The Elon Effect

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Speaker 3 Christiana, quick, quick tip for you that I've learned. If you have a very traditional parent who hates therapy or psychology, a trick is to just switch it into Bible talk.

Speaker 3 So just say, like, instead of saying like, you have issues or you have childhood traumas, just be like, they are demons. They are demons from your past.

Speaker 3 They are demons you have inherited from your grandmother. When you were very poor, there was a demon of poverty that came generationally inside you.

Speaker 5 No, that's.

Speaker 3 I promise you now, it works.

Speaker 2 I'm going to do it.

Speaker 5 I'm going to do it. I'm going going to get out of my ego and be like to my dad.
I just believe we have a generational spiritual curse that a witch in the millions

Speaker 2 put on us.

Speaker 5 And maybe you'll be like, okay, I want to hear more about this.

Speaker 4 Also, if you need any quotes, very few, very, very few Christians have read Ephesians. Oh, man.
You get a gospel raw, people are going to be like, I don't think Jesus said that.

Speaker 2 You hit him with Ephesians and they're like, probably. I don't know.

Speaker 3 This is how we connect.

Speaker 3 You're listening to What Now, the podcast where I chat to interesting people about the conversations taking over our world.

Speaker 3 Today on the podcast, we're talking about the owner of X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. He's also the owner of SpaceX and Starlink, and one of the weirdest people on the planet.

Speaker 3 Yes, Elon Musk. who has not just red-pilled himself on the very platform he owns, but seems to be a true believer that the woke mind virus is going to destroy the world.

Speaker 3 So today, instead of assuming everything, I wanted to try and figure out what is going on inside Elon Musk's brain. But also,

Speaker 3 what does Elon Musk represent? Does he represent how white men or even billionaires who are white men can convince themselves that they are the victim?

Speaker 3 And is our culture as divided and radicalized as he makes it seem?

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 can we have some empathy for a person like Elon Elon Musk?

Speaker 3 Well, joining me to discuss all of it, as always, are my good friends, writer, journalist, and professional hater Christiana Mbakwe Medina and stand-up comedian and human chillpoo, Josh Johnson.

Speaker 3 Recording in progress.

Speaker 3 This is What Now with Trevor Noah.

Speaker 3 And we're back again. Happy Podcast Day.
I'm writing a new theme song for the podcast. I hope you like it.
Happy Podcast Day. They were friends and the world was ending.

Speaker 3 But then they hooked up anyway to talk about it. Happy Podcast Day.
It's a work in progress, but it works for now. Happy podcast day, everybody.
How are you doing?

Speaker 4 Happy Podcast Day, man.

Speaker 5 Happy Podcast Day. Josh, I'm so happy to see you.

Speaker 4 It's good to see y'all. I've missed y'all.

Speaker 3 Oh, you haven't missed us, Josh. You are now a mega-successful comedian who is, you know, gracing the pages of Vulture magazine and, you know, getting millions of views on your YouTube.

Speaker 3 I never used to understand grandparents. until now.

Speaker 3 I show everybody your page and I'm like, I know him.

Speaker 2 That's Josh.

Speaker 3 That's Josh John. Do you like the YouTube? Well, let me show you the videos of Josh John.
Look at this one.

Speaker 2 This one's got millions of views.

Speaker 4 That's very kind. I have missed y'all very much

Speaker 4 because, you know, I feel like all this stuff is very new, but I'm very grateful that I get to talk to people who don't really like, how do I put this?

Speaker 2 Care? Don't care. They don't like,

Speaker 2 yeah, yeah. Like,

Speaker 4 y'all care is and you're happy for me, but y'all don't care.

Speaker 4 Like, if, like, if I, if I lost my mind off it, like, let's say I actually started like going full, like, y'all, I, I, I don't know how to act anymore.

Speaker 4 You would be able to bring me down to Earth very quickly.

Speaker 2 It would, it wouldn't tell us.

Speaker 3 Hopefully, oh, or we'd let you fly, my friend. Oh, we'd let you fly.

Speaker 2 I think those are the stages.

Speaker 3 Those are the stages of success, right? You're hitting that stage of success now where, you know, like

Speaker 3 when an asteroid is entering Earth's atmosphere, one of those, like you're burning up and it's getting like real hot. And then the next stage is stalkers.

Speaker 3 Soon you will notice a fan at a few too many of your shows.

Speaker 3 And then the final level of fame is just losing it. Just like you running down the street naked, screaming, I'm Josh Johnson.

Speaker 3 I wish that level of fame for you, my friend.

Speaker 4 The reason that you can't let me fly just yet is because I am not at the stage where I can afford security.

Speaker 3 This is a very valid point. Okay, not yet, Josh.

Speaker 2 Not yet.

Speaker 3 As Christiana always says, we will pray for you. We will pray that you achieve bodyguard levels of fame and success.
Christiana, how have you been, my friend?

Speaker 3 Every time I see you, you look both more fulfilled and more tired as a mom. Oh my God.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I think my son is trying to kill me.

Speaker 2 I love him so much.

Speaker 5 Do you know what it is?

Speaker 5 We've had

Speaker 5 some really good friends of ours. Their daughter has been spending time with us.

Speaker 5 So there's like the juxtaposition between this like beautifully well-behaved girl who I'm like, you're a dream child, and my son, who like yesterday, I was like, I need to put an air tag in his afro.

Speaker 5 I don't know if it's legal, but I'm like, I need to just braid it down into

Speaker 5 it. So I know where he is.
And then I was like, but the radiation, you know, and I'm a kind of a crunchy mum. I do vaccinate, but I'm crunchy.
And so I'm like, he's just trying to kill him.

Speaker 5 I love him so much, but it's just like raising a boy, as our friend Joe Opio told me. Do you have a nuclear weapon in your womb, Christian? Do not take your eyes off the ball.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but like,

Speaker 3 as Josh says, as Josh says, as long as you don't raise a killer, then you're doing well, right?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Like, what was it?

Speaker 3 What was, what was, did you ever do anything crazy as a kid?

