Behind the Bastards - Part One: I Do Not Like Elon Musk Very Much

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Robert is joined by Sofiya Alexandra to discuss Elon Musk.FOOTNOTES: Tesla Labor Practices and Musk Tweet Broke the Law, Judge Rules The Trump administration reportedly spent months trying to make sure unauthorized immigrants couldn't go to school Elon Musk, His Rocket, and the Grand Scheme that Tore Apart Boca Chica Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies "I Was a Starter Wife": Inside America's Messiest Divorce A teenage Elon Musk once casually sold his father's emeralds to Tiffany & Co. while his dad was sleeping Elon Musk's family owns an emerald mine in Zambia — here's the fascinating story of how they came to own it A Brief History of How Your Privacy Was Stolen The Evolution of Elon Musk: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Tesla workers speak out: 'Anything pro-union is shut down really fast' Unpacking Elon Musk’s daylong Twitter rant on unions and US history Genuine question: Did Elon Musk's family profit from South African apartheid? Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow Elon Musk Accused Of Pushing, Verbally Abusing Senior Tesla Employee Court documents show Elon Musk privately called himself a 'f---ing idiot' after attack on British diver Tesla Protest Tesla Worker Group Calls For Elon Musk's Arrest, Safety Inspection Before Reopening Tesla Factory Has Dozens of Environmental Violations Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new

podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Cuck! I'm Robert Evans, host behind the bastards, and my producer Sophie, right before we started recording, called Elon Musk a cuck. So Elon, if you're listening, you have been accused of being a cuck. What's cucking my libtards? Yeah, what's cucking my libtards or whatever. I hate cuck as an insult, but I also really enjoy saying cuck, and that's a thing I have to hide because people who say cuck on the internet are all the worst people, and Nate Silver, who is one of the worst people, and I choose not to put myself in that category, but it is fun to say cuck. But you can reclaim it, you know what I'm saying? You can reclaim it. Yeah, but I don't want to reclaim it in the context of Elon Musk, because he's, I don't like him. I haven't seen

Robert smile that big in a really long time. He likes it when I come on and make him blush, and then also say words. And talk about cucks. Yeah, he's like, we have Sophia Alexandra here, you guys. Yeah, Sophia Alexandra. How you doing, Sophia? I'm, you know, surviving in a current hell. Yeah, I'm lying. I'm spiraling. How about you, Robert? I'm also spiraling. I'm having such a bad day, Sophia. It sounds like you are too. I'm so not happy to hear that. You know what will make this day better? Are you going to tell me about a bastard that I have been dying to hear about? Yeah, I think we're going to talk about Elon Musk for like two and a half hours. Oh, fuck. Yes. Are you fucking on board for this shit? I'm obsessed with him and his inability to be a good

father. And just all of these other things and his, his relationship with Grimes, there aren't things that I won't read about Elon Musk, because I find the whole thing fascinating. Also, obviously, he's terrible. Yeah, he is. And I don't know. There won't be as much about his kids in here, just because I don't like talking about people's kids. And I haven't heard allegations of like abuse or anything like that. Oh, I just mean his attitude on fatherhood. Like he's like, no, I'll be gone forever. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we will be talking about that. We will be talking about, we won't be talking super much about Grimes just because that's all kind of new, but we'll be talking about his relationships with women. We will be talking about a lot of,

we will be talking too much. I wrote 14,000 words about Elon Musk. We're going to be talking too much about him. He's the James Cameron of science. Okay. We're like, he that that should be James Cameron. Right. And it's not sadly, but yeah, just, you know, from the way that he commits to his movies and how little time he commits to his relationships compared to his movies, that he was like for sure a terrible father and husband. And that's why I like Catherine fucking, what's her face? Bigelow went and had to make her locker. She's like, this is less traumatic than my marriage. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. It's the same to me. It's the same to me. Speaking as a career obsessed man who has had a lot of relationship issues for years as a result

of being a career obsessed man, we're bad people to be in relationships. Dude, I'm here to work alcoholic. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do live in Los Angeles. Yep. So does Elon Musk. And he always will all that shit about moving to Texas is horseshit. And in fact, someone just released evidence that the day that he was like talking about maybe moving his plant to Texas, he applied for a bunch of expansions of the factory in California. Like he was always just full of shit and lying. He's great. He loves lying. He does. And I'm going to tell you right now, I don't know, maybe you'll feel differently. The first episode of this, you're going to wind up kind of sympathetic about him because there are reasons to be sympathetic about him. And I do

think. Do you know me? Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. He's an abuse victim. So like that's lame. Like it's not lame to be. I mean, like, sure. Hitler had a tough for a while with his art. Like, I don't know. What are we doing here? I mean, it's Hitler's mom's cancer that really gets tugs at the heartstrings. But yeah, I mean, yes, that's the point. Is that what we're doing? Just saying things that are normal that have happened to bad people, not normal, but bad things that have happened to bad people. What I want is for people to hate bad people for the right reasons. And I do think some of the reasons Elon Musk gets shit are the wrong reasons. And there are so many really good things to give him shit about that I want to make sure everyone is giving him

