Elon Musk's New Power Play: DOGE
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla, X, the Boring Company, and Neuralink. I'm your host, Will Walden. Hey, so I've been thinking about Elon's recent moves with Tesla. What do you make of the $25,000 car that they're talking about? And could that be the breakthrough moment that everyone's been waiting for?

So let's talk about Elon Musk in Washington first, though. He's reached unprecedented levels as Tesla's stock price soars 80% since early November, solidifying his position as the world's wealthiest individual.

Now he has a 13% stake in Tesla and it's grown substantially coming after his strategic investment of over $250 million in support of Donald Trump's campaign. The relationship between Musk and the president-elect has become so close that some people have started referring to him as the co-president, marking a new chapter in this political spectrum here.

The Department of Government Efficiency has appointed Musk as co-lead, tasking him with analyzing federal spending patterns and identifying areas for potential cost reduction. The new role positions him to shape policy decisions that could benefit the EV industry while working toward the administration's goal of reducing federal spending by around $2 trillion.

Now, this appointment demonstrates the administration's trust in Musk's abilities to balance public sector efficiency with private sector innovation. Now, Tesla's current market position presents both challenges and opportunities for the automaker. Sales data through November shows varying performance across global markets, with U.S. sales projected to reach 633,000 units, representing 4% of the total car market.

Now the company maintains its leadership position in the EV sector, controlling nearly half of all EV sales in the United States, despite increased competition from traditional automakers. Now,

The European Union market has presented specific challenges for Tesla, with sales dropping 15% through November compared to the previous year, totaling 211,000 vehicles. Similar patterns have emerged in China, too, where local competitors like BYD have intensified their market presence.

These numbers come during a period of overall growth in the global EV market, which saw a 25% increase through November, according to RoMotion research data. Wall Street analysts have focused their attention on Tesla's advancements in autonomous driving tech, though, viewing it as a key factor in the company's future success.

Now, this is combined with Musk's political strength. His connections has all contributed to investor confidence despite current sales challenges. The market appears to be pricing in the potential for regulatory changes that could accelerate the deployment of self-driving vehicles. And also, the introduction of the Cybertruck has added a unique element to Tesla's product lineup, with 28,000 units sold through September, according to CoxData.

The distinctive stainless steel vehicle starts at around $80,000, and it's also become the best-selling electric pickup in the United States, though its sales volume remains significantly below that of the Model Y, Tesla's primary revenue generator.

The Cybertruck's market performance provides insights into Tesla's ability to create new vehicle categories when they want to and add them to their existing product lines. Now, Kenneth Boyer, who's the author of The Electric Vehicle Revolution, Five Visionaries Leading the Charge,

said the shift in Musk's operational focus compared to that of 2018 when he personally oversaw the Model 3 production challenges, and the analysis suggests that Musk's current attention spans multiple ventures. So X, he has SpaceX, governmental responsibilities, he has Neuralink, Boring Company, Tesla, and it presents a different leadership approach from his earlier hands-on manufacturing involvement.

The anticipated $25,000 Tesla model has captured investor interest as a potential catalyst for market expansion, too. Battle Road Research President Ben Rose projects strong market performance for Tesla shares, setting the responsibility...

of reaching new customer segments through more affordable pricing in the near future. Now, the current Model 3, which is around $42,500 before incentives, leaves room for a lower priced entry point that could attract price sensitive consumers. Not everybody has around $50,000 to spend on a vehicle.

And most people are looking for a fairly decent budget car, like a $20,000 to $25,000 vehicle. So if Tesla can hit that $25,000 mark with pretty decent features, I think they're going to have a killer here. They're going to have a hit on their hands. Now, they use Tesla market data from CarGurus.com.

reveals strong demand for an affordable electric vehicle. So Model 3s are priced around $25,000 and as they show up, they quickly turn over. People buy them up. And according to Kevin Roberts, the CIS director of economic and market intelligence, price reduction correlates directly with increased consumer interest, suggesting potential success for a lower priced new Tesla model.