Speaker 3 What's like the naughtiest thing Josh Johnson did?

Speaker 5 Become a comedian. That's probably the worst thing you did.

Speaker 6 Broke your mom's house.

Speaker 2 And you're like, I want to be a comedian.

Speaker 4 Oh, that's actually, actually, Christiana. That is it because everyone thought I was going to be an engineer.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 3 Damn, Josh. You really were a good kid.
This is, okay, this is how I know you were a good kid, is that

Speaker 3 when I told my mom that I was a comedian, she breathed a sigh of relief and she was like, thank God, I thought you were going to be a drug dealer.

Speaker 3 She didn't even know what a comedian was, but it's not even like there was comedy in South Africa. There wasn't like stand-up comedy in that way.
And she was like, Thank God.

Speaker 3 And I said, Do you even know what a comedian is? And she's like, It doesn't matter, my love. She said, It doesn't matter, baby.

Speaker 3 I thought you were going to be, I thought you were going to live a life of crime. I'm so grateful.
God has blessed me.

Speaker 3 This is how different our lives were.

Speaker 3 I would have had the air tag. But

Speaker 3 I'm really excited for today's episode because

Speaker 3 it's funny enough, talking about hot messes, Christiana. There's one question that's been like stuck in my mind.
And I think

Speaker 3 it's only become amplified over the past week. And it's been:

Speaker 3 what has happened to Elon Musk? And before you stop listening, before I see your face, I see already you're like, why are we talking about Elon Musk?

Speaker 3 Like,

Speaker 3 I know Elon Musk is Elon Musk, and I know people have sort of gotten used to him as being this polarizing figure and this.

Speaker 3 But like, what has happened to Elon Musk? Have you seen his posts online these days?

Speaker 3 Like, if you told me Elon Musk's Twitter was hacked by a MA bot from, I don't know, Russia or wherever, I would believe you.

Speaker 3 Like, there's some people who are Republican trolls, or they might, they might not even be Republican, by the way, they might even be conservative.

Speaker 3 They're racist, they're sexist, they're whatever they are, they're whatever they are, but those people know that they're trolling, right?

Speaker 3 Elon Musk posts that stuff, he reposts it, and he says it like in a real way. He's like, Yeah, this is true.
The woke mind virus is coming for us. No joke, no humor.

Speaker 3 I know some people might think, well, why are you talking about Elon Musk? Why now?

Speaker 3 Well, I think because over the past few weeks, we've seen Elon Musk and his world escalate to a point

Speaker 3 that I think we can sort of use either as a cautionary tale or just as a case study to try and understand many other men like him. who don't have the billions for us to pay attention to them.

Speaker 3 Because if you're a billionaire and you act crazy, people pay attention.

Speaker 3 If you're just going crazy in a corner in the middle of America somewhere or in England or wherever these guys are in the world, no one really pays attention until there's like a riot or people are getting punched in the street or people are getting shot at

Speaker 4 an event. And when a billionaire goes off, whatever they choose to buy,

Speaker 4 whatever influence they choose to use, that has ripple effects that are much wider than like you or I getting radicalized. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 Like if you, if, if I get radicalized right now, I think I could convince three people.

Speaker 4 I think it's me and three other people going to go wild in the streets. But someone like Elon, we've seen, you know, we've seen what can happen and we've seen the influence.

Speaker 3 The most recent story for me, for those who haven't seen it, I'll try and sum it up real quick. But the most recent story actually comes out of Brazil.
Like the drama is coming from Brazil.

Speaker 3 What happened was, you know, Brazilian authorities reached out to Elon Musk and to Twitter, really and they essentially it's not like they tweeted him like

Speaker 3 can we ask a question no what happened was brazilian authorities reached out to twitter and they said hey listen there are a few accounts on twitter that we need to shut down because they're like you know they're sprouting hate speech and they're sort of like attacking people etc they were like these people are persona non grata and they're going against brazil's laws and what we think people should or shouldn't be saying.

Speaker 3 Elon then turned around and was like, I'm not going to block these accounts because Twitter is all about free speech.

Speaker 3 And he's like, anyone can say whatever they want on Twitter as long as it's not about me. And then he said he's not shutting the accounts down.

Speaker 3 Brazil's Supreme Court came back and was like, hey, we'll shut Twitter down. And then he's like, fine, shut it down.
And now, while we're recording this, at least, Twitter is shut down in Brazil.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 3 I was looking at the story and I was going, when you are willing to shut down a part of your business that has 20 million users and you've lost like, you know whatever 80 or whatever it is of of their advertising

Speaker 3 i then go like man elon i think he like believes this now

Speaker 5 yeah yeah i was like he's

Speaker 5 gone full on into his ego like whatever this persona is that he's donning

Speaker 5 he's owning it completely in a way i don't think we've seen before because now he's willing to lose money and which billionaire wants to lose money?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Okay, but here's the thing.
Is it ego or for me, it seems more like somebody who believes in a, in a cult or like in an extreme religion or because those people don't care about money, you know?

Speaker 3 So I remember the first time Elon tweeted about like the woke mind virus. But now I've reread all of those tweets and I realize that Elon actually

Speaker 3 believes that there is a virus that has infected people all over the world and it's making them woke. And because of that, people don't have like critical thought.

Speaker 3 And he's on like a quest to save these people.

Speaker 3 He talks about it like there's actually a person working in a lab in Wuhan studying the coronavirus and like woke mind virus.

Speaker 5 And for him, help me understand. Woke mind virus for him is like trans rights, diversity, and inclusion.

Speaker 2 Yes, yeah. It's

Speaker 5 feminine women making choices about their bodies.

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, like super progressive.

Speaker 5 Because I know he has a bunch of kids to counteract the woke mind virus, right?

Speaker 6 He does.

Speaker 5 He does. Because I'm just trying to understand the philosophy, if that makes sense.
And maybe then I can... I don't want to have empathy for Elon Musk because I don't think billionaires need empathy.

Speaker 3 Billionaires are people too.

Speaker 5 Billionaires are people too, but like they have feelings.

