It’s Not a Bird, or a Plane: It’s Your Walmart Delivery
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Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, March 28th. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal. Elon Musk is a billionaire with many hats. What does that mean for his businesses in the age of MAGA? Then, drone delivery might finally be coming to a backyard, porch, or drop-off point near you. We'll chat to our tech columnist about why it's taken so long.

First, there's Elon Musk, the businessman, and then there's Elon Musk, the political advisor. The two have been in constant demand, often pulling the billionaire chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX in two completely different directions. The dual focus has sparked concern among investors of Musk's companies who worry about his long-term ability to home in on business matters, and also among political watchers for his quick attempts at dismantling and defunding parts of the U.S. federal bureaucracy.

WSJ columnist Tim Higgins joins us as part of our series looking at Musk's first 100 days in the Trump White House.

Tim, how is Musk handling this very demanding task of double duty running huge companies while also being a key presidential advisor? One of the things that Elon Musk has shown over the years is his ability to excite investors in his companies about the future that he is promising, whether it's rockets that go to Mars or electric cars that take over the world. And that is

enthusiasm and excitement has propelled Tesla's market share and its stock price to record highs. We have seen that enthusiasm evaporate in some ways in the last few months, in part probably because of Musk

extracurricular activities. But there's also a more core issue at play at Tesla, and that is that its sale of vehicles has been falling. Some might attribute it to the idea that Tesla has become a more political brand, that Democrats are being turned off.

There's also something more basic going on. Tesla's lineup is old. The Model Y, the best-selling car in the world, is getting long in the tooth. Now the company is updating it, but it's still relatively the same vehicle. And so investors are worried. The beginning of April will be a big test for his companies. We'll see Tesla's delivery results for the first three months of the year. That'll be telling Tesla.

Most analysts are expecting a decline from the fourth quarter. The first quarter is traditionally one of the rougher months for all car companies.

There's also a couple of other important calendar items coming up in April. This is the local political angle to Musk. His political action committee has been busy shaking hands, knocking on doors for various local races. And that will be really a test of his brand as not a politician, but a guy who works in politics, right? Absolutely. America PAC, the PAC that he created recently.

to help win the November election for Donald Trump. It's now moving into kind of a new phase. We'll look to Wisconsin for an election involving a Supreme Court.

judge there. We've also been looking at ways that he's trying to use his PAC in other races around the country. Musk has been pretty clear that he was going to continue to put money into his PAC, in part playing a little bit of a role as enforcer for the Republican Party and congressional races. And also when it comes to Musk's action in the Beltway, we can't forget about Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, where he has been tasked with

slashing the federal bureaucracy and budgets. That's faced several setbacks in the courts very recently, though. Bring us up to speed on that and how Musk is reacting to those decisions. These steps are being challenged by judges around the country. Musk has joined other Republicans in taking to social media to kind of lament this or to challenge the idea that these judges should be able to kind of weigh in on the president's actions or the administration's actions.

It raises questions about the balance of power between the executive branch, the judiciary branch in Congress. We saw a very unusual thing occur when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court put out a statement in this regard about divisions of power, if you will. It's a very, very unusual situation to be kind of watching play out. It's not just

politically related decisions that are in the courts, but also a development for Tesla's actions in Wisconsin, too. The Wisconsin race is interesting. There is a case that's expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court that really addresses a key issue for Tesla. One of the unique things about Tesla is that they sell their cars directly to customers.

And that has put Tesla at odds in a number of states where franchise dealers have a lot of political clout. And there are laws on the books that protect that power and prohibit companies from selling directly to customers. So Musk and Tesla for many years now have been fighting this

battle at a state-by-state level, and Wisconsin is one of those places. So it is interesting to watch how Musk is trying to use some of his political power to sway things in an election that may potentially be relevant to one of his companies. Now, it's not clear that the candidate he's backing would go for him in a decision, but still, it does highlight how Musk and his political power and his companies are intertwined.

That was WSJ columnist Tim Higgins. Coming up, why are people in Arkansas gathering at a local Walmart to gaze up at the night sky? The answer after the break. Campfire season's back, and that means s'mores. But when you're at home treating yourself, take them over ice with Dunkin' S'mores Cold Brew Concentrate. And suddenly you're always treating yourself. The home with Dunkin' is where you want to be. Click or tap the banner to shop now.