So if you get a Tesla Model 3 from three years ago, it's still a great vehicle. And if you pay $25,000 for that great vehicle, is that going to be better than the new $25,000 Tesla that they're going to be introducing? It's going to be interesting to see what kind of features it has. It really piqued my interest.

The self-driving taxi market represents another area of potential growth for Tesla, with companies like Waymo already operating driverless services in several US cities. Waymo's expansion into Atlanta, Miami, and Austin demonstrates the growing acceptance of autonomous transportation services, while extensive testing continues in the Chinese market. Tesla's position in this sector could benefit from regulatory changes under the new administration.

So Tesla's stock performance correlates strongly with public perception of Musk's leadership capabilities. The connection between corporate value and executive reputation shows that it's important for Musk's strategic decisions in determining Tesla's market position. People invest in Tesla because they want to invest in Elon Musk's ideas. Federal tax credits currently provide up to $7,500 in incentives for Tesla purchases.

Though these benefits may face revision under the incoming administration, potential changes to these incentives could affect Tesla's sales strategy and pricing structure, particularly as the company considers introducing more affordable models. Now, will this also put Elon Musk and Trump in a battle?

Um, we'll have to find out when this actually happens, how mad Elon's going to get, how many posts he's going to do on X and how many posts will the president elect Donald Trump do on his truth social platform about this? And are they going to be warring? We're not sure. And will Elon get kicked off the doge? I don't know. It's a, it's a toss up at this point. We have no idea, but it looks like.

President-elect Trump is okay with electric vehicles, so we might see some of these incentives continue.

The global electric vehicle market continues to evolve, though, with Tesla maintaining its position as an industry leader despite increased competition. The company's ability to innovate across multiple price points and vehicle categories demonstrates its adaptability in a changing market environment. The combination of technological advancement and strategic leadership positions Tesla for continued growth

for the foreseeable future. The development of Tesla's charging network infrastructure is also another strategic advantage, providing customers with reliable access to charging stations across multiple continents. This established network differentiates Tesla from competitors who rely on third-party charging solutions

most of those charging solutions are not that good and offering a more integrated ownership experience for tesla owners and tesla customers is what the tesla's charging network is all about so let's dig into a little bit of spacex here spacex's success as the federal government's premier rocket contractor has also enhanced musk's credibility in both the private and the public sectors

track record of delivering complex technological solutions on a massive scale supports investor confidence in Tesla's ability to achieve its autonomous driving and manufacturing coals. Now X provides him with a direct channel to communicate with customers and investors. Though he's remained notably reserved about specific plans for Tesla's future product lineup,

And this communication strategy is a departure from previous product launches where he shared some detailed information and got kind of, you know, pinged for it.

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So let's move over to some SpaceX. And I want to do a little bit of news here, but I also want to give you some insight about Starbase from my own experience. If you're not familiar with what I did at Starbase, I spent about a year embedded covering Starbase. I'm an Elon Musk fan and all of his companies. So

When I made the choice to move to Starbase and cover the building of the initial full stack Starship rocket, it was an easy choice for me. I came from the Northeast. I was living in Vermont and I moved to Starbase because I saw this amazing technological feat that Elon and his crew were building on the tip of Texas.

So it was my duty to show that to the world. And I spent about, like I said, about a year down there covering that story. And I was on the road, the side of the road, Highway 4 every single day. It was 104 degrees some days. Some days it was, I was drenched in rain. There were floods. There were hurricanes. The weather was sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful. I spent my Christmas day there. I

I spent my New Year's Eve there. I spent a lot of time at Starbase covering this magnificent giant rocket and the upcoming flight in the early weeks of January, January 10th, possibly. We're going to see this launch and it's going to be amazing. It's going to be similar to the last flight, but different.

that's going to usher in a new era of Starship because it's going to be the next block of the Starship and they have some new heat tiles on it. It's going to be more equipped for returns to Earth at a higher pressure and a higher temperature, higher speed too. It kind of the speeds that they'll be getting if they're sending things to orbit, you know, if they're sending satellites to orbit. But I want to go back to some of my experiences at Starbase and

And I think this is, it's pretty cool to hear about this stuff if you've never been to Starbase before because it is a brutal place. First, let me tell you about Brownsville. Brownsville is a border town. It's right on the border of Mexico. There's a lot of illegal immigration that happens in this area.

