The Elon Effect

Christiana, 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.
So just say like, instead of saying like you have issues or you have childhood traumas, just be like, there are demons. There are demons from your past.
There are demons you have inherited from your grandmother. When you were very poor, there was a demon of poverty that came inside you.
No, that's...

I promise you now, it will... you have inherited from your grandmother when you were very poor there was a demon of poverty

that came generational curses no that's i promise you now it works i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna get out my ego and be like to my dad i just believe we have a generational spiritual curse that a witch in the village put on us and maybe he'll be like okay i want to hear more about this. Also, if you need

any quotes, very few,

very, very few Christians have

read Ephesians. You get a gospel raw, people are going to be like, I don't think Jesus said that.
You hit them with Ephesians and they're like, probably, I don't know. This is how we connect.
You're listening to What Now? The podcast where I chat to interesting people about the conversations taking over our world 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 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. So today, instead of assuming everything, I wanted to try and figure out what is going on inside Elon Musk's brain, but also, 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?

And is our culture as divided and radicalized

as he makes it seem?

And can we have some empathy

for a person like Elon Musk?

Well, joining me to discuss all of it,

as always, are my good friends, writer, journalist,

and professional hater, Christiana Mbacu-Medina, and stand-up comedian and human chill pill,

Josh Johnson.

Recording in progress. Hehehehe.

This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. This episode is brought to you by Ultra Running.
Ultra makes performance running shoes that are insanely comfortable, with a roomy toe box and zero to low drop. This helps keep your feet in a more natural position so you can move how you were designed to.
Perfect for the road, trail or gym. You could wear them for miles and forget that they're there.
Stay out there with Ultra. Try Ultra for yourself with a free 30 day trial and free shipping at ultrarunning.com.
This episode is brought to you by Atlassian. Atlassian team collaboration software like Jira, Confluence, and Loom help power collaboration for enterprise companies around the globe.
With products that enable AI-powered teamwork, doing the impossible just became possible. So, join the 83% of the Fortune 500 that trust Atlassian to help transform their enterprise.

Learn how to unleash the potential of your team at Atlassian.com.

And we're back again.

Happy podcast day.

I'm writing a new theme song for the podcast.

I hope you like it.

Thank you. 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 but then they hooked up anyway to talk about it happy podcast day it's a work in progress but uh it works for now happy podcast day everybody how everybody.
How are you doing? Happy podcast day, man. Happy podcast day.
Josh, I'm so happy to see you. It's good to see y'all.
I've missed y'all. 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. I never used to understand grandparents until now.
I show everybody your page and I'm like, I know him. That's Josh.
That's Josh. Do you like the YouTube? Well, let me show you the videos of Josh.
Look at this one. This one's got millions of views.
That's very kind. I have missed y'all very much 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? Care? Don't care.
They don't like, y'all care as in you're happy for me, but y y'all don't care 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 don't know how to act anymore you would be able to bring me down to earth very quickly it wouldn't it wouldn't take much hopefully or or we'd let you fly my friend or we'd let you fly i think those are the stages those are the stages of success right you're hitting that stage of success now where you know like a when an asteroid is entering earth's atmosphere one of those like you burning up and it's getting like real hot and then the next stage is stalkers um soon you you will notice a fan at a few too many of your shows uh and then the final level of fame is just losing it.

Just like you running down the street naked,

screaming, I'm Josh Jansen.

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

The reason that you can't let me fly just yet is because I am not at the stage

where I can afford security.

This is a very valid point.

Okay, not yet, Josh.

Not yet.

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?

Every time I see you,

you look both more fulfilled

and more tired as a mom.

Oh my God, yeah.

I think my son is trying to kill me.

I love him so much.

Do you know what it is?