shit for the proper reasons. You want to direct the hate. I want to direct the hate towards things that that that deserve your hate. And it in within the same person, which maybe is being too picky. But this is what I do for some reason. Nobody asked asked me to do this, but I do it. I just want to tell you that I'm pretty sure I hate him for all of the quote unquote right reasons. But there's a lot of those pretty fucking petty. So there's some shit in there that I do not need to hate him for. Well, this will be good because I will try to be scrupulously fair as I outline why he's a piece of shit. And you will not give a fuck about that. And just and that will that will please both of the segments of people that listen to this podcast. I love coming on because

every time I connect with some of your listeners who I love and then other people on Reddit are like, I wish she would just kill herself, eat her heart, piss on her fucking grave. That's me every week. I would say Reddit's Reddit's part of the 90% of the internet or so that we never should have made. But speaking about things that never should have been made, let's let's talk about Elon Musk. Yeah, transition. So I did not want to do an episode about Elon Musk. And I still kind of don't, although I changed my mind on that over the course of the episode. And my attitude on him for most of the time I've known about him has been, it's bad to be a billionaire. And I know that he did some messed up stuff to get where he has has gotten. But also his businesses

are things that I broadly support, like electric cars are good space travel, I think is good and should be easier. And I do think actually people will disagree about this, we'll talk about this a little bit. And I think there are things that are positive about SpaceX. So like it was one of those things where it was like of all the people in the world, like, yeah, I think he's shitty and lame, but like, why am I going to go after him in particular? And having spent an entire week reading everything I can about Elon Musk, I now feel very comfortable talking about him for three hours. I don't know, I just didn't want to do this for a long time. And I guess what finally pushed me over the edge was his reaction to the coronavirus. And it was like after weeks, so I don't know if

you've been following Elon on Twitter during this, but for weeks he called fears over the coronavirus dumb. He initially when it first hit predicted that like, if the panic was stupid, and it was going to be like a nothing burger. And then obviously it shut down the entire world. So he was wrong on that prediction. Then he predicted that we would be at no new cases by the end of April by the end of April, like a couple thousand people a day were dying in the United States. So we're not not not he was not right on that either. And then he went like kind of straight up into MAGA on Twitter with like tweeting free America now and all caps and like, very studiously reopening his Alameda County Tesla factory, which by the way is considered one of

the most dangerous factories in the United States. And a number of his workers protested and said like he should be in prison for the safety standards here. Yeah, it's cool. It's, it's pretty great that, you know, we've been talking about how we are spiraling, but like, honestly, compared to that, are we Robert? No, we're doing great. I've never been so freaked out by reality that I abandoned it in favor of something insane like MAGA. Yeah, it's like it's it's super weird slogans like free America that yeah, not relate to the complex realities of a virus or a pandemic. It's remarkable to me how weak a person you have to be to not be able to handle this as a billionaire. Like it's it's really just get on your fucking yacht home. Like eight top Tony Robbins is on it

that can fucking set you right. Like what's going on? Yeah, like it's it this should be fine. But no, it's not for Elon. The same month that he tweeted all of that stupid bullshit, he tweeted that Tesla stock price was too high, which instantly cut $14 billion from the company's value in a matter of minutes because the stock market totally makes sense. This really pissed off a lot of his most loyal followers who were all like his his mentions for days where people being like, you just tanked the value of my portfolio with the hell Elon. There are suspicions. I don't think there's possible to confirm this, but people have suspected that he did this because essentially the way that like fucking stocks work, he was about to have like temporarily

tanking the value of Tesla reduced his tax burden, basically, like he did that to save some money on taxes, which is like illegal, but also the kind of illegal that like nobody ever really gets in trouble for. But also the kind of selfish that is so remarkable that you would rather hurt every single investor in your company than to just fucking take it on the chin and pay taxes when billionaires paying taxes is good for the world. It's cool. And again, those are suspicions that people have voiced and not something that we can prove because Elon Musk has many lawyers. I want to be clear when we when we state other people's suspicions, we are not stating an objective fact. No one knows why he tweeted that dumb thing that tanked the value of his stock. That is one

suspicion. He also tweeted, quote, I am selling almost all physical possessions will own no house. And he quickly followed up by noting that his girlfriend Grimes was mad at him for this. And then he did list all of his mansions. So and it's like he talks about is that like a weird flex? What is that supposed to be? It's a thing. I read this book about Elon Musk that we'll talk about a little bit more later, like a biography about him that was published in 2015 for this. And in it, like the biographer Ashley Vance notes that like he travels around all the time, like he'll spend like two days in LA, two days in San Francisco. And like when he goes to San Francisco, he usually will just crash at

a friend's house on their couch. And like the way it's related is that like he's just this kind of obsessive workaholic who doesn't care about material things. But it's like, no, the friend that you're crashing at is like the founder of Google. Like you're not like chilling in like your buddy's like studio apartment. The couch is your own guest mansion. Yeah. Yeah. Like or if it is a couch, it is a $70,000 couch. Like it is a couch that is worth more than some cities. Anyway, several days after tweeting that he was selling all of his earthly possessions, his, I think still girlfriend Grimes gave birth to the couple's first child together and like Musk's sixth or seventh kid. He went viral again when he announced that the boy's name would be