A lot of crime. It's a very, a lot of crime before SpaceX and their crew got there. It's cleaned up a little bit since then. Um, the, and there was one of the most impoverished places in the United States. If you're going to move someplace and you want a better life, you know, if you want something with a higher wage, uh,

And, you know, don't get me wrong. Brownsville is amazing. It's a great city. And the people there were wonderful. But if you're looking for kind of a higher end life, you don't want to move to Brownsville. And like I said, I loved it there. I thought it was real great. It was really fun. I met some really great people. I was friends with some SpaceX engineers. They were my neighbors. And I just had a great time there. So.

One of the things that I like to talk about are the positives when I was there. Because like I said, I met some really great people. Two of my neighbors were SpaceX engineers. I would have barbecues with them. I'd invite them over for drinks and for dinners. We'd all eat together, them and their families. And we'd talk about SpaceX. We'd just talk about regular life stuff. People are pretty normal. The engineers at SpaceX are just normal people, but they have really cool jobs.

They also get paid a lot of money compared to the other people that work in the area. Bronzeville, like I said, it's a border town. There's not much going on. And also it's about 250,000 people. I think like a quarter million people in the surrounding area of Bronzeville. A lot of people. It's kind of congested, but they have every kind of every normal city problem. You know, a little bit extra traffic. Some places, a lot of crime.

So for instance, I would go to a park every day and I'd work out. I'd go for runs and there was a track that went around one of the facilities. It was like a walking track. And it's pretty big. Yeah, it's about a three mile track. It goes around the whole facility. And little did I know, but this is where the, I don't know, a mafia, some sort of gang. I don't know. I don't know what to call it.

That's where they would take people and kill them. It's pretty brutal, man. And I didn't know that. But one day I was out there and it was, I think it was about two in the afternoon and it was about 75 degrees. Beautiful day. I did my walk and then I left. I saw cop cars coming my way. There was a bunch of cop cars coming that way. And then I learned later that night that somebody had been

on the trail that I was walking on like five minutes after I left. And they found the people that did it. It was some, some gangsters, some mob people. I'm not sure who they were, but they found the people. They found them actually like at the scene, like they tried to run away. They couldn't get away because the cops were there so fast. I didn't even know. And those are the kinds of things that happen in Brownsville. But like I said before, a lot of wonderful, great things happen in Brownsville too. People are wonderful. They're really sweet. They're really nice.

And the area is desolate. It's in a subtropical zone. So really, really hot in the summer. In the fall, winter, spring, bad storms happen. Floods, hurricanes, things like that. And it's also just, it's really hot there. It's really hot. I wasn't used to it. I was from Vermont at the time. I came from snow the day that I left Vermont.

I wasn't in Vermont. I was in upstate New York at that point. And the day that I left, it was, I think it was 40 degrees Fahrenheit. And when I got to Brownsville, it was 102 degrees at eight o'clock at night. It was a 20 hour drive. I drove all the way there. So now we want to jump a little bit to what it's like to be at the Starbase facility and

with SpaceX's Starship and as it's being built. Like I'm seeing everything, the infrastructure, the rocket, seeing new people join up. Starbase wasn't really a thing. I mean, it was like just starting to become Starbase. It was kind of a smaller facility. It had the high bay and the mid bay and it had a few tents that people were building things in, but it's nothing like it is now.

And nothing like it's going to be in the next five years. So they're going to be cranking out these rockets. When I was there, they only had one rocket, one stackable rocket. And they couldn't even fly with the engines on this rocket because they weren't that good. So the time that I was there, I thought they were going to launch in September because Elon kept hinting. That's what Elon does, right? We all know this. Elon hints at some things.

