Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part I: Not A Chill Normal Dude

How It Happened

Axios

News, History, Politics

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part I: Not A Chill Normal Dude tells the story of Musk's meteoric rise to become the world's richest man and a cross-industry mogul. Through interviews with people who were instrumental early in Musk's career, the episode chronicles how Musk moved from industry to industry. The episode also features Musk in his own words over the years, reflecting on his career and ambitions, and examines how he uses Twitter. The reporting for this episode was done by reporters across the Axios newsroom, including Dan Primack, Miriam Kramer, Joann Muller, Javier E. David, Jonathan Swan, Sara Fischer and Ina Fried. This episode contains explicit material that some listeners may find offensive. Credits: This series was reported by the Axios newsroom including Erica Pandey, Amy Pedulla, Naomi Shavin, Dan Primack, Miriam Kramer, Joann Muller, Javier E. David, Jonathan Swan, Sara Fischer, Ina Fried and Hope King. Fact-checking by Jacob Knutson. Erica Pandey hosts. Amy Pedulla is reporter-producer. Naomi Shavin is senior producer. Scott Rosenberg and Alison Snyder are the series editors. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the Editor-in-Chief and executive producer. Mixing and sound design by Ben O'Brien. Music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz. Thanks to Zach Basu, Lucia Orejarena, Priyanka Vora, and Brian Westley.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Eric Opande. I'm the host of this season of How It Happened. As a business reporter
0:10.6	at Axios, I focused on technology and the future, and every rabbit hole I've gone down
0:16.1	in some way leads to one person, Elon Musk.
0:20.5	I'd first like to share with you my vision for the future. I believe in a renewable energy
0:25.9	future. I believe that humanity must become a multi-planetary space-bearing civilization.
0:31.2	Don't seem like exciting goals, don't they?
0:33.9	He's bold in what he does and in how he talks about it, and he's always giving his elevator
0:39.7	pitch. That speech you just heard wasn't from a board meeting at one of his companies,
0:44.2	like Tesla or SpaceX, or in a pitch meeting to rally investors. He said that on Saturday
0:50.3	at Live last year, he has cultural significance. He cited his inspiration for the modern Iron
0:57.6	Man movies. He disrupted the commercial space industry and the automotive industry simultaneously.
1:04.5	He's a crucial employer in the U.S. across his companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, Nurel
1:10.3	Link, and Boring. He employs more than 100,000 people. He's the world's richest man, and
1:16.7	the most talked about billionaire. He has so much money and power and influence and audacity
1:23.4	and nerve that his vision of the future might soon just be known as the future.
1:31.3	In April, Musk's meteoric rise collided with the trajectory of another Silicon Valley
1:36.8	success story, Twitter.
1:39.1	The world's richest guy is set to buy one of the world's most influential social media
1:43.9	companies. Twitter was founded in 2006 and has become the global public square. It also
1:50.7	became the platform of choice for Elon Musk, someone who gets involved in things he cares
1:55.7	about. He set his sights on reshaping Twitter and made an offer to buy the platform for
2:01.0	an eye-popping $44 billion, announced in a tweet. But then, he backtracked.
	...

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