X-A-E-A-12. And that is not how he says it's supposed to be pronounced. I don't care. It's a dumb name for a baby. The state of California agrees it's a dumb name for a baby. And they have signaled that it is not an acceptable name under state health codes. So that's cool. We'll see how that works out. I'm sure he'll find a way to get his stupid way on this. Although he says it was Grimes' decision, which maybe it was. I don't think she makes great decisions either. I mean, she is having his baby. Yeah. Clearly not the best decision-making process. Again, as I've mentioned, already has like a billion kids he doesn't care about. Yeah, I don't know. So the thing that like really set me off, like all of this is very silly and

it's silly in general that a man with this much wealth spends any time at all on Twitter because you shouldn't. Like, you just shouldn't. Like, none of us should, but you especially shouldn't if you can buy a yacht. And before anybody who follows Musk had any chance to really digest all of this shit or stop laughing about it, Musk dropped another bombshell when he tweeted Take the Red Pill alongside a Red Rose emoji. Now, at various points in time on Twitter, Musk has identified himself as a socialist without really explaining what he means by that. So this might have been him talking about democratic socialism, but it probably wasn't. And I think anyone listening knows like what Red Pill means on the far right. And Musk was immediately embraced

by the worst people on the internet, including Ivanka Trump, who quote tweeted him. Lily Wachowski, one half of the duo responsible for coming up with the term Red Pill. That was the best reply. Yeah, told them both to go fuck themselves. So all of this made me go, okay, I got to fucking write about Elon Musk. Like, we got to we got to do this. I've been watching the while it out, too. And I've been like, just it's reminding me of kind of the Kanye breakdown. Yeah, we're like the line between eccentricity and just like becoming a bad person has becoming a little like more blurred for them than it ever has been. And people are trying to there's very few stands. We're still around. We're like, no, no, no, 100% probably

still means good. Yeah, in the background. But it's it's telling that when people like Ivanka Trump retweet you and support you and you don't say anything like and you don't say no fuck you. Like, yeah, that's on you, you know, if people misinterpreted it. That's on you to set it. Yeah, to be like, no, not these people. Yeah. And I I can't say if Elon's in the process of I don't know embracing the alt right or like going full MAGA or if he's just shit posting because he does that all of the time. Yeah. In a business insider interview that came out today, which was actually written by the woman who wrote the biography that we'll refer to regularly in this episode, he stated that he makes a lot of stupid tweets. He did he did own that, but he

didn't specify which tweets were stupid, which is kind of like the most cowardly way to acknowledge that you tweet a bunch of dumb shit. He also stated that Twitter was a valuable way for him to engage with his fans without a filter, which is not true of anyone who has ever had fans. There's no value in Twitter. Everyone should stop exactly what Trump says to to justify his Twitter presence. Yeah. Yeah. Now, when it comes to analyzing whether or not Elon Musk is a bastard, and that doesn't like obviously, I think it's unethical to be a billionaire, but I don't think like every billionaire doesn't deserve to have a behind the bastards, because most of them like, I still don't even know if I'm going to write one about Bezos,

because it would just wind up being like a list of bad Amazon practices. But I think he's pretty boring. I don't know. Maybe I will one day. But like, there has to be like, you have to be interestingly shitty to qualify for this show. And I do think Elon qualifies now, now that I understand him better. Now, I should start by noting that most of our information on him comes from Elon himself or his close family members, most of whom have financial ties to Elon. So there is a dearth of objective information, particularly about his early life. And the other chunk of information we have from his early adulthood on comes from people who dislike him for one reason or another. So it's hard to get objective sources about this guy. And as a result, there are two

competing elons that appear if you study his life story. And so the Elon that his fans tend to see is the awkward genius driven manically to save the world. And so obsessed with this goal that he fails to understand the needs are catered to the feelings of normal people. And it's usually sort of like, but it's okay, because he's really trying to save the world. Sheldon from Big Bang. Yeah, yes. Big Bang theory kind of no one has benefited. I will say no human being has benefited more from our Hollywood induced misunderstanding of autism than Elon Musk. Like he has been the primary beneficiary of that. It's cool. It's not. Yeah. So just the end. So the other view of him is that he's just another sociopathic billionaire asshole who treats human beings that make his

wealth possible like a 15 year old boy treats Kleenex. That's what I think. Yeah. Yeah. I'm an optimist. Yeah. The main source for this episode is a book titled Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashley Vance. It was published in 2015. So this was before Musk's social media presence made him problematic to a lot of people who'd either liked him or tolerated him quietly before. It is a broadly positive book and it verges on fawning when it talks about Tesla and SpaceX technology. But it's not entirely positive in its evaluation of Elon himself and is very critical about him at a number of points. When the book was published, Musk took to Twitter to complain about stories other people had told

about him that he disagreed with. But he also continued to do interviews with Ashley Vance. So he's obviously not that angry. Elon did cooperate with the book and the story behind how that came to be is deeply revealing about his personality. So he learned that Vance was working on his biography early in the process. And I'm just going to quote Ashley now writing about how that introduction went. I'd informed him of my plans to write a book about him and he'd informed me of his plans not to cooperate. His rejection stung but thrust me into dogged reporter mode. If I had to do this book without him, so be it. Plenty of people had left Musk's companies, Tesla Motors and SpaceX and would talk. And I already knew a lot of his friends.