I'm sorry. as a mom oh my god yeah i think my son is trying to kill me i love him so much do you know what it is i've we've had um some really good friends of us their daughter has been spending time with us 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.
I don't know if it's legal, but I'm like, I need to like just braid it down into the air. You should actually.
So I know where he is. Then I was like, but the radiation, you know, and I'm a kind of a crunchy mom.
I do vaccinate, but I'm crunchy. And so I'm like, he's just trying to kill him.
I love him so much, but it's just like raising a boy as our friend Joe Opio told told me you have a nuclear weapon in your womb christian do not take your eyes off the ball yeah but like as as josh says as josh says as long as you don't raise a killer then you're doing well right oh yeah like what was what was what was did you ever do anything crazy as a kid we're like what's like the the naughtiest thing josh johnson did become a comedian that's probably the worst thing you did that broke your mom's head you're like i want to be a comedian oh that's that's actually actually christiana that is it because everyone thought i was gonna be an engineer oh damn josh you really were a good kid this is okay this is how i know you were a good kid is that 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 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 and i said do comedian is? She's like, it doesn't matter, my love. She said, it doesn't matter, baby.
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. This is how different our lives were.
I would have had, I would have had the air tag. But I'm really excited for today's episode because it's funny enough Talking about hot messes, Christiana There's one question That's been like stuck in my mind And I think it's only It's only become amplified over the past week And it's been What has happened To Elon Musk And before stop listening before i see your face i see already

you're like wow why are we talking about elon musk like 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 but like what has happened to elon have you seen his his post online these days like if you told me elon Musk's Twitter was hacked by a MAGA bot from, I don't know, Russia or wherever, I would believe you. Like there's some people who are Republican trolls or they might not even be Republican, by the way.
They might not even be conservative. They're racist.
They're sexist. They're whatever they are.
But those people know that they're trolling, right? 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 i know some people might think why why are you talking about elon musk why now well i think because over the past few weeks we've've seen Elon Musk and his world escalate to a point

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

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

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 an event. And when a billionaire goes off, whatever they choose to buy, whatever influence they choose to use, that has ripple effects that are much wider than like you or I getting radicalized.
Do you know what I mean? Like if I get radicalized right now, I think I could convince three people. 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 we've seen the influence 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 um what happened was you know brazilian authorities reached out to elon musk and and to twitter really and they essentially it's not like they tweeted him like, hey, Elon, 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 elon then turned around and was like i'm not going to block these accounts because twitter is all about free speech 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 brazil brazil's supreme court came back and was like 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. So 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, whatever it is of their advertising i then go like man elon i think he like believes this shit now yeah yeah i was like he's gone full-on in his ego like whatever this persona is that he's donning 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? Yeah.
Okay, but here's the thing. Is it ego or for me, it seems more like somebody who believes in a cult or like in an extreme religion or because those people don't care about money, you know? 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 realized that Elon actually 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 thoughts.
And he's on like a quest to save these people. He talks about it like there's actually a person working in a lab in Wuhan studying the coronavirus and like woke mind virus.
And help me understand, woke mind virus for him is like trans rights diversity and inclusion yes yeah it's um feminine women making choices about their bodies like yeah because i know he has a bunch of kids to counteract the woke mind virus right he does he does because i'm just trying to understand the philosophy if that makes sense and maybe then i can i, I don't want to have empathy for Elon Musk because I don't think billionaires need empathy.

Billionaires are people too.

Billionaires are people too, but like.

They have feelings, just like the rest of us.

They have billions more feelings than the rest of us, in fact.

A billion more feelings than we have.

But he's kind of like a cipher for like white men that get radical. Or, do i won't even say white men because we live in an andrew tate world and i think 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 that doesn't want to get infected like help me help me get that okay so so this is how i understand the woke mind virus i 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 gonna rely on you josh you like take strolls through like the most poisonous parts of the internet and then just come out smiling i know still a decent guy 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 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.
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. You haven't said anything wrong here.
I'm like, I'm women better than men. You had had me there so you have the woke mind virus that's essentially you yeah yeah okay okay but josh how do you do you understand it differently or is because this is how this is all i see it as 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 I mean I think that a lot of it is 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, 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.
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. 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.
So then you are sort of off in the world by yourself. This is how a lot of guys get red-pilled.
This is how a lot of guys just fall into these rabbit holes, right? Well, with the woke mind virus sort of thing, it kind of tells you that a lot of your problems are not necessarily your own personal failings or anything that you can really do. It's more that there are like cultural movements and social ideas that are pushing your family away from you.
So 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? It's like, you could go to therapy or you could develop a strong 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 got it that's that's helpful okay but still don't feel empathy i i i doubt we're gonna get to empathy at any point in this conversation.
I want to.

I want to.