Speaker 3 Do you think they're not going to be able to do that?

Speaker 2 Just like the rest of us.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 They have billions more feelings than the rest of us in family.

Speaker 5 A billion more feelings than we have. But

Speaker 5 he's kind of like a cipher for like

Speaker 5 white men that get radical or do you know i won't even say white men because we live in an andrew tate world and i think

Speaker 5 andrew tate fans love elon too so it's just like young men between a certain age who are radicalized and afraid of wokeness the woke mind virus but i don't understand how someone like elon gets infected yeah but that that so maybe or doesn't want to get infected like help me help me get that

Speaker 3 okay so so this is how i understand the woke mind virus.

Speaker 3 I've been delving into that world, which Josh, like, he, Josh just, like, casually strolls through this world all the time, by the way. So, we're going to rely on you, Josh.

Speaker 3 Do you like take strolls through like the most poisonous parts of the internet and then just come out smiling?

Speaker 2 No, still a decent guy.

Speaker 3 No, this is really what Josh does. So, okay, the way I understand the woke mind virus is this.
People go, the woke mind virus,

Speaker 3 to them, is a bunch of people who are no longer able to look at the world logically and have become super soft and are all about inclusion and caring about other people, but at the expense of the planet and of people.

Speaker 3 And they sort of like think that women are superior to men and they think that up is down and down is up and there's no gender. And

Speaker 5 you haven't said anything wrong here.

Speaker 2 I'm like,

Speaker 5 women better than men. You had me there.

Speaker 3 So you have the walkmind virus.

Speaker 2 That's just family confusion.

Speaker 6 Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 Okay, but Josh, how do you, do you understand it differently?

Speaker 3 Because this is how, this is what I see it as.

Speaker 4 So it is just a sort of worldview that a lot of these guys don't see themselves in. And so that's very scary.
You know what I mean? I think that a lot of it is literally like

Speaker 4 one of the reasons that there's a whole talk about how the woke mind virus like thought leadership is a direct pipeline of like early to late stage divorce dad.

Speaker 4 So it's like, I'm not saying people actually say this or believe it, but this is how it feels, right? Is that no one really needs a dad.

Speaker 4 So, so then if you are a man as part of a family unit and then your wife divorces you and the kids live with her, there is this notion socially that like you are the least important component of that family unit.

Speaker 4 So then you are sort of off in the world by yourself. This is how a lot of guys get red pill.
This is how a lot of guys like just fall into like these rabbit holes, right?

Speaker 4 Well, with the woke mind virus sort of thing, it kind of, it kind of tells you

Speaker 4 that a lot of your problems are not necessarily your own personal failings or

Speaker 4 anything that you can really do.

Speaker 4 It's more that there are like cultural movements and social ideas that are pushing your family away from you. So

Speaker 4 it's like any other thing where you could either take responsibility for yourself or be like, there's a whole movement working against me. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 It's like, you okay, okay.

Speaker 4 You could go to therapy, or you could develop a stronger relationship with your children by trying to understand them, or you could be like, you all are sick, and I'm the only one that's well.

Speaker 2 Got it. That's that's helpful.

Speaker 5 Okay, but but here's the thing. So don't feel empathy.

Speaker 3 I doubt we're gonna get you empathy at any point.

Speaker 6 I know, I want to, I want to.

Speaker 2 I want to.

Speaker 3 No, in this, in this one, I honestly don't know with you for Elon Musk. But okay, two things, Josh.
One,

Speaker 3 firstly, maybe this is just me digging too deep. I don't understand how these guys have missed what the red pill was about.

Speaker 3 Like I find that ironic, that all these people are talking about taking the red pill and they're like, I've been red pill. I see the truth.

Speaker 3 And the red pill in the matrix was literally an allegory for being trans.

Speaker 3 So, first of all, I think it's very funny that people who are anti-trans use like the,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 the movie metaphor, you know, that the Wachowskis created to talk about being trans. That's the first thing.
And then the second thing is, I would get it if it wasn't Elon Musk.

Speaker 3 Everything you said, divorce dad economically, no job, no, this man is a billionaire.

Speaker 3 So I want to know what is it in his brain that connects him to somebody who doesn't have a job, who doesn't have prospects, who feels angry and only important when they're on the internet hidden behind their handle.

Speaker 5 Can I be a shit psychologist? Like, Trevor, you're somebody that's entertained, like, a lot of success, right?

Speaker 5 But when you look in the mirror, you're not.

Speaker 2 By the grace of God.

Speaker 5 By the grace of God, shout out to Auntie Patricia for her prayers.

Speaker 5 But when you look in the mirror, there's a part of you that's still like a young boy from South Africa.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 5 Like the fame, the money and all of that, like who you are at your core, sorry, in a child, like the success doesn't change that who you are fundamentally, right?

Speaker 5 So, my argument with someone like Elon is that

Speaker 2 he's like a,

Speaker 5 he's still like a lot of people who do tech is like kind of a fear-based job in a way. Like, they're in the future because they think there's so much wrong with the present.

Speaker 5 And I don't think Elon's someone that's done the work to be like, I'm going to deal with the fears I have as a young white male in the world because I do think their fears are valid.

Speaker 5 I think we dismiss them.

Speaker 2 We're like, oh, you're a white man.

Speaker 5 You don't have any problems, but you're still a human, right?

Speaker 5 He hasn't dealt with any of that stuff. So when he looks in the mirror, he doesn't necessarily see this like billionaire Titan.

Speaker 5 He's still like a scared young man running from whatever he's running from. That's why I think he's vulnerable to it.
But Josh, I'd love to hear.

Speaker 4 So I think outside of money, one of the biggest issues is that

Speaker 4 you look at it in the political sphere, you take us out of that for one second. Elon's whole worldview is to a certain degree what Christian is saying.

Speaker 4 He lives

Speaker 4 all of his

Speaker 4 sort of worldview and all of his perspective through that fear basis. It's one of the reasons he wants to go to Mars because he's like, guys, this planet's dying.