The interviews followed one after another month after month and 200 or so people into the process I heard from Musk once again. He called me at home and declared that things could go one of two ways. He could make my life very difficult or he could help with the project after all. He'd be willing to cooperate if he could read the book before it went to publication and could add foot notes throughout it. Wow. The balls on him. Yeah. Yeah. He's like only five total approval of everything you say about me. Would that be cool with you artistically integrity wise as a writer, as a journalist? What do you think? It's even more frustrating than that. He would not meddle with my text, but wanted the chance to set the record straight and spots he deemed factually

inaccurate. So he wanted, he didn't want to just, he didn't want to be, have to be able to approve her text. He wanted to be able to basically write his own biography alongside her biography that argued with it. Such an actually guy move. I can't even. He's like a reply guy to the million story. Yeah. Like it's one of those things. I, I, I entered this project being like, I don't know if this guy's going to be really interesting enough to do an episode about. And once I read that part of the introduction, I was like, okay, yeah, I'm doing the right thing. Like, yeah. Because that kind of says everything about him as a human being really. Um, so yeah, being a journalist, uh, Vance said no. And this is partly because she feared that he'd

write dozens of pages of footnotes that would crowd out the actual biography itself, which is almost certainly true. Uh, and partly because in her words, quote, Musk has his version of the truth, and it's not always the version of the truth that the rest of the world shares. Um, now, to Elon's credit, when Vance stood her ground and agreed to cut, he agreed to cooperate with the book anyway. Ashley says that he's the kind of person who respects it and people around him set strong boundaries and hold firm in their convictions. Um, of course, when the book came out and it included anecdotes about Elon that he did not like, he took to Twitter to provide his own footnote. So he is absolutely the guy that, um, he, you think he is, uh, we're going to get into

Musk's early life in a second. Uh, but before we do, I want to read run more segment from Ashley's introduction. This moment comes during the first dinner she and Elon shared after he agreed to cooperate with her project, quote, two and a half hours after he started, Musk put his hands on the table, made a move to get up and then paused, locked eyes with me and busted out that incredible question. Do you think I'm insane? The oddity of the moment left me speechless for a beat with my every synapse fired, trying to figure out if this was some sort of riddle. And if so, how should it be answered artfully? It was only after I'd spent lots of time with that is just so terrifying. Yeah. If I was interviewing a man, he said that to me, I would be terrified.

Sophie, terrifying, horrifying. You have a real responsibility just as like a dude, and also as a, as a dude who has any kind of prominence and I don't have the same kind of prominence that Musk does, but I, I, I do regularly wind up in situations where like, I'm well known by a lot of the people there. You have like a real responsibility to not creep people out. Um, like a moral responsibility, uh, especially if you're like, clearly have more power in a situation than the other person. Um, and yeah, that is definitely a creepy way to react or way to act. It would make me feel so unsafe. Yeah. And, uh, I, I want to read the rest of what Ashley says here, cause it's telling. It was only after I'd spent lots of time with Musk

that I realized the question was more for him than me. Nothing I said would have mattered. Musk was stopping one last time and wondering aloud if I could be trusted and then looking into my eyes and make, and to make his judgment. And it's weird cause she clearly likes the guy, but also like the question was more for him than me. Nothing I said would have mattered. I kind of wonder about Vance cause like that's not the thing you write about someone that you think is a good person. Oh yeah. Nothing I said would have mattered to him. Cool. Yeah. What a cool guy. Putting people through tests is definitely like a thing. Yeah. I mean, I do that a lot. Um, mainly by lying about the band Hanson. So that's, you know, none of us are perfect.

Uh, yeah. So let's go back in time and talk about Elon's ancestors. Uh, his great grandfather and his namesake was John Elon Haldeman who was born in Illinois in 1872. Haldeman got hitched and started a life in Minnesota. Uh, he gave birth to Elon's grandfather, Joshua Norman Haldeman in 1902. John kicked the bucket early in 1907 after the family moved to Canada. And so Elon's grandfather grew up a citizen of that much better country. Joshua was an adventurous lad into horseback riding, wrestling and a lot of good stuff. And he's a big inspiration to Elon because of what like an adventurous, cool guy he was. Uh, he started his career breaking horses for farmers and competing in rodeos. And then he moved to Iowa to get a degree from DD Palmer School of

Chiropractic who we did an episode about. Um, yeah, he went back home afterwards and became a farmer. He didn't start working as a chiropractor immediately, but then the depression hit and his land was seized and this convinced him that banks could not be trusted. Uh, Joshua had a rough few years, but eventually started working as a chiropractor and he made a lot of money. He married a dance instructor named Winifred and he bought his own plane, which he used to take his growing family on adventurous vacations. In 1950, Joshua sold everything his family owned and moved to South Africa. Now, I have not heard from anyone a really satisfying explanation of why he did this.

And everybody talks about Joshua as if he was an awesome person and he is a big inspiration to Elon Musk, but there is something shady about this guy. Um, Ashley Vance notes that he was, quote, a man who forbade swearing, smoking Coca-Cola and refined flour and that he moved to South Africa because, quote, he felt that the moral character of Canada had started to decline. So no one says anything about what Joshua believed RE race. He thought Canada was too immoral in 1950 and moved to South Africa, put some, do some math. He's like, what I am totally cool with is systematic oppression and racism. What I am doubtful about is how much ankle these ladies in Canada are showing.