So he's like, yeah, like looking good. Like, you know, nudge, nudge, nudge. Look at the starship is going to be stacked by September 10th or whatever. It wasn't stacked at that point. And it's stacked in February, February. I think it was February 10th that is stacked of that year.

or the next year because I got there because I thought this thing was going to stack. I thought they were going to fly it that year. Regulatory stuff was still work being worked on, but it looked like they had a clean, clear path to flight. And the way that SpaceX does things is they, as Silicon Valley companies do, as we've all heard, move fast and break things, right? So that's how SpaceX does things. First principles, take everything away, strip everything away, just give things, give it the necessary parts and,

And then fly it. But that didn't happen. And then in February, of course, they stacked it up. And then they destacked it. And then they didn't fly it. So my time at Starbase at that point was almost over. And I was enjoying myself. It's like a tropical wonderland down there. There's amazing wildlife. You can see different people every day. I met some amazing people that I still keep in touch with. I don't live there now. I moved away from there. But...

I met some wonderful people that I still keep in contact with on the daily. You can check out our discord. There's a discord in the description or show notes down below. And I'm starting up a discord for this channel for the Elon show, but we had a discord for our space news pod show, which is the show on YouTube that got this all started. And that was how I communicated with people. And I still communicate with people on,

through discord people that i've met and also the engineers at starbase that i've met i still communicate with them through discord i can't tell anybody who they are or what usernames they have um mainly because they don't want to be outed they told me they don't want anybody to know who they are so i have to keep it a secret but if you want to join our eland show discord there's a link in the show notes or description below

Now let's get back to one of the fun things that happened to me there. I wouldn't say it was fun. It's really scary. So at that point, I had this giant lens for my camera and I had the cinema camera, a Blackmagic cinema camera that I was using to shoot all the video. 6K amazing footage of this amazing rocket that was being built. Wonderful times. I was having a time of my life filming this rocket and getting all these angles that I thought were really cool.

People were enjoying the live streams on the YouTube channel. And, you know, it was one night kind of late. It was dark about 10 o'clock at night. I was down there a little bit later than normal. I usually go home about eight o'clock and then I edit videos for the YouTube channel and then I'll post them up the next day. So at about 8, 830, something like that, it's kind of winding down and wrapping up and I was getting some B roll footage for the channel.

And a gentleman came up to me and started talking to me about the Starship. And I gladly helped him understand what it was and how it will affect humanity, how this type of ship can send people to Mars. And I said in a couple of years, which of course we all thought it was going to be in a couple of years, except for Eric Berger, who knows, you know, Eric Berger is that guy. He has had a long tradition of spaceflight,

journalism. So he knows that it's going to take not two or three years. It's going to take 10 years to get it to Mars capabilities, which he's kind of right. It should be around 10 years before this thing goes to Mars from its inception since the first build, I should say. So the gentleman that was talking to me about this, I noticed that he was acting, he was a little sketchy. You know when those people, have you ever met one of those people that

You're just hanging out with them and they keep moving a little bit and they start like this, move their bodies around a little bit and not in a good way. Not in like a man, I'm just like my tense or whatever. And I'm just like trying to stretch or whatever, because I've been on my feet all day and I've been really, I'm really tired. I just want to move around a little bit. Not that kind of way. It was like reaching into his pockets, you know, touching his leg kind of like, you know, like this kind of twitchy, you know, those kinds of people. He was that kind of guy.

So I was talking to him and being nice to him being, you know, uh, being that he was there from someplace else. And he came in with a friend and he said he was going to camp on the beach that night, which is totally okay down there. And the beach is only about a mile away from the rocket. So it's a really fun place to camp. And he started getting like a little bit close, like into the, you know how when you're out in the wild, there's some people that just want to get really close to you. You want to like talk up in your face, uh,

When what you want them to be is like at least an arm length away. At least that's pretty normal for people. But an arm length, maybe more, you know, and then you can talk comfortably and nobody has, you know, weird things going on. So he was about half of an arm length away from me at that point. He kept moving in a little bit. So then he started asking me about my camera.