Speaker 4 It's one of the reasons he's so scared of AI until he can catch up to AI himself.

Speaker 4 And the AI example that I just gave is... taking it back to the politics for a second.

Speaker 4 You know, he seems like someone who has been fairly, and we can talk, you know, we can obviously talk about what that spectrum is for him, but fairly conservative, you know, throughout the years and just maybe milder.

Speaker 4 But conservatives,

Speaker 4 one of the main ways that they address and

Speaker 4 mitigate their fears through control, right?

Speaker 4 So if they're afraid of something, they're like, we have to control it. If they're afraid of another nation, let's beef up the military, whatever.

Speaker 4 And so you see him trying to control speech because he's afraid of the loss of quote-unquote free speech and so i think that a lot of his obsession with um

Speaker 4 with controlling and having a say in in overall discourse and in cultural moments is because he is afraid of this same thing and a lot of what i was describing before with that sort of divorce dad to like radicalized pipeline you can't buy this stuff i don't care how much money you have you can't buy a relationship with your kid okay okay this is this is this is interesting as an idea because

Speaker 3 you know, when you, when you plot Elon Musk's journey out, you know, I'll never say he was liberal, please don't get me wrong, but he at least presented a more neutral tone.

Speaker 3 You know, Elon would commonly, he'd commonly post, he'd say, he'd say, like,

Speaker 3 you know, guys,

Speaker 3 we got to focus on both sides. I think both sides have great, great, great ideas.

Speaker 3 And even if you look at everything he created, right, he, he, everything Elon made

Speaker 3 was for the bet, like for the greater good, for the environment.

Speaker 3 I remember a time when Tesla owners were seen as like, people would call them gay, for instance, on the internet. They'd be like, ah, you driving around in your gay electric car.

Speaker 5 Super progressive car.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's like you got these, and everyone in California had the, think of all the places that bought Teslas first. It was like California and Norway.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 This is where like Teslas were everything. And then people in like the red parts of America and conservative parts of the world were like, I'll never drive that piece of trash.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to have a self-driving car. It might drive me to communism.
And then now,

Speaker 3 now the cyber truck has become the symbol for like testosterone. You know,

Speaker 3 you buy the cyber truck and a testosterone supplement comes free type thing. It's like, yeah, I eat red meat raw.
And I don't know.

Speaker 3 I'm actually intrigued. I feel like you two are finding more empathy because there was a part of me that thought Elon was doing all of this

Speaker 3 because he saw it as a shrewd business move. You know, like Elon realized: if I can get Trump's base,

Speaker 3 they don't question, they flip and flop. As long as they're with Trump,

Speaker 3 they'll stay on that course. And so, part of me thought, is this guy thinking to himself, if I can get these people to like my products, then I'll always have a user base.
And

Speaker 3 it seems like both of you are saying, No, you think he's actually like scared in real life.

Speaker 3 I don't think I dug deep enough into this initially,

Speaker 3 but now both of you have made me wonder if

Speaker 3 Elon has felt a personal either betrayal or a personal

Speaker 3 seismic shift in his life because he has a trans child.

Speaker 5 I think it goes before that. And this is me being on my psychology.

Speaker 3 Do it. Do it, girl.
Do it.

Speaker 5 I think

Speaker 5 Elon had a child that died very young. I think they were like six, seven weeks old.
Don't

Speaker 5 I can't I'm I may don't quote me. I may be wrong in the dates.

Speaker 5 And I think that when you being around people who have lost children really long, someone has had miscarriages, there's nothing that makes you feel more powerless than something that you thought was going to be permanent being ripped away from you prematurely.

Speaker 5 And after he had, and it was a son that he lost, and then after that they did IVF and had twins. I think one of the twins now is

Speaker 5 a trans girl. And I think he is still trying to recover from that wound of losing a child and has never owned to owned up to it.
And he wants sons. I think that he's like a real patriarch.

Speaker 5 And there's between that loss and now having a son that he discovered is not a son and was going on and being like, I'm a trans girl, it split his brain in half.

Speaker 5 And rather than deal with that grief, because you read the testimonies of a lot of parents of trans children and they're like, it is a real grieving process, right?

Speaker 5 Like you're losing one child and gaining and you're gaining another and he is still in the loss and he is refusing to see what he's gained and he needs somebody to blame and it's very different you can't blame someone for SIDS if you lose a child very early you may blame yourself but you know that's not rational and I think now having this trans child he's like I can blame Twitter so I'm gonna buy that thing because they got all these i bad ideas from twitter and rather than being like let me just sit in the grief of like

Speaker 5 okay yeah i've lost a son, but I've gained a daughter. And he's not able to compute that.

Speaker 5 And he's just doing what a lot of parents do when they, you know, find out they have a trans child and they just look away and they reject it entirely.

Speaker 5 That's how, and I also do think he's a bigot, but I do think there's like an emotional complexity of any parent, you raise one thing.

Speaker 5 And if that child turns around to you and says, like, if Obi came to me and was like, I don't believe my name is Obi, I'd be offended because I'm like, Obi's a great name,

Speaker 5 first and foremost.

Speaker 5 But then, like, you you know, a child comes to you and says, I'm a different gender.

Speaker 2 That's something I've thought about.

Speaker 5 Like, how would I handle that? And I'm someone that's very progressive. And I'd be like, okay, I'm supporting you 100%.
But there is a mourning period.

Speaker 5 And I don't think he's like, I don't want to say sophisticated or not. I think he's just still in his very primal emotions of a dad and being like, no, you're supposed to be my son.
And I think

Speaker 5 anyone, no matter your politics, can kind of empathize with that, even if we don't empathize with his, like, his behavior afterwards, which I think has been really disgusting.

Speaker 2 But Josh, I'm curious.

Speaker 5 I'm curious what you think about the parent for you.

Speaker 3 But before we jump into that, though, can I just say we have reached empathy for Elon Musk? You like

Speaker 3 at the beginning of this conversation, I think as a parent,

Speaker 2 as a parent, you have a fantasy of what your child will be.