Yeah. Now he spent all of his time in Africa taking constant plane trips with his family. He would take all of his like kids on these like very adventurous rides across the continents and to other continents and stuff. And there's a lot of, he wrote a book about it. There's, he was like, he's, he's like the family's famous like patron of the family. And Elon never knew him. He died when Elon was like a baby in a plane crash because he hit some shit because he was flying like an asshole, I guess. But so like you can, like Elon grew up never knowing the guy, but worshiping him because everyone in his family was always telling stories about how cool he was. And he, that's obviously like he was Elon's namesake. So this is like a really

important thing to him, but also Elon never knew the guy. So that's interesting. So May Musk, Elon's mother, and obviously that, that cool, probably a gigantic racist plain dude's daughter, is noted as having been a nerdy, beautiful woman. She worked as a model, she still actually works as a model. And she was a finalist for Miss South Africa. Elon's father, the man she married, was Errol Musk. And he grew up near May. The two dated off and on for a while, and May pushed off constant requests by Errol that she marry him. Eventually she says he broke her will, quote, he just never stopped proposing. So that is so romantic. Oh my God, he wore her down persistently. Oh, I just want someone to ignore my wishes over and over and over and over and over

and over again until I just succumb. I mean, that's, is there any other way to make it with a woman, but hitting on her relentlessly until you break her? I want her will and her spirit to be broken. Oh my gosh. I want a locket that says will and a locket that says spirit and them both to have bones in them. Just smashed. Yeah. I don't know. You know what won't break your will and spirit, Sophia? Is it these goods and services? These goods and services respect consent. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the US and fascism. I'm Ben Bullock and I'm Alex French. In our newest show, we take a

darkly comedic and occasionally ridiculous deep dive into a story that has been buried for nearly a century. We've tracked down exclusive historical records. We've interviewed the world's foremost experts. We're also bringing you cinematic historical recreations of moments left out of your history books. I'm Smedley Butler and I got a lot to say. For one, my personal history is raw, inspiring and mind blowing. And for another, do we get the mattresses after we do the ads or do we just have to do the ads? From iHeart Podcast and School of Humans, this is Let's Start a Coup. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may

not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man Sergei Krekalev is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that

much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. Yeah. So,

yeah, obviously some red flags at the start of Elon's parents' marriage. This is something I think even Elon would agree with. But the first few years of the marriage were fine enough. The couple got pregnant immediately. He was born like nine months and a couple of days after they got married. So, they did not waste any time. May gave birth to Elon on June 28, 1971, nine months and two days after the wedding. Yeah. Vance notes that Arrow, quote, worked as a mechanical and electrical engineer and handled large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base, will may set up a practice as a dietitian. This is not inaccurate, but it is weirdly incomplete. She does not talk enough about Arrow. There's some

good reasons why you wouldn't, but also it leaves out, I think, a very important aspect of the story that she doesn't deny, but she also does not talk about nearly enough to the level of importance I think it has. The musks were extremely wealthy. Not only was May's family very comfortable, but Arrow owned a half share and a fucking emerald mine. And how he came to own a half of an emerald mine is really interesting. He later told an interviewer, quote, we were very wealthy. We had so much money at times that we couldn't even close our safe. One person would have to shove the money in and the other would slam the door shut, and then there'd still be all these notes sticking out and we'd sort of pull them out

and into our pockets. Celebrities, they're just like us. Hashtag relatable. Yeah. Now, the story of how Arrow came to own that emerald mine is real fucking shady. He claims, because I've read his claims, and also he is not a reliable narrator. So it's possible that all of this is a lie, which I do think is part of why Ashley Vance didn't include a lot that he said in there. But he says that he and a friend were on a trip flying their own plane to, and they landed in Djibouti. And like when they were walking around, they met who he met. They met who he describes as, quote, a group of Italians who just wanted to buy a plane and they paid 80,000 pounds in cash. And while they were paying, Arrow says, one of them was just like, hey, you want to buy half

of an emerald mine in Zambia? And so he says, quote, I said, oh, all right. So I became half owner of the mine and we got emeralds for the next six years. Just regular rich people shit. Just regular shit. Just chill ass rich people condos. Say you want half this emerald mine. Yeah. This is something you'll see brought up a lot, particularly by kind of like left-wing critics of Musk on Twitter. They'll say that Elon Musk's dad, like this is one quote, Elon Musk's dad stole an emerald mine in Zambia and exploited the natives for cheap labor, which might be true, probably is true, but there just actually aren't any details about the mine, about its conditions, about how he came to really own it, about like, we just don't know fucking

anything really about that mine, other than his claim that a group of Italians randomly asked if he wanted to buy into it with his plain money. So I do have to say it does sound like a villain origin story. Yeah. Like almost certainly a really shady story there, but we really know very little about it. I would love to see a deep dive into what the fuck happened with that emerald mine, but I have not run into any hard evidence about it. Now, we do know that Errol Musk was a millionaire before the age of 30, and that his wealth allowed him to move the family into a very nice house in an exclusive whites-only neighborhood in Pretoria. As a toddler, Elon was precocious. His mom felt that he was unusually intelligent, which I'm sure most moms feel, but it's also probably

true. Vance writes, quote, the perplexing thing was that Elon seemed to drift off into a trance at times. People spoke to him, but nothing got through when he had a certain distant look in his eyes. This happened so often that Elon's parents and doctors thought that he might be deaf. Sometimes he just didn't hear you, said May. Doctors ran a series of tests on Elon and elected to remove his adenoid glands, which can improve hearing in children. Well, he didn't change. I got my adenoids removed too. Yeah. I'm just like Elon Musk. I also hate, I'm just, I'm not going to go there. Yeah. It is one of those things where like, yeah, your mom, your mom talking about how smart you are is always weird, but like, it's always like, who knows how credible

