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You're listening to The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Fagett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.

One of the top three most read New Yorker stories of last year was Ronan Farrow's investigation of Elon Musk.

The story, titled Elon Musk's shadow rule, was about how the U.S. government came to rely on the tech

billionaire and how it's now struggling to rein him in.

With Tesla, Musk is deciding the future of the auto industry.

With SpaceX, the future of the space race, and the geopolitics that go with it.

And with Twitter, now known as X, he's influencing the future of free speech.

Ronan joined me in August to discuss his reporting on

Musk, and today we're revisiting that conversation. Hi, Ronan. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me, Tyler. So since your first article for The New Yorker, which was about Harvey Weinstein,

you've been reporting on abuses of power.

What drew you to Elon Musk specifically?

I think that ultimately the thing with Elon Musk is he's perhaps the most over-exposed person in the world.

And it's actually quite challenging to find much that's truly new to say about him as an individual. I mean,

...