisher: He loves it.

Nayeema Raza: Why'd he try to back out?

Kara Swisher: I liked the shaver so much, I had to buy the company. That's Victor Kiam way back when. Because the market conditions deteriorated so drastically. When he first intimated that he would be buying Twitter in late April, you said that given Twitter's untapped business potential and its influence, quote, "It's a business opportunity at a relatively low price." That's what you said at $54.20 a share. At the time.

Nayeema Raza: At the time. Yeah, it was. But things changed. And you had high hopes for him.

Kara Swisher: I did. I thought he, if I had to press me to think of one person who could do this, he'd be on the top of the list, the number one on the list.

Nayeema Raza: Early on, you and I, when we started making this show, I used to think you were a bit soft on him. Both in your expectations of how he would transform Twitter and also about his commentary on Ukraine, but also just internationally. Like him not disclosing his own interests. Because I think Twitter is really important, but I think it's all the more important for people in the rest of the world because it helps shine a light on stories that otherwise would get no traction. And I thought he was corralling his brand in a certain way.

Kara Swisher: Yes.

Nayeema Raza: I thought you were too soft on him in the beginning.

Kara Swisher: I think he can say what he wants. Everybody knows his interests. They know he has things in China. We're all aware. We're all going to learn more about it because there might be a CFIUS review. Biden is saying it's worth looking into. Whatever. He's an American citizen, so I'm not sure. Not that there weren't problems already. But I think he should be able to say what he wants. I think what he says is stupid, but he should be able to say his stupid foreign policy pronouncements. That's fine. I don't care. If he wants to say dumb things about what should happen in Ukraine, he can say dumb things.

Nayeema Raza: What do you think is more important to Elon? Doing good for the world or doing good for Elon?

Kara Swisher: I think they're intertwined. For him.

Nayeema Raza: Hopelessly intertwined.

Kara Swisher: Hopelessly intertwined.

Nayeema Raza: But intertwined for him or intertwined for us?

Kara Swisher: I think it's very easy to say this son of a bitch, he's a narcissist, malevolent narcissist. I think that's way too easy for this guy. I think he does want to, like I said, make a dent in the universe. I think he really cares. And I think that it's much more complex than just "what an asshole."

Nayeema Raza: You've written about how Elon kind of filled this void after Steve Jobs' death of being the iconic person that everyone could get behind because, you know, Mark was too nerdy. Larry and Sergey were too weird. Jeff was too in Seattle.

Kara Swisher: Oh, Jeff is sort of up there, but go ahead.

Nayeema Raza: But you ended one of your columns saying you're giving him advice and you say, quote, "It's a huge waste of time when what he has to do to seal his status is actually to build a strong and stable company that is not just revolving around his aura and a team that does its best work with or without him. And of course, delete that Twitter app off his phone. After all, can you imagine Steve Jobs tweeting? No, neither can I."

Kara Swisher: Yep. Neither can I. You could have written that same column today. I could. That's pretty good, aren't I?

Nayeema Raza: Do you think it's the end of an internet era that these guys have become the way they are? Elon becoming, Elon letting the mission go with these big ideas, this big ideas guy?

Kara Swisher: No, no, I think he's in there. He's one of the biggest thinkers in Silicon Valley. He's also become one of the more narcissistic than I thought possible. And I think it's in him to do great things. I think what he's doing now is indulgent, the way he's behaving. I think he should bring in the best people and he should listen to them and he should find new fresh ways of doing something here. And if he doesn't, he's going to lose a lot of money. I don't think he cares about money the way you and I do, but...

Nayeema Raza: I mean, he has so much, he doesn't need to care.

Kara Swisher: A question you always ask people, are you hopeful or hopeless about Elon?

Nayeema Raza: Can I be both?

Kara Swisher: Pick one, Kara.

Nayeema Raza: Today, hopeless.

Kara Swisher: He's capable of great things here. He's behaving... He's disappointing in how he's handling himself. And in the midst of all this disappointment, there's all these really good ideas. It's just so bossy. "I'm the law." It's so narcissistic. The thing the other day, the advertising thing, someone asked about the difference between Twitter and Elon Musk. They're the same thing. He can't pretend. These wealthy people like to pretend they're not powerful. It drives me crazy. He's very powerful. What he says matters. He can hurt people if he wants to, even if he doesn't mean to. And so he's got to have a greater sense of care around what he's doing and just slightly more kindness. He doesn't... He can still be puckish and rude and funny. Just like I said, he's all these things: funny, rude, compelling, obnoxious, accessible, easy to deal with, hard to deal with, always on, outspoken to a fault, angry, charming, intense, and also strikingly confident. You can be all those things. That means you're a human being. But I mean this in the nicest way, Elon. I'm not the asshole.