that is. But also something was clearly, like, he's clearly not like, wasn't a normal kid. Like, you don't just give your kid surgery because they space out because they're just like a normal, like, he was definitely like, you know, like different. And that, that seems to be not just like myth building, right? So yeah. I mean, I had him removed because I had constant ear infections. Maybe that just wasn't like a sexy and origin story. Maybe they were like, yeah, he's, we don't want to talk about all the ear infections he got. Let's make this more mystical. Maybe they're all lying. I don't know. I don't know. But he, um, yeah, in the women, like his ex-wife says that he would also do this. Like this is like, he just kind of like blanks out and gets lost inside himself

all the time. Um, I don't know. It's just a thing he does. May claims that she eventually realized Elon was just going into his own little world. And, you know, again, her angle is like, he's just so brilliant that he's thinking so hard about things. Um, it's definitely true that it did not make him popular among his classmates. Uh, quote, you could do jumping Jax right next, right beside Musk or yell at him. And he would not even notice. He kept right on thinking. And those around him judged that he was either rude or really weird. I do think, uh, Elon was always a little different, but in a nerdy way. May said it didn't endear him to his peers. And this is another running thing in Elon's childhood that he had like no friends. Um, he later had close relationships

with like his brother and sister and his cousins, but they didn't even really like him all that much when he was a kid because he was just like weird. Um, he was bad at, um, you know, you feel for the kid actually, like when you read enough about him because he was clearly like often his own little world and he took a lot of shit for it. Um, which I identify with cause so was I. Um, he spent every spare moment of his childhood reading books sometimes two in a single day and he would like ignore other people to read books. Um, yeah, I did that too. Like a lot of what like I, and I got shit for it. Like I was always reading books and stuck in my own little world. And like until I was bigger than everybody else, like I got like, like, like punched in stuff

as a kid for that shit. And Elon did too. And it sucked. And I sympathize with him for that. That's a lame thing to have to deal with. Uh, he went through fantasy classics like the Lord of the Rings, but soon gravitated towards science fiction. Uh, he lists the libertarian epic, the moon is a harsh mistress and the great, uh, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy is influential books, which I also, uh, same. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Uh, he also just read a lot of encyclopedias. Um, this made Elon into a know it all, uh, the kind of kid who kind of felt the need to compulsively inform everyone around him, uh, that he thought they were wrong about specific facts. And he, he was unable or unwilling to not do this even when it caused him shit. Uh, and I'm going to quote

from Ashley Vance's book now. As a youngster, Elon's constant yearning to correct people in his abrasive manner would put off other kids and added to his feelings of isolation. Elon genuinely thought that people would be happy to hear about the flaws in their thinking. Kids don't like answers like that said May. They would say, Elon, we are not playing with you anymore. I felt very sad as a mother because I think he wanted friends. Kimball and Tosca, his brother and sister, would bring home friends and Elon wouldn't, and he would want to play with them, but he was awkward, you know? May urged Kimball and Tosca to include Elon. They responded as kids will, but mom, he's not fun. Yeah. I wouldn't say fun too for quite a bit. Yeah. And it's like, it's like,

if you're thinking about it in the context of like, he grew into this problematic adult, it's funny. But if you think about like, just as a little kid, like, yeah, that sucks. And like, he hadn't done anything bad at that point. He was a little kid. Oh, I'm not laughing at him. I'm just laughing at how cruel it is to be a kid. Yeah, it is. It sucks. Like being a kid is the worst thing you can be. I mean, dude, I got bullied heavy. It's not like I'm out here sympathizing with the bullies. I'm just saying, I think we all know that feeling when people will not fuck with you. Yeah, it sucks. It sucks. And, you know, it got worse for Elon. When he was still a boy, his parents divorced and his mother moved across the country to the family's holiday home on the

East Coast. The cause appears to have been infidelity by Errol, who years later told interviewers, I had a very pretty wife, but they were always prettier younger girls. I really loved May, but I screwed up. And also he's saying he's screwed up. He's dogging her. He's like, yeah, but she was kind of ugly. They were better looking people. I should also note that that interview I found was written about him after he married his stepdaughter, who was I think 22 when he was 60 something and had a baby with her. Ew. He's a gross guy. He Woody Allender, huh? He is a terrible person. Elon Musk hates his dad and is emphatic that he is a terrible person. And I think he's really telling the truth about that. I think he hates his dad for a very good reason,

because his dad is a gigantic piece of shit. It's disgusting. Yeah. Elon went with his mom at first, but he soon decided to move back in with his father. And he says that this is because he felt bad for his dad because his dad was alone. Elon's ex-wife, Justine, feels differently. She says that she thinks this is because he, quote, identified more with the alpha male of the house and wasn't, he also notes though that he wasn't close to either of his parents, that they were a very cold family and that there wasn't a lot of like emotional warmth between anyone in the family. That's Justine's claim as his ex-wife. Again, I don't know any of these people. Yeah. Either way, Elon claims that he immediately regretted moving in with his father. Now, Errol was, I think,

by all accounts, a brilliant engineer. Nobody really disagrees with that. And he taught young Elon a lot of his first lessons about engineering and science, but this was not a pleasant process. Errol had a habit of sitting Elon and his brother down and lecturing them for three or four hours at a stretch. He did not take questions and did not react well when either boy spoke up even to ask questions. Yeah. He's a monster. He's a piece of shit. It's like Trump during a press conference. Yeah. There are a lot of unanswered questions about Errol Musk and one can't study Elon's background without walking away convinced that the way Errol treated Elon during the years they lived together had a powerful and a negative impact on the future billionaire. But parsing out the