No, in this one, I honestly don't know with you for Elon Musk.

But okay, two things, Josh.

One, firstly, maybe this is just me digging too deep.

I don't understand how these guys have missed what the red pill was about.

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.

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

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

know, 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 everything you said divorced dad economically no job no that this man is a billionaire 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 can i be a shit psychologist like trevor you're somebody that's attained like a lot of success right but when you look in the mirror by the grace of god by the grace of god shout out to auntie patricia for her prayers yes but when you look in the mirror there's a part of you that's still like a young boy from south africa like okay like the fame the money and all of that like who you are at your core sorry in a, like the success doesn't change that who you are fundamentally, right? So my argument with someone like Elon is that he's like a, this is interesting. 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. 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. I think we dismiss them.
We're like, oh, you're a white man. You don't have any problems.
But you're still a human, right? 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.
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 you think so i think outside of money one of the biggest issues is that he in you look at in the political sphere you take take us out of that for one second elon's whole worldview is is a certain degree what Christian is saying. He lives all of his sort of worldview and all of his perspective through that fear basis.
It's one of the reasons he wants to like go to Mars because he's like, guys, this planet's dying. It's one of the reasons he's so scared of AI until he can catch up to AI himself.
And the AI example that I just gave is taking it back to

the politics for a second. He seems like someone who has been fairly, and we can obviously talk about what that spectrum is for him, but fairly conservative throughout the years and just maybe milder.
But conservatives,

one of the main

ways that they address

and

mitigate their fears through control, right? 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 or whatever.
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 controlling and having a say 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 divorced dad to like radicalized pipeline, you can't buy this stuff. I don 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 you know when 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 he at least presented a more neutral tone you know elon would would commonly he'd commonly post he'd say he'd say like uh you know guys we gotta we gotta focus on both sides i think both sides have great great great ideas and and if even if you look at everything he created right he he everything elon made was for the bet like for the greater good for the environment for 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. Super progressive car.
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? This is where like Teslas were everything and then people in in like the red parts of of america and conservative parts of the world were like i'll never drive that piece of trash i i'm not gonna have a self-driving car it might drive me to to communism and then now now the cyber truck has become the symbol for like testosterone you know you buy the cyber truck and a testosterone supplement comes free type thing it's like yeah i eat red meat raw and and and i don't know i i 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 because he saw it as a shrewd business move you know like elon realized if i can get trump's base they don't question they they flip and flop as long as they're with trump they'll they'll 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 it seems like both of you are saying no you think

he's actually like scared in real life i i don't think i i dug deep enough into this initially but now both of you have made me wonder if elon has felt a personal either betrayal or a personal Seismic shift in his life

Because he has a trans child

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. 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 a trans girl.
And I think he is still trying to recover from that wound of losing a child and has never owned up to it. And he wants sons.
I think that he's like a real patriarch. And there's between that loss and now having a son that he discovered is not a son.
And it's going, I mean, like, I'm a trans girl. It's split his brain in half.
And rather than deal with that grief, because you read the testimonies a lot of parents of trans children. And they're like, it is a real grieving process, right? Like, you're losing one child 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. But I think now having this trans child, he's like, I can blame Twitter.
So I'm going to buy that thing because they got all these bad ideas from Twitter. And rather than being like, let me just sit in the grief of like, OK, yeah, I've lost a son, but I've gained a daughter.
And he's not able to compute that. 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.
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 and you raise one thing 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, first and foremost. But then like, you know, a child comes to you and says, I'm a different gender.
That's something I've thought about thought about 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 and i don't think he's like i don't want to say sophisticated and 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 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 but josh i'm curious i'm curious what you think about the parent but before we jump into that though can i just say we have reached empathy for elon musk you like at the beginning of this conversation. I as a parent no no i think as a parent you have a fantasy i mean your child will be 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 um i'm not gonna identify i'm not gonna recognize your gender in the way i should right which i think is actually i think it's bad parenting which i don't have empathy for.
Look, I'm not, I'm not labeling you recognize your gender in the way I should, which I think is actually, I think it's bad parenting, which I don't have empathy for. Look, 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.
Beginning of the conversation, Cristiano was like, there is nothing that will give me empathy for this man. And now you saying that, 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 we're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break this episode is brought to you by ultra running ultra makes performance running shoes that are insanely comfortable with a roomy toe box and zero to low drop this helps keep feet in a more natural position, so you can move how you were designed to.
Perfect for the road, trail, or gym, you could wear them for miles and forget that they're there. Stay out there with Ultra.
Try Ultra for yourself with a free 30-day trial and free shipping at ultrarunning.com. This episode is brought to you by Amazon.
Have you ever gotten sick on a very expensive, very non-refundable family trip? Amazon One Medical has 24-7 virtual care, so you can get help no matter where you are. And with Amazon Pharmacy, your meds can get delivered right to your hotel fast.
It's kind of like the room service of medical care. Thanks to Amazon, healthcare just got less painful.
We're talking about Elon Musk, but I feel like because he is somebody who A, is in a position to ascend to a high level of power i mean trump has pretty much said if he wins he's going to put elon musk in charge of i don't even know what they call it optimizing the government you know yeah governments aren't supposed to be like that's another topic for another day but 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 is there a way