Nayeema Raza: You want to finish that thought?

Kara Swisher: That's my thought. I'm not the asshole.

Nayeema Raza: Okay, I thought there was a second sentence coming.

Kara Swisher: No. Okay. I won't do it.

Nayeema Raza: How much does Twitter even matter to Elon? How will Elon be remembered? And how much does Twitter even matter to his overall legacy?

Kara Swisher: In 100 years, Elon Musk, it'll be a blip, right? Cars. Cars and space. Still the most important things. And I'm always impressed by that.

Nayeema Raza: So something you really care about on this earth is going to be a blip in his overall legacy.

Kara Swisher: It's going to be a blip in all our... I've been through so many internet companies, Nayeema, over 30 years. They come and go. Remember AOL was big, Yahoo... Not just the... Everyone points to MySpace, but some of them bestrode the world and then they weren't.

Nayeema Raza: But shouldn't it be... Should it be bigger? I mean, it touches democracy. Mark Zuckerberg's whole legacy will be defined not by creating, you know, poke for Harvard kids, but for... It could... There are better worlds. Don't you think he should care?

Kara Swisher: I actually want you to rethink this question because there is a world in which what he does with Twitter really impacts his legacy. I don't know. I think Twitter's a small company and he's making it smaller right now. And not in size, although everyone's sort of looking at it.

Nayeema Raza: So you're saying he'll combust before he can do too much damage.

Kara Swisher: I think they all do in the end, you know. There's a book, *The Trial*, that's one of my favorite books by Franz Kafka. I'm not sure if this quote was in it, but I find that to be a hopeful book. It's about trying to find divinity. It is. It's not about fascism. And this is a quote that I think Elon should think about. And I think about it all the time, which was from Franz Kafka: "The meaning of life is that it stops." So you don't have that much time. Cut the shit. Stop it.

Nayeema Raza: That's your hopeful quote.

Kara Swisher: That's my hopeful quote. Because guess what? We don't have time. We don't have time for this. You could do a good thing or you could just be a not-so-merry prankster.

Nayeema Raza: I don't know if the thing Elon needs now is more urgency. The urgency seems to be driving him into a spin.

Kara Swisher: I guess.

Nayeema Raza: He needs clarity, perspective.

Kara Swisher: He could do some great things here. Why doesn't he? That's what I say. That would be a good question. That would be a good first question for Elon. See, I still like him, even though he doesn't like me. I still like him. But he has to apologize for the gay fake news thing that he put up, or we're not speaking ever again. And I have never said that to him. He's got to apologize for that.

Nayeema Raza: Well, sounds pretty hopeless.

Kara Swisher: I hope he does it.

Nayeema Raza: All right, Kara, thanks for taking the time.

Kara Swisher: Thank you. It was great.

Nayeema Raza: What should we call this episode? The Kara-Elon Situationship?

Kara Swisher: A lesbian love story. There's no sense. Call it a lesbian love story. That'll be perfect. We have never kissed. Let's be clear.

Nayeema Raza: Okay, Nayeema, why don't you read us out?

Kara Swisher: Because I got to go and you seem to be taking over everything slowly and rather sneakily.

Nayeema Raza: But it's actually in plain sight.

Kara Swisher: I know.

Nayeema Raza: Hidden in plain sight, here I am reading us out. Today's show was produced by Blake Nishik, Christian Castro-Russell, Rafaela Seward, and yours truly, Nayeema Raza. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Trackademics. Special thanks to Andrea Lopez-Crusado. If you're already following the show, you get a great check, or maybe you get a blue check. You get a check. If not, you also get a check. You don't get a check. I don't know what is worse, but just go follow the show wherever you listen to the podcast. Search for *On with Kara Swisher* and hit follow. Soon it'll be called *On With Nayeema Raza*. I'm just kidding. But thanks for listening to *On with Kara Swisher* from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network. And us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.

Kara Swisher: By the way, Kathy Griffin just wrote to me, "I'm going to be on Kimmel tonight as Elon."

[Laughter]

Kara Swisher: Parody. It's another thing. Come on. Everyone's now a parody. There's nine... Like he threw her off. There's thousands of them right now. Everyone could have anticipated what was going to happen here.