extent of that impact is hard. For example, we know that Errol Musk killed three men who broke into his house. We know that some people have said that this was just a straight up murder. He was acquitted and the case was ruled self-defense. And I don't know, but I think they were black. I don't know, though. I do not know. It is hard to find. I have not found details. If you know to fucking search up old South African murder cases, look it up. But while Elon and his sister were living with him, Errol Musk fucking killed three dudes. That's such a chill childhood, right? Yeah. And it's also possible that he's a piece of shit, but also this was totally legitimate self-defense because South Africa has a lot of fucking problems with home invasions that

turn violent. I don't know what happened. Elon does not like to talk about it, and I understand that. And you get the feeling he is terrified of his dad, and also you get the feeling that he fucking should be. Errol Musk's a real problematic dude. Now, yeah, I just don't know much about that case. Yeah. So while he did grow up in apartheid South Africa and he absolutely benefited from that racist state, he absolutely, like his family was very wealthy and they were wealthy, at least in part due to apartheid. And Elon benefited from that. I do not think there is any blame you can throw on him for that because he was, number one, hated living in South Africa. This is a very consistent aspect of his backstory. Everyone who knew him points out that he was

deeply connected to his American roots, and for his entire childhood, wanted to get the fuck out of South Africa and move to the United States. He repeatedly tried to convince his father to move to the US. At one point, Errol got frustrated enough by this that he sent all of the housekeepers home and made Elon do all of their chores so that he would know what it was like to, quote, play American, which tells you what Errol Musk thought it meant to be an American. It means that you can't have any black people working for you. Oh, the horror of having to do your own laundry is what he was trying to teach him. He's like, imagine what it would be like if you were just a person. Yeah. And the Elon Musk, again, it's very worthwhile to point out that

he benefited financially from apartheid, but also he fucking hated it there. And that's really consistent in every story about his background. For his part, Errol claims Elon's upbringing was opulent and thoroughly positive, quote, I drove them to school in a convertible Rolls-Royce Corniche. They had thoroughbred horses to ride and motorbikes at the age of 14. They were spoiled, I suppose. Maybe that's why Elon is acting like a spoiled child now. And they were having a big public fight in the press. Now, Ashley Vance's book, All But Ignores Errol and His Side of Events, which conflict regularly with Elon's own recollections. For example, Elon claims that his youthful interest in computers clashed with

his father who thought studying computers was a waste of time. Errol disagrees with that, and I'm going to quote now from an interview in the New Zealand Herald. This is Errol. Elon has repeatedly told a story of me telling him that computers were a waste of time. That's untrue. Recounting early signs of his son's intellect with genuine pride, he continues. Elon has been generous enough to admit that he inherited his scientific genius from me. When he was 11, he pestered me to pay a huge sum to let him attend a computer course where the first IBM PC with mouse and keyboard was to be presented for the first time. Groundbreaking stuff. I told him to be quiet and well-behaved, to give up his seat to someone

if necessary, and to sit on the step at the side of the stage. When I came back after two hours to collect him, I found most people had left, but a group had gathered at the foot of the stage, and the center was my small son. His sleeves rolled up, talking earnestly. A professor listening to him turned to me and said, this boy needs to get one of these computers. I think Elon's probably closer to telling the truth, in that his dad was a dick about this, but also now that his son has wound up being very successful, Errol wants everyone to think that Elon is a genius because of how it reflects on Errol. That's the feeling I get reading a lot of both men. That's how I interpret all this. You were really identifying really strongly with

Elon, and I've never seen you like this about any bastard. Are you in love? No, I just, as a kid, number one, he and I had some similarities. Sophie, have you ever seen him like this? Well, you know it's super fucked up. I think he's blushing. Look at him. No, no, no, no, no. You gotta be fair. I've seen him like this. You know somebody is super. Fair is one thing, but in love. But you know somebody's super fucked up when Robert does that weird giggle thing, when he's like, and then he did that. Yeah. And you're like, oh, shit, that's some dark shit. And he's setting the stage for what's, it's happening. Don't worry.

Yeah, I mean, he's going to, he's not going to deserve any of this sympathy, but also like, he had a fucked up childhood and he gets some sympathy as a result of that. Oh, I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying I've never seen you like this. Yeah, most of them don't have, most of the bastards don't have this sympathetic a backstory. You know, they're not all like Saddam Hussein, who was like a perfect flower child. And he, you're really root for as a little kid when he's holding his teachers up at gunpoint, or Jaystall. Oh, I love little kid Stalin. He was, he was a good one too. Like, I don't know. It's hard to read about kids in general and not be sympathetic. Like they all reach a point

where they stop earning your sympathy, but like they all at some point, we're just like fucking trying to figure out the world. I don't know. I feel like the only way we can live in this world is if we think that people are capable of change, whether it's little kids or adults, and with little kids, there's a sense that there's more potential for change than at any other time. Yeah. And I also do feel that if you're going to properly condemn someone for the bad things they've done, you have to be very fair about their life and about like what they actually are. And at this point in the story, Elon's like a little kid with a crazy abuse of violent dad. Yeah. And he's a rich kid, but like, fuck, that's not easy still.

