Franklin Foer: Elon, the Man Who Ate NASA

The Bulwark Podcast

The Bulwark

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The rise of Elon—and why he is still involved with our government—has everything to do with the dimming of America's one-time crown jewel, NASA. We are now dependent on his rockets and his satellites because Obama and the U.S. government saved SpaceX. Of course, Elon's hypocrisy knows no bounds, because when he had the power, he quickly worked to dismantle the very same government that came to his rescue. The Atlantic's Franklin Foer explains how NASA engineered its own decline, as well as Elon's prophecy about becoming the engineer savior who colonizes Mars. Plus, Zelensky's giant misstep on corruption, and how humanitarian groups need to get back into Gaza to flood it with food.

Frank Foer joins Tim Miller.
show notes

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Just some scheduling notes here. It is Wednesday. So a reminder, we have the
0:08.4	next level every Wednesday. Usually comes out in the early evening with JVL and Sarah and myself.
0:15.9	Well, we do a lot of more of the kind of rank politics, little politicking. So if you are interested in that, make sure to go check it out. Because of the kind of rank politics, little politicking. So if you are interested in that,
0:22.6	make sure to go check it out. Because of the news environment, I've been kind of failing at this.
0:27.1	There's just been like too much political news and too much Trump craziness to do step back
0:32.4	conversations on Wednesday about other topics. But I'm endeavoring to do that. We did a little bit with David
0:38.7	Wallace and Wells a couple weeks ago that I thought was wonderful on climate. And so we're trying
0:43.0	that again today with Frank Foer talking about space and NASA and Elon, though we get into a little
0:49.9	bit of news of the day around Epstein and Gaza, et cetera, as well. So go check out the next
0:55.9	level. If you haven't, make sure to describe to the Bullwark takes feed if you haven't for some of the
1:00.6	one-off interviews and quick hot takes. And boy, do we have a doozy for you on FYPod this week?
1:06.2	Me and Cam sit down with one of the people that was at the Medi Hassan versus 20 far right Nazis debate.
1:12.3	We bring on one of probably the most normal.
1:15.3	But boy, we're grading on a curve of the 20 far right conservatives that debated Medi.
1:21.0	So that's coming on Saturday.
1:22.5	So subscribe to that feed too.
1:24.4	Appreciate you all.
1:25.4	Appreciate your support for the bulwark.
1:27.2	And up next, Frank Ford. Appreciate you all. Appreciate your support for the Bullwork. And up next, Frank Ford.
1:41.3	Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Excited to welcome staff writer at the Atlantic like everybody else. His books include The Last Politician inside Joe Biden's White House and the struggle for America's future. His latest piece for the Atlantic is the man who ate NASA. It's about Elon Musk. It's Frank Ford. How you doing, man? Hey, good. Dispondent. Yeah, we're talking
2:04.1	in the green room about our despondency. So we'll be getting to a lot of despondency. Is there a shade
2:09.0	of despondency that's also okay? Yeah, I got a piece of feedback in my Instagram DMs from a reader
	...

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