where we can figure out what the thing is yeah i get what you yeah you know it's really funny

because 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. 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 yes whereas it's like the world we are heading towards their future is not guaranteed in a way it was 50 years ago right i don't know you know what's funny is i don't agree with that so i think the one thing the only thing that like powerful white men have lost in the grand scheme of things is their success and power being tied to their popularity. That used to be part and parcel.
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 CEO of a company, people lauded you.
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, Elon.
You look like the guy from Dune. My feeling is, sure, like, they're not...
I disagree with the 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...
Cool in power, though? 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 oh okay yeah 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 like 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 elon we're 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 we will mind virus no you asshole um 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 but basically we go because elon musk is a billionaire he must know more about ethics than do. 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.
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.'s it's i mean to to the point that i cannot 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 imagine back in the day if a plantation owner had to shut his farm down and goes you know this economy no no the labor is frick no man and so that that's what gets me about so to your point yes but also to christiana's point we used to equate we in the 90s and the early 2000s really equated um large sums of money with the genius like like you'll you'll see a lot of people in in old interviews and everything be like no elon's an actual genius he's a bona fide genius and then it's not until later that people are like wait his dad owned a mine oh i didn't know his dad owned a mine no but

i right but i think to to be 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 and you know sociology and how humans actually work and function and yeah yeah okay but Here's, you know who I blame?

I blame maybe, I think Obama has a lot to... I think Obama should be blamed for a lot of this, actually.
Tell me more. I think Barack Obama didn't just take 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 did, what do they call it in baseball? When you like round the plates and you do a little dance and you, you know, when they go like, that's excessive celebrating. Oh, that's in the NFL.
I don't know which sports it is. The point is i blame what you mean i i see what you mean trevor but he was just being black i like i can't i can't stress this enough this dude this dude already did well to not drop an n-word on mitch mccano the entire eight years that he was in office i don't think we can go back and and like scrutinize later because I think that to a certain degree nothing he ever did was going to be enough there was there was actually no there was no tight rope that he could walk tight enough to like navigate that I think we can I think everyone is familiar with code switching and I think um I think Barack Obama stunt a little a little too hard in the final position of power And I think everyone is familiar with code switching.
And 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? And who am I in this future world? Because the president was like that last position.
Yeah, black men were always cool. Black people were cool.
Yeah, in yeah in music they're taking sport but there was one place one place that i must stress didn't involve entertaining people and that's a really important one is that like 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 and then up into all the things that happened whether it was black lives matter me too trans inclusivity like all the social movements that happened in that time yes and then we come to present day yes elon musk who has seen how trump has ascended to power as a react trump also being a reaction to obama i'm just trying to track it all now because i i i'm trying to say is that trevor's blaming a black man for all of this and then what i'm what i'm saying is i'm saying we must knows he's do you do you think he's aware of the forces he's to? Because we're trying to say that this guy is fairly intelligent. Just 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, become a full-on right-wing bigot.
I'm'm not even like Convinced I'm just trying to find The thing Because And I know it seems like I'm just trying to turn it on its head But I'm not The way Elon talks about Like a woke mind virus Like he's He's almost got like a Like a broke mind virus In fact In fact Christiana I'm even going beyond this I'm not just going i'm i'm gonna take a brave step and i'm gonna ask the question here i'm gonna say not obama i'm not even just saying obama i'm asking this question is it possible that the left has radicalized white men and i know this is a controversial question to ask but i'm gonna ask it because we have to discuss these things because we cannot act like these people are not getting radicalized and i would like to know why okay to to go back just a step because i actually don't everyone knows i'm an obama hater if you know me in life you know i 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 that's the most way i really want to hear every single word that you have to say christian but that is i i think pinnacle this is going to go down as a benchmark in my life one of the most hater things a person can say because you literally said i hate i hate him but i'm so glad that his wife is black and he's rich because you know you know, as black women, we don't always win when it comes, you know. Anyway, I'm going to behave.
I'm not trying to get cancelled. I'm coming back.
I'm coming back. So as the resident Obama hater, 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. 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.
Here's what I'm saying, just to answer that point. 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 policies we didn't even really know does that make sense just their existence and their presence in that space made them radical and so 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. Yeah, it's a radical symbol.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Even though he wasn't a radical president,