Now, obviously, yeah, Errol paints himself as generally available in a supportive dad who had worst overindulged his children. Elon and his brother, Kimball, both tell very different stories, and I'm going to quote from the Ashley Vance's biography again. While Elon and Kimball declined to provide an exact recounting, they clearly experienced something awful and profound during those years with their father. They both talk about having to endure some form of psychological torture. He definitely has serious chemical stuff, said Kimball, which I am sure Elon and I have inherited. It was a very emotionally challenging upbringing, but it made us who we are today. May bristled when the subject of Errol came up. Nobody gets along with him, she said. He is not

nice to anyone. I don't want to tell stories because they are horrendous. You know, you just don't talk about it. There are kids and grandkids involved. And Justine, his ex-wife, notes that like they agreed very early on that none of their kids were going to know their grandpa. So like that's the guy we're dealing with here. That's the laugh. So when Ashley Vance told Elon that she had emailed his father, his answer to her was very telling, quote, it would certainly be accurate to say that I did not have a good childhood. It may sound good. It was not absent of good, but it was not a happy childhood. It was like

misery. He's good at making life miserable. That's for sure. He can take any situation, no matter how good it is, and make it bad. He is not a happy man. I think that could probably be true of actually Elon Musk himself, honestly, but that is what happens. Child abuse will fuck you up for life. Yep. Yep. You know what won't fuck you up for life, Sophia? These goods and services? These products and services will not abuse your children and turn them into billionaires who are emotionally distant and start fucking nonsense shit on Twitter for no good reason. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup. Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that

stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt and I'm Alex French. In our newest show, we take a darkly comedic and occasionally ridiculous deep dive into a story that has been buried for nearly a century. We've tracked down exclusive historical records. We've interviewed the world's foremost experts. We're also bringing you cinematic historical recreations of moments left out of your history books. I'm Smedley Butler and I got a lot to say. For one, my personal history is raw, inspiring and mind blowing. And for another, do we get the mattresses after we do the ads or do we just have to do the ads? From iHeart Podcast and School of Humans, this is Let's Start a Coup. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man Sergei Krekalev is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen

to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus?

It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. That was some of your best work, I have to say. Thank you. Now, you've heard the Emeralds story, right? You've heard it vaguely mentioned something about Elon Musk and Emeralds in his pockets. Yes. Again, it's just such super villain stuff. I love it. Yeah. You heard this a lot that like Elon's family was in like his dad owned half of an Emerald mine. The phrase you'll usually hear is that he walked around with Emeralds in his pockets. And that anecdote is based on a Business Insider article that interviewed Errol Musk. It opens with the line, quote, a teenage Elon Musk once walked

the streets of New York with Emeralds in his pocket. And the story Errol tells that does seem to be true is that during a visit to New York City when Elon was 16, he and his brother stole a couple of the Emeralds that his dad just casually had with him all the time. And they walked into a Tiffany and company on Fifth Avenue and asked if the employees wanted to buy Emeralds. And apparently you can do that. Apparently if you walk into Tiffany's, they're just like a fucking Emerald. They'll buy it from you from like some 16 year olds. Wait, wait, wait. Like now you can still do that? Or is this like old school fucking mobbed up Tiffany's? Like what? Yeah, this is like the late eighties, I guess. So maybe it's mobbed up Tiffany's. Yeah, it does seem like

legally you shouldn't buy Emeralds from 16 year olds who walk it off the street. I mean, on the other hand, there won't be any paperwork. What's a 16 year old gonna do? Yeah, I don't know the standards in this industry. That seems shady to me. We're like, oh, what are the ethics and the complexities and the realities of selling a loose Emerald you just brought with you from your dad's mind? What are any of the words that are coming out of my mouth right now? Yeah, it simultaneously highlights how rich this kid was, but also is like, honestly, when you understand his background with his dad, one of the more emotionally understandable things that he did, because he was just like,

fuck you, dad, I'm gonna take your Emeralds and I'm gonna like, probably buy fucking drugs or whatever with my brother and like, steal from you. I don't know, they sold them for $2,000. A few days later, they returned to see the $800 Emerald they'd sold set into a ring for $24,000. And Arrow claims that this was a key lesson for Elon on how retail works. I don't know if that's the lesson Elon took out of it, but it's a wild thing to have in your childhood. I mean, my mom taught me the same lesson about money one time because like, it was like, it was an Odessa and I had like a broken arm and she was like, hey, you should go and stand in line for chickens and maybe they'll let you go to the front to

get a chicken because your arm's broken. It's totally the same thing, right? It's the same story as this Emerald story, right? Yeah. Just like a cool valuable lesson where you realize you just let go of an Emerald that was like accidentally worth over $25,000. It's pretty similar, I think. Still learning about value of money, right? Still learning. I mean, we all have a version of that lesson, right? For most of us, it's not Emeralds. It's like we scratched the car and Dad let's us know. He's the most unrelatable person of all time other than the abuse. I mean, just the rich parts are hilarious sounding. The Emerald parts are just driving me. I mean, yeah, it's just like, it's just a rich kid's story. Yeah. So Elon Musk,

yeah, it's weird because like he both definitely benefited from all this financial security. He also like pretty regularly, you can find a lot of interviews where he is like either at tears or at the point of tears talking about his dad. Like he's clearly really fucked up about his issues with his dad. And you get the feeling that it makes sense. Like his dad