Speaker 5 So I have empathy of like the ego death that you need to experience as a parent. But I think the problem is he hasn't had the ego death.
He's just been like, fuck you.

Speaker 5 I'm not going to identify

Speaker 5 your gender in the way I should, right? Which I think is actually, I think is bad parenting, which I don't have empathy for.

Speaker 3 Look, I'm not, I'm not labeling you as a fan or anything. I'm just saying, Josh, you are my witness, and so is everybody listening to this.

Speaker 3 Beginning of the conversation, Christiana was like, There is nothing that will give me empathy for this man.

Speaker 3 And now, you saying that, and I'm not even joking, obviously, I'm teasing, but yeah, there's a part of me that now goes, like, ouch, like, oh man.

Speaker 3 We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break.

Speaker 3 we're talking about Elon Musk, but I feel like because he is somebody who

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 in a position to ascend to a high level of power, I mean, Trump has pretty much said if he wins,

Speaker 3 he's going to put Elon Musk in charge of, I don't even know what they call it, optimizing the government.

Speaker 2 You know, which

Speaker 3 governments aren't supposed to be like optimized. That's another topic for another day.

Speaker 3 But I go, okay, if Elon is going to ascend to that position, and if the world is full of men who are experiencing the same feeling,

Speaker 3 is there a way where we can figure out what the thing

Speaker 3 is?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know what I get what you, yeah.

Speaker 5 You know, it's really funny because

Speaker 5 when we talk about like powerful white men who feel powerless, which I think describes Elon and Trump, and you know, a lot of men who've been radicalized.

Speaker 5 People like myself generally say, Well, white men still have the power, which is true on like an objective factual level, but we all know there's like a cultural feeling of change.

Speaker 5 Yes, whereas it's like the world we are heading towards,

Speaker 5 their future is not guaranteed in a way it was 50 years ago, right?

Speaker 3 I don't know. You know, it's funny, I I don't agree with that.
So I think

Speaker 3 the one thing, the only thing that like powerful white men have lost in the

Speaker 3 in the grand scheme of things

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 their success and power being tied to their popularity. That used to be part and parcel.

Speaker 3 You know, in a weird way, in a weird way, we lived in a world where if you were the king, then people clapped for you. And if you were the if you were the ceo of a company, people lauded you.

Speaker 3 and people and now in a weird way the one thing that they've lost is just like the general swag on the street of someone being like yeah i don't think you're cool i think you look funny when you stand on the back of your yacht i think you look like the guy from dune my my feeling is sure like they're not

Speaker 5 i i disagree with a cool thing because i think for the last 50 years especially like in the american pop cultural imagination cool has been a black man who plays athletics like black people in power though

Speaker 5 different i'm like cool soft power and all that different thing but I think what they're not used to is the scrutiny that comes with the job now because before

Speaker 5 you're a white man I have people in my family that be like ah it's a white person doing it let's go over there because it's got a white right this you know this idea the colonial residue of like white people means competence and excellence yes and being good and now people are like we just think you got the job because you're a white man and that's effing with them because for a lot of them like elong we're like like the emperor actually has no clothes i think there's a name for this syndrome i forget what it's called or like a it's it's a it's a thing that happens in society but oftentimes

Speaker 3 mind virus no

Speaker 2 you asshole um

Speaker 3 there'll be a thing that happens where people will assume your level of success and knowledge based on previous successes and knowledges it's the opposite of imposter syndrome it's like right right right but basically, we go because Elon Musk is a billionaire, he must know more about ethics than we do.

Speaker 3 But a lot of people don't seem to realize how hard it is to lose money when you are a billionaire. Like, it's very difficult.
Donald Trump is a perfect example.

Speaker 3 That man has done everything that you can do to lose all your money, and he somehow keeps bouncing back just because he has it. It's

Speaker 4 to the point that I

Speaker 4 cannot, cannot,

Speaker 4 I need to see this man broke before I die. Because how do you own a casino and lose money? That's like back, take back in the day, right?

Speaker 4 Imagine back in the day, if a plantation owner had to shut his farm down and goes, you know, this economy.

Speaker 2 No!

Speaker 2 No!

Speaker 3 The labor is freaking.

Speaker 4 And so that's what gets me about. So to your point, Trevor, yes, but also to Christiana's point, we used to equate,

Speaker 4 we in the 90s and the early 2000s really equated large sums of money with genius. Like you'll, you'll see a lot of people in old interviews and everything be like, no, Elon's an actual genius.

Speaker 4 He's a bona fide genius. And then it's not until later that people are like, wait, his dad owned a mine?

Speaker 2 Oh, I didn't know his dad owned a mine.

Speaker 3 No, but I, right, but I think

Speaker 3 to be fair, we shouldn't conflate two things. I do think Elon is a genius when it comes to many things.
You can be a tech genius, but be completely inept at understanding society and

Speaker 3 sociology and how humans actually work and function.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, but here's,

Speaker 3 you know, who I blame. I blame maybe, I think Obama has a lot to.

Speaker 3 I think Obama should be blamed for a lot of this, actually.

Speaker 5 Tell me more.

Speaker 3 I think Barack Obama didn't just take

Speaker 3 the idea of who the president of the most powerful nation should be he also imbued within it a level of coolness that nobody could achieve you know maybe like more country concerts and maybe like i don't know i think obama like sort of he he he did what do they call it in baseball when you when you like round the plates and you do a little dance and you you know when they go like that's excess excessive celebrating oh that's in the nfl i don't know which sports it is well the point is i blame what you mean i i see what you mean trevor but he was just

Speaker 4 being black.

Speaker 4 I can't stress this enough.

Speaker 4 This dude already did well to not drop an N-word on Mitch McConnell the entire eight years that he was in office. I don't think we can go back and

Speaker 4 scrutinize later because I think that to a certain degree, nothing he ever did was going to be enough.

Speaker 4 There was actually no, there was no tightrope that he could walk tight enough to navigate that.