it was a radical symbol.

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.

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? We're not here to talk about solution we're here to burn it all down you know they're just full of shit so it's just like and that type of very annoying person being around them all the time 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 individual applications please yeah no because it's just like that hate is not in me so when when we say this argument of like, sure, the leftists can be really annoying and hectoring and lack empathy for the other side.
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. We have a reason.
We can be like, oh, it's because of the left that we're getting these Elons. And I and i'm like no these were kind of broken young men and boys before the left even said or did anything okay that's kind of my position on it so here's here's here's one counterpoint i have to this i i do wonder sometimes if we've created this world of buffet politics that has sort of meant that people who like one aspect of of of 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 um 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 but there's also like a a true element you know beneath that right i've definitely noticed that when elon really started switching over at least publicly it's when he would tell jokes online he told he would like he would post jokes a lot of time they were retweets 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 might still be funny by the way but it was those things.
And the response that he thought was funny. It was lewd, it was sexist, it was racist or whatever it was.
It might still be funny, by the way, but it was those things. And the response that he got from, 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, Elon, you need to be canceled.
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.
And while I would never say that this is the only lever, I do think some of the sway that the right has gotten has come from them successfully co-opting comedy. Like,'t know about you josh but when i 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 and then now they're the ones going we believe in humor we 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 why yeah i know it's racist but it was just a joke can't you 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 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.
Yeah. I think that the same way that we were having that quick discussion earlier about how we used to tie someone's money to their level of genius, 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. So when you talk about comedy and you talk about being subversive, it was subversive to be a comedian and talk about things like desegregation or gay rights, because those people didn't have those things.
But now liberals and or leftists have the sway culturally, but there's still a huge conservative power going on. 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.
Like,'t know if you saw the tweet that Elon, he just tweeted this meme that had already been going around. You watch The Hunger Games and side with the resistance.
You watch Star Wars and side with the resistance. So that thing, right? He really thinks that somehow as a billionaire who's supporting another billionaire, he's the resistance.

So that's where you see the split.

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. It's like it's like that exact thinking.
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. And the jokes that you don't say are what the Edge Lord comics were always trying to be.
It's just Edge Lord used to be more left-leaning. 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 and all of their allies are super diverse they all have the old different skin colors different types of aliens different vibes the jedi have ponytails earrings and they wear dresses you know what i mean it's like it's weird that

they would be like yeah that's us i don't know maybe we watch movies differently yeah

we'll be right back after this here's here's a question i i maybe it's just me this episode is brought to you by audi the all-new fully electric audi q6 e-tron is a huge leap forward featuring effortless power serious acceleration and the most advanced tech of any Audi ever. Experience technology that puts you center stage with a panoramic digital stage.
Plus, you can add an optional screen for front seat passengers so they can stream my best work or anything you want to watch. It doesn't have to be mine.
The Q6 e-tron is not just a new EV.

It's a new way to experience driving.

Learn more at AudiUSA.com.

Always pay careful attention to the road

and do not drive while distracted.

I don't feel like the world is as two-sided

as it was a while ago.

I also don't feel like the world is as extreme.

I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but like when

Elon Musk

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a

he's a he's a he's a 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 whenever you think twitter is real go touch grass do you think it's as like war of the worlds as elon thinks it is no not at all 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.