And that's when I, the, the red light started flashing in my head. I was like, okay, this guy is thinking about something that he shouldn't be thinking about. So I've got to wrap this up real quick. I talked to the guy for about 10 minutes and I noticed that about the eight minute mark, he was super sketchy. So, and I was like trying to, trying to buy some time so I could get out of the situation, trying to figure out my next move, which was get my camera in the car and get me in the car and get out of there.

We were right across from the SpaceX facility. Luckily, there was a security guard there who could watch everything. And, you know, this guy reached into his pocket and he slowly started pulling something out. When unprecedented times are all the time, it's time to start walking the talk with PwC. Leaders like you turn to PwC to see and stay ahead.

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So instead of putting my camera in my camera bag, it was still attached to my lens. The lens is a thousand dollars. The camera's $3,000. The tripod is $500. So I had about $4,000 worth of gear in my hands at that point. And I had like a streaming rig and all this other stuff. So there was probably $5,000 worth of gear right there in front of this guy between me and him. So I grabbed all of it at once. And like, it was a symphony of movement.

I unbuckled all the straps that were on it. I turned all the knobs to put everything in its place. I threw it in my car, slammed the door, jumped in my front seat, locked the door, turned the key, and started driving away. I was going to get stabbed at Starbase. This guy was going to steal all of my stuff. He's going to steal $5,000 worth of my camera gear. I don't know why. The guy probably needed money. He didn't seem like he was here legally. And that happens down at Starbase a lot.

As we were on the border of Mexico, you can get to Starbase. You don't have to stop at the Border Patrol station on the way to Starbase. But if you're going back to Brownsville from Starbase, you have to stop at the Border Patrol. So I think this guy was kind of stuck at Starbase and he needed money to get himself out of there. And he was just a super sketchy person. I've only met two super sketchy people there.

And I've met a real wild, there's a lot of wild people to go there though. A lot of wild people. Another one, uh, I can tell this story a little bit quicker, but there was a time when I was filming, uh, the, the first stack of starship in February. I think it was February. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I'll have to read, like, look at the logs that I have, but I think it's February. Um,

but there was a woman in her van. I parked my car right behind her van. I live stream from there every day. You're allowed to park on the side of the street there on the side of the road, wherever you can park your car. It's totally legal in Texas. You can do it wherever you want to. So she was parked. Her van was parked there. I parked probably like a car and a half away from her behind her. And I got my camera gear out and I set it up like I normally do every single day. And she got out of her van and she told me to move my car.

So I said, oh, I'm just going to film this for like 10 minutes and then I'll just leave you alone. I have the footage of it somewhere. I have the audio of it somewhere. But it's not clean audio, so I can't really post it. It's horrible audio. Because she was nowhere near my microphone. So you could just kind of hear her barely in the background. And I would have to really mess with the audio. And it would still sound really bad. So she told me.

that I have to leave because her friends are coming and they're going to park behind her. And I said, okay, cool. I'll, I'm going to be about 10 minutes. I have to get this B roll footage. Then I'll leave you alone. So I was going to get the nose cone. I was going to get, um, where the ship and the booster attached to together. And it was a far shot and it looked really great. So I was like, I'm going to stay here. I'm going to do this. And then there was, uh, an audible F U, uh,

And she went back into her van. She was red in the face. She was mad, real mad that I wouldn't move. And I was like, okay, that's cool. And then she had some words with me. She kept yelling out of her window at me. And I'm like, just like, whoa, what's going on here? So after that situation kind of like died down a little bit, I, I picked up my camera and I moved it back about two car spaces from there. So I'm about three and a half to four car spaces away from her at that point.