Speaker 3 I think we can. I think everyone is familiar with code switching.
And

Speaker 3 I think Barack Obama stunted a little too hard in the final position of power. And I think people like Elon Musk looked at him and they were like, what has my world become?

Speaker 3 And who am I

Speaker 3 in this future world? Because

Speaker 3 the president was like that last position. Yeah, black men were always cool.
Black people were cool. Yeah, in music, they'd take in sport.
But there was one place,

Speaker 3 one place that i must stress didn't involve entertaining people

Speaker 3 and that's a really important one is

Speaker 5 trevor you you're drawing a straight line you're drawing a straight line from 2008 yes obama becoming president yes and imbuing this very official office with some call i'm trying to follow your argument here yeah yeah

Speaker 5 and then

Speaker 5 up into all the things that happened whether it was black lives matter me too

Speaker 5 trans inclusivity, like all the social movements that happened in that time. Yes.
And then we come to present day Elon Musk, who's seen how Trump has ascended to power as a reaction.

Speaker 5 Trump also being a reaction to Obama.

Speaker 2 I'm just trying to track it all now.

Speaker 5 Because what I'm trying to say is that Trevor's blaming a black man for all of this.

Speaker 3 And then

Speaker 3 what I'm saying is, I'm saying we must.

Speaker 5 Elon knows he's...

Speaker 5 Do you think he's aware of the forces he's reacting to? Because we're trying to say that this guy is fairly intelligent.

Speaker 5 Because you're intelligent doesn't mean you're aware you know so you think he doesn't even know that like i am so afraid of not just black male power but feminine power and trans power that i'm willing to like

Speaker 5 become

Speaker 3 a full-on right-wing bigot i'm not even i'm not even like convinced i'm just trying to find the thing because

Speaker 3 And I know it seems like I'm just trying to turn it on its head, but I'm not.

Speaker 3 The way Elon talks about like a woke mind virus, like he's, he's almost got like a like a broke mind virus.

Speaker 3 In fact, Christiana, I'm even going beyond this. I'm not just going, I'm going to take a brave step and I'm going to ask the question here.
I'm going to say, not Oba, I'm not even just saying Obama.

Speaker 3 I'm asking this question.

Speaker 3 Is it possible that the left has radicalized white men?

Speaker 3 And I know this is a controversial question to ask, but I'm going to ask it because we have to discuss these things because we cannot act like these people are not getting radicalized.

Speaker 3 And I would like to know why.

Speaker 5 Okay, to

Speaker 5 go back just a step, because I actually don't. Everyone knows I'm an Obama hater.

Speaker 5 If you know me in life, you know, I'm not, I think he's a gorgeous man, and I'm happy he's rich because I love when black women have rich husbands.

Speaker 2 That's the most like, I really want to

Speaker 4 hear every single word that you have to say, Chris Jon, but that is, I think, pinnacle. This is going to go down as a benchmark in my life.

Speaker 4 One of the most hater things a person can say because you literally say, I hate, I hate him but i'm so glad that his wife could

Speaker 5 he's black and he's rich because you know as black women we don't always win when it comes you know i'm actually anyway i'm gonna behave i'm not trying to get cancelled i'm come i'm coming back i'm coming back so as an as the resident obama hater um i actually don't find him that progressive i don't think he's like bar his identity, there's nothing like revolutionary and radical about him.

Speaker 5 So I struggle with the notion if we are tying the left to Obama, that is hard for me because I think he's just a centrist.

Speaker 3 Here's what I'm saying. Just to answer that point.

Speaker 3 Think about how many black people were dating a white person, were hanging out with white people, just wanted to eat food in a white restaurant. Their policies, we didn't even really know.

Speaker 3 Does that make sense? Just their existence and their presence in that space made them radical. And so

Speaker 3 I'm saying I don't disagree with you in terms of how radical Barack Obama was, but I do think him occupying that office was a radical act for many people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a radical symbol, even though he wasn't a radical president.

Speaker 2 It was a radical symbol.

Speaker 5 I, so, and I want to not conflate my issue with leftists because I think leftists, their default position is not to attain power. It's just to critique it.

Speaker 5 They just want to be like, oh, you're this, I'm making you feel bad. Oh, that's not enough.
I hate this person. I hate that person.
And then, okay, what's your solution?

Speaker 5 We're not here to talk about a solution. We're here to burn it all down.
You know, this this bullish

Speaker 5 so it's just like and that type of very annoying person being around them all the time

Speaker 5 can push a certain type of person to the right yeah I believe that was always in them right because like I'm somebody that like on the hierarchy I'm like at the bottom I'm like foreign I'm black I'm a woman I look very African but I'm not like I hate white people I'm like I take them by a case-by-case basis

Speaker 2 individual applications please.

Speaker 5 Yeah, no, because it's just like that hate is not in me.

Speaker 5 So when we say this argument of like, sure, the leftists can be really annoying and hectoring and lack empathy for quote unquote the other side.

Speaker 5 But that doesn't justify you then being like, oh, I'm going to keep these Nazi accounts up. I think that there was always a part of you that was quite dark.
And now you have an excuse.

Speaker 2 We have a reason.

Speaker 5 We can be like, oh, it's because of the left that we're getting these Elons. And I'm like, no, these were kind of broken young men and boys before the left even said or did anything.
Okay.

Speaker 5 That's kind of my position on it.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 here's one counterpoint I have to this. I do wonder sometimes if

Speaker 3 we've created this world of buffet politics that has sort of meant that people who like one aspect of

Speaker 3 a certain politic find themselves with a group that they may not necessarily agree with initially, but then slowly come to agree with on everything.

Speaker 3 And I think one of these spaces is humor. You know, it's funny, like we're saying this joking here.
We go, oh, I don't want to get canceled.

Speaker 3 But there's also like a true element, you know, beneath that, right?

Speaker 3 I've definitely noticed that when Elon really started switching over,

Speaker 3 at least publicly, it's when he would tell jokes online. He told, he would like, he would post jokes.
A lot of the time they were retweets.

Speaker 3 It's not like he was writing any comedic genius, but he would retweet something that he thought was funny. It was lewd, it was sexist, it was racist, or whatever it was.