Nighttime stargazing might soon morph into moonlit drone spotting. That's if one drone delivery startup's foray into package and food delivery is as successful as it wants it to be. WSJ tech columnist Christopher Mims talked to folks at the company called Zipline. Christopher, we've been told for what feels like years and years that drones will deliver our latest online order right to our front porches or our backyards.

I don't know about you, but I'm still waiting. Is Zipline really going to make this a widespread reality? Yes. The startup called Zipline thinks that they're going to make it a widespread reality. I tend to believe them just because they have some deep-pocketed competitors who also say they're going to make it a widespread reality. And they include Amazon and Wing, which is a sister company to Google. Zipline is different in that they have been doing...

drone delivery for so long. If you haven't heard of them, it's because you don't live in Rwanda where they deliver the overwhelming majority of

medicines and blood products from centralized blood banks. One study said that they had slashed maternal mortality across the entire country just by delivering blood all over the country with their original drone, which looked like a small remote-controlled airplane. Fixed wings, not like the drones we think of, like a little airplane.

which could fly long distances. And now they have a new drone. And this new drone is going to be addressing a much more American need, which is it's game day and you need merch from Walmart right away, or you need a burrito from Chipotle, who's one of their partners. When it comes to drone delivery, there are a lot of other concerns associated

Aside from just can it happen, there are also concerns about noise pollution in a lot of places that already see a lot of air traffic. How does Zipline and even its other competitors think about that when it comes to the future of drone delivery in America? All the drone companies claim to have done a great deal to address noise of their drones. One thing that has impressed me is

Typical drones, they're pretty noxious. Like if you're seeing a photography drone fly around, it's very annoying. And it's partly because the pitch of its rotors is in a frequency that humans find uniquely offensive. It's like the same pitch as like a mosquito wings or something. So all these companies have made sure that their drones are operating literally in a lower register.

And they've also done a great deal to their propellers to make them quieter. And as one person at Amazon told me, you know, make the sound of their drones, quote unquote, disappear into the soundscape. Zipline specifically, their drones never come closer than 300 feet.

To someone's yard because the drone hovers about the length of a football field above its delivery point and lowers a little delivery cooler to the ground, which then dumps your package right there on the ground.

Why hasn't drone delivery caught on? Is it just that it is really difficult to roll it out in parts of America? Is it that the technology hasn't really been there yet? What's the biggest reason? It's been a design problem as much as anything. It has also, to be fair, been a regulatory problem because technology

The FAA, of course, at least until recently, was pretty committed to protecting our lives. And they were really skittish about allowing fully autonomous robots to just pepper our skies. So there's really been a dance between the industry and regulators where they're building trust. And these companies are showing, hey, we can run what is a mini airline in the sky and

and minimize or eliminate accidents altogether. That's a big job because if it falls out of the sky, that's bad news. You have this anecdote in the story about how locals in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, where Zipline delivers for Walmart, sort of gather in the parking lot and just watch these drones light up the sky. But

I'm thinking it maybe more from a New York City perspective. There's all these buzzing things in the sky. How does this actually happen in practice? How do they roll this out in a way that really doesn't disrupt life and become sort of dystopian? I think the answer to that question is

How much does it offend you to look up at the night sky and see dozens of blinking lights zipping back and forth? I mean, it's going to be like living under an airport or being somewhere rural and looking up in the night sky and thinking you're seeing a shooting star. But really, it's just one of Elon Musk's thousands of Starlink satellites. I think that concerns about kind of visual pollution are...

Legitimate. That was WSJ Tech columnist Christopher Mims.

And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang. I'm your host, Victoria Craig. Additional support this week from Jess Jupiter. Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Emily Martosi. Our development producer is Aisha Al-Muslim. Scott Salloway and Chris Dinsley are the deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. Today's the day. From Universal Pictures and Blumhouse come a storm of terror from the director of The Shallows, the woman in the yard. Don't let in. Where does she come from? What does she want? When will she leave? The woman in the yard in theaters today.