I picked up all my gear, moved it back there, moved my car back. I started filming again. She got out of her car again, out of her van. It told me, called me every name that you could think of. Everything imaginable. Now I didn't do any, I didn't do anything to her. I would just kind of sat there and I was like, wow, what's going on? Typically, you know, she typically most people are nice there, but she must've been having a real bad day or something. I don't know what, I don't know what the deal was, but yeah,

Those are the only two times that I could think of that were like real nasty. The funny thing is right after she yelled at me, a wonderful couple from the Northeast drove in. I think they were from Maine or Rhode Island or something, but they drove all the way there, but they weren't there to see the rocket. They were there to see the wildlife.

It's a wildlife preserve. And there's some like some weird birds that they really love. They're like some birds you can't see or find anyplace else in the United States. So they drove down for the birds. They didn't even know the SpaceX was down there. They didn't even know there was a giant rocket down there, but she didn't say anything to them. They pulled up behind her and then she eventually pulled off and went someplace else.

But it was, I told them about her. I was like, Hey, you guys might not want to park there. She might get out and yell at you. And then she was like, she was swearing at us as she left, but we were just kind of like, Whoa, what just happened there? So there's, there's all kinds of different people there, but I bet some, like I said before, I met some wonderful people that I still keep in contact with there from there. Some photographers, some videographers, some filmmakers, some producers, some,

And there's some beef between some of the YouTube channels. It's a silly beef. The big YouTube channel, everybody knows them. There's some beef between the big YouTube channel, the big streaming YouTube channel and the local boys, which the local boys, they were there first. They started it all. There were a few people there before. But it's a turf war. It's silly. It doesn't make any sense. There's enough room for everybody there.

for everybody to have a piece of the pie. And it just happens that one of them is better at business than the other. The other one was kind of hobbyist who had, and they take it seriously though. So I'm not going to discount what they've done, but in the realm of business, they didn't do business well. And that's where it was separate from the other channel. I'm not going to name any channels. You'll figure it out yourself if you really want to, but basically the biggest space flight channel on YouTube is,

other than the everyday astronaut the the biggest streaming at starbase youtube channel and this other streaming at starbase channel for a while there they had some beef and some other youtubers had some beef too it was kind of funny um because everybody wanted their piece of the pie man and i was just there for the good times i was there to make friends i was there to hang out and i was there to enjoy myself with the company of other people that are fans of elon

And I hope you're, you know, if you're still listening to this, I hope you get something out of this story. As in, please go to Starbase. If you go to Starbase, pack some water, a lot of water in your trunk, pack some snacks because there's no facilities anywhere and go to the bathroom before you leave your house to go down there because there's no bathrooms. So yeah, take a, take a little trip there if you can. It's amazing place to be. And you'll be shocked at how big the rocket is in real life. It's absolutely massive.

It's so, so large compared to anything other than a 40 story building that you've ever seen. And it's a rocket that they've launched this thing into space. It's gigantic. You can get a hundred yards from this thing. A couple hundred yards, I should say, but you can get so close. You can, it's like touching it almost. It feels like you're right underneath it. It's so huge. You can walk right up to the fence. You can park your car on the other side of the road. You can hang out there all day. You want just watch the rocket. It's so cool.

So I just want to share that with you. And I hope you got something out of that. And if you did, please join our discord down below. It's in the description in the show notes, and please follow the channel, follow this podcast because we are growing and it is becoming actually, you know what I'm going to, I'm going to do a little,

a little demo for you here. We are the top 15 video podcast on Spotify. We're usually in the top 30 of technology podcasts on Spotify, over 2 million downloads already. So please join the crew over on discord, uh, help out the show any way you can tell your friends about it, tell your family, tell anybody you want to about it because we're growing fast and I want everybody to come on board.

So thanks again for listening or watching wherever you are. I do appreciate you. And please take care of yourselves and each other.

And I will see you in the next one. Okay, I have to tell you, I was just looking on eBay where I go for all kinds of things I love, and there it was. That hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set. Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams. One of a kind. eBay had it, and now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you get your windshield wiper? eBay has all the parts that fit my car. No more annoying, just beautiful.

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