Speaker 3 Might still be funny, by the way, but it was those things.

Speaker 3 And the response that he got from,

Speaker 3 let's say, left-wing media and all of it was always, Elon, how could you post this? How could you do so? And people were like, ah, Elon, you need to be cancelled.

Speaker 3 And I noticed a lot of guys on the right were like, yeah, that's what we need. A powerful CEO who's not afraid to tell a few jokes.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 while I would never say that this is the only lever,

Speaker 3 I do think

Speaker 3 some of the sway that the right has gotten has come from them successfully co-opting comedy. Like,

Speaker 3 I don't know about you, Josh, but when I started comedy, comedy was like the bastion of the left and it was like a progressive thing. You know, like right-wing people used to complain about comedy.

Speaker 3 And then now they're the ones going, we believe in humor. Now, whether it's true or not is almost irrelevant, but they go like, yeah, come on, you can't take a joke.
Come on.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I know it's racist, but it was just a joke. Can't you?

Speaker 3 And I look at how many people have sort of gone down that path, right? It wasn't about policies. It wasn't about ideas.
It really just became about,

Speaker 3 are you allowed to be, quote unquote, yourself and be welcomed by people? And I feel like that part of the journey also makes Elon become the Elon that we know today.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I think that the same way that we, you know, we were having that quick discussion earlier about how we used to tie someone's money to their level of genius.

Speaker 4 I think we also used to tie subversiveness with what had real power. Because for a long time, up until recently, what had real power and what had social sway were like one in the same.

Speaker 4 So when you talk about comedy and you talked about being subversive, it was subversive to be a comedian and talk about things like desegregation or gay rights because those things, those people didn't have those things.

Speaker 4 But now liberals and or leftists have the sway culturally, but there's still a huge conservative power going on.

Speaker 4 So that's why now you see Elon, you see MAGA, you see Black Lives Matter, you see liberals all thinking that they're taking the side of the resistance.

Speaker 4 Like, I don't know if you saw the tweet that Elon, he like just tweeted this meme that had already been going around.

Speaker 4 You watch the Hunger Games inside with the Resistance, you watch Star Wars inside with the Resistance.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 So that thing, right?

Speaker 4 He really thinks that somehow as a billionaire who's supporting another

Speaker 4 billionaire, he's the resistance. So that's where you see the split.

Speaker 4 And that's why you see him thinking he's like the only guy that can save the world because he's the only one still paying attention and like can cut through all the noise and everything.

Speaker 4 It's like, it's like that exact thinking.

Speaker 4 And I think that's why the humor was a tell because he was like, well, now being subversive in humor is to be sometimes a little bit more conservative because these are the jokes now that you don't say.

Speaker 4 And the jokes that you don't say are what the Edge Lord comics were always trying to be. It's just Edge George used to be more left-leaning.

Speaker 3 It's interesting, again, to your point, they go like, we are the resistance in Star Wars. And I'm like, once again, if you watch the movie, like the Jedi

Speaker 3 and all of their allies are super diverse. They all have all different skin colors, different types of aliens, different vibes.
The Jedi have ponytails, earrings, and they wear dresses.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean? It's like, it's weird that they would be like, yeah, that's us.

Speaker 3 I don't know. Maybe we watch movies differently.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 We'll be right back after this.

Speaker 3 Here's a question.

Speaker 3 Maybe it's just me.

Speaker 3 I don't feel like the world is as

Speaker 3 two-sided as it was a while ago. I also don't feel like the world is as extreme.
I know this may be

Speaker 3 an unpopular opinion, but when Elon's talking about the woke mind virus and the world, it feels like Elon Musk is fighting a battle that no longer exists.

Speaker 3 And sometimes I even feel like his echo chamber, like he bought Twitter, but then he's a victim to how Twitter makes people think the world is actually happening. And as my brother always says,

Speaker 3 whenever you think Twitter is real, go touch grass.

Speaker 3 Do you think it's as

Speaker 3 like war of the worlds as Elon thinks it is?

Speaker 4 No, not at all.

Speaker 4 And I think that when you, when you talk about woke and how woke has become a catch-all for everything, I think that railing against it is going to lose market share in the sort of economy of ideas.

Speaker 3 I hear you. I hear you.
It's going to become less popular.

Speaker 4 It's going to become less popular. But I do think that when the social attitudes towards him finally shift to apathy, because right now he's a very controversial figure.
And then the

Speaker 4 half life of controversial figures is that nobody cares, you know? And I think that when nobody cares, that's when the time for like any potential like healing or understanding can actually start.

Speaker 4 And then, you know, Elon can always shift. But I think this woke thing, it's not like

Speaker 4 You see You see people in America, the most divided country that's not having a civil war right now.

Speaker 4 You see politicians on the Republican side on lower ticket races losing because they're running on, like, I'm going to stop the woke school system or whatever.

Speaker 2 It's played out now.

Speaker 4 I don't care. It's played out.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Okay. But maybe, maybe to bring it all back around,

Speaker 3 something that is difficult to accept or even deal with is

Speaker 3 whether we agree with it or not,

Speaker 3 Elon Musk is a very public and powerful example

Speaker 3 of a person who has been indoctrinated and maybe even hurt. And, you know, he's been wounded by the world in some ways, and he's acting that out.

Speaker 3 And then it makes me think about how much more apparent or how much deeper is that wound when it's happening to somebody who literally wields no power in their world, sees no future for themselves, does not understand how to get out of a hole that they were told they're not supposed to be in, does not know how to attain the success that they were told should be theirs because of how they look.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I

Speaker 2 won't lie.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I didn't think I would have to do that.

Speaker 5 I don't have like a street kid that rejects them. Like,

Speaker 5 you have to be such an asshole to not care if your kids go no contact.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 And your kid goes online and says, these are all the reasons why I think my dad is an idiot and I disagree with him.

Speaker 5 Like, that to me, nothing would break me more than my children children coming out and being like, you're a bad parent.