I hear you.

I hear you.

It's going to become less popular as a-

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 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. And then, you know, Elon can always shift.
But I think this woke thing, it's not like you see people in America, the most divided country that's not having a civil war right now. You see politicians on the Republican side on lower ticket races losing because they're running on like, I'm gonna stop the woke school system or whatever.
Yeah, it's played out now. No, I don't care.
It's played out. Yeah.
Okay, but maybe to bring it all all back around something that is difficult to accept or even deal with is whether we agree with it or not Elon Musk is a very public and powerful example of a person who has been indoctrinated and maybe even hurt. And he's been wounded by the world in some ways, and he's acting that out.
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 yeah i i won't lie i yeah i didn't think i would get to this feeling that rejects them like yeah it you have to be such an asshole to not care if your kids go no contact yeah 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 like that to me nothing would break me more than my children coming out being like you're a bad parent that's a wound that like whether he wants to deal with it or not no one can overcome 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.

Yeah, I mean, I've never heard of this in history,

but I think this is just my pitch.

This is Megan and my like psychology

just for a quick second.

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

Huh, that's interesting.

Because here's the thing.

Oh, yeah. quick second.
I think maybe Elon even had those extra kids at her. Huh.
That's interesting. 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. 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. Most of the people in this room like me.
Yeah. But Josh, I'm going to counter.
Damn. By the way, can I just say I know that neither of you are qualified, but I would pay for all your therapy.
Your psychoanalysis is way more exciting than most people keep this is this is great this is great don't don't pay for my therapy don't pay for now i'm worried about you trevor and who your current therapist is that you listen to me and josh you're like no i need to see them i'm saying this is so exciting no my therapy is bad i believe in revenge well josh maybe i should see because i believe in revenge wait christiana wait you were you were gonna say you were gonna say 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 okay yeah people having the children are all the brown people and the immigrants and the poor people. And there's this kind of tech libertarian movement which says us 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. We touched on it a couple of weeks ago.
Agenda being like, we need more good white children. And I, you know, I think that's a bit weird so is he a lost cause what do we do like because i mean i don't think we can give elon a hug at this point i have a pitch shoot i have a pitch since you guys have seen kind of like my pop psychology skills for like a hundred thousand dollars an hour i would gladly sit with elon and just try and work through his stuff and see if he's a lost course 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 him yeah i wish i that the regulation was like, you shouldn't actually be able to buy Twitter because now you own this huge publishing platform.
And what scares me about Elon, he's like, he's relatively young. He's still got like 30 years of craziness in him, at least where he's lucid.
So I think it gets scarier from here. Josh, you got any pitches? Yeah, okay.
Yeah, it's going to be tough to help. My fear, though, is that we've talked about Twitter and we've talked about his overall spat with Brazil, but we aren't talking about the satellites.
We're not talking about the fact that this dude can control so much of the internet. 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 I think I knew he was too far gone with this Brazil thing because that's a government.
And if I even get a letter from the IRS, I get a little nervous. I don't even know.
They could be giving me money. I never know what it is.
But as I'm opening the letter, I'm like, damn. I'm thinking about everything I ever bought this year.
Oh, man. What do you think, Trevor? It's a sobering and terrifying point because I don't think either of you are wrong in many ways.
I think, 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. 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

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

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

I'm going to go back. we we get you 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 and then you you just you do a 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 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 i'm gonna walk out of the room and be like y'all i'm so sorry i think i made it way worse no but i i yeah look i'm saying this half joking but it's it's true i i think without exposure it is very unlikely that he'll change because Because who in his world would nudge him? Nobody.
All right, this is our mission, everybody. So this is your mission, Trevor.
You got to get the room with Elon. You think...
You're both South African. Yeah, exactly.
You think that a South African 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.
No, you roll up on it and you're like, hey, I had the woke mind virus, dog. I had it.
And now I'm cured. Now I'm cured.
Oh, man. From one South African to another, Elon.
I had it. And now I'm cured.
Oh, 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. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions.

The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jody Avagan.

Our senior producer is Jess Hackl.

Claire Slaughter is our producer.

Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown.

Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?

This is What Now?

So this has been What Now?

And thanks for listening, everybody.