Speaker 5 That's a wound that, like, whether he wants to deal with it or not, no one can overcome that, especially if you think of a man who's like super powerless, a divorced dad, sees his kid every other weekend, and the kid's like, I actually don't want to see you anymore.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, I've never heard of this in history, but I think this is just my pitch. This is me getting in my like psychology just for a quick second.

Speaker 4 I think maybe Elon even had those extra kids at her.

Speaker 2 Huh?

Speaker 3 That's interesting.

Speaker 4 Because here's the thing. Okay, let's say you walk in a room and the room's got 12 people in it and two of them hate you.

Speaker 4 That's an unsettling percentage. But if you add 100 more people to the room and two of them still are the only two that hate you, now I can feel a little bit better about myself.

Speaker 4 Most of the people in this room like me.

Speaker 5 Yeah. But Josh, I'm going to counter.

Speaker 3 Damn.

Speaker 3 By the way, can I just say, I know that neither neither of you are qualified, but I would pay for all your therapy. Your guys is your psychoanalysis is way more exciting than most people.

Speaker 3 This is great. This is great.

Speaker 4 Don't pay for my therapy.

Speaker 2 Don't pay for my therapy.

Speaker 6 Now I'm worried about you, Trevor, and who your current therapist is.

Speaker 5 That you listen to me and Josh. You're like, no, I'm saying,

Speaker 2 this is so exciting.

Speaker 4 No, my therapy is bad. I believe in revenge.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 5 Josh, maybe I should see you because I believe in revenge, too.

Speaker 3 Wait, Christiana, wait, you were going to say, you were going to say it.

Speaker 5 I do think where he has been radicalized is that part of the internet that is into the great replacement theory and like the white supremacist arguments that people having the children are all the brown people and the immigrants and the poor people.

Speaker 5 And there's this kind of tech libertarian movement which says us.

Speaker 5 superior specimens, we should be having more children. And I do believe Elon, he has been radicalized into that real right-wing kind of trad wifey.

Speaker 5 We touched on it a couple of weeks ago, agenda, being like, we need more good white children.

Speaker 5 And I, you know, I think that's a bit weird.

Speaker 3 So is he a lost cause? What do we like? Because I mean,

Speaker 3 I don't think we can give Elon a hug at this point.

Speaker 5 I have a pitch.

Speaker 2 Shoot.

Speaker 5 I have a pitch.

Speaker 5 Since you guys have seen kind of like my pop psychology skills, for like $100,000 an hour, I would gladly sit with Elon and just try and work through his stuff and see if he's a lost cause.

Speaker 5 The issue is that he's got so much money, power, and influence that he's kind of unchecked. And that's what scares me about

Speaker 2 tuning.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I wish, I wish that the regulation was like, you shouldn't actually be able to buy Twitter because now you own this huge publishing platform.

Speaker 5 And what scares me about Elon is like, he's relatively young. He's still got like 30 years of craziness in him at least where he's lucid um

Speaker 5 so i think it gets scarier from here

Speaker 4 josh you got any pictures yeah okay um

Speaker 4 yeah it's gonna it's it's gonna be tough to help my fear though is that you know we've talked about twitter and we've talked about his overall like spat with Brazil, but we aren't talking about the satellites.

Speaker 4 We're not talking about the fact that this dude can like control so much of the internet. Like,

Speaker 4 there's just whole people who have access to the internet because he gives it to them. That's too much power.
So, I said all that to say that

Speaker 4 I think I knew he was too far gone with this Brazil thing because that's a government.

Speaker 4 And if I even get a letter from the IRS, I get a little nervous. I don't even know what they could be giving me money.
I never know what it is. But as I'm opening the letter, I'm like, damn,

Speaker 4 I'm thinking about everything I ever bought this year.

Speaker 2 Oh, man. I,

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's a that's what do you think, Trevor?

Speaker 3 It's a sobering and terrifying point because

Speaker 3 I don't think either of you are wrong in many ways.

Speaker 3 I think,

Speaker 3 okay, so my pitch is this. We need Elon to meet with more people who don't look like him.
I think that would help.

Speaker 3 But I think in the world of like billionaires and Silicon Valley, there probably aren't that many black people or people of color in general. So I think the solution, Josh, is

Speaker 3 we just get you as many views on YouTube as possible. We get you to that crazy level.
I know it's risky, Josh, but you got to take this for the team.

Speaker 3 We get you up to like beyond Mr. Beast levels.
And then you, when you have that money, you'll be in the room with Elon Musk.

Speaker 3 And then you, you just, you do your Josh thing, you know? You're very, you're very disarming. You just slowly do your Josh thing on him.
he'll be like man

Speaker 3 you know I know how I feel about them but Josh he's a pretty good guy and then slowly slowly you just like you just warm him up I feel like warming out of the room would be like y'all I'm so sorry I think I made it way worse

Speaker 3 no but I yeah look I'm saying this half joking but it's it's true I think without exposure it is very unlikely that he'll change because who in his world would nudge him

Speaker 3 nobody All right, this is our mission, everybody.

Speaker 4 So, this is your mission, Trevor.

Speaker 2 You gotta get the road with Elon New York. You think South Africa.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 You think that a South African

Speaker 3 from not Elon's side of the road is going to shape his view on the like, I think I'm the worst person for this mission.

Speaker 2 No, you're not. You roll up the mouth.
I'm going to be like, hey, I had the Mohammed virus, dog. I had it.
And now I'm cured.

Speaker 2 Now I'm cured.

Speaker 3 Oh man, from one South African to another Elon. I had it and now I'm cured.

Speaker 2 Oh

Speaker 3 I can feel the change Elon and I'm on your side but let's watch Menace to Society first before we make any big decisions.

Speaker 3 What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jodi Avigan.

Speaker 3 Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Snorter is our producer.
Music, Mixing, and Mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 3 Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.

Speaker 3 th this is what now. Uh so uh th th this is this this has been uh uh what now and uh thanks thanks thanks for listening everybody.

Speaker 2 Um yeah uh I I I hope I hope I hope you really really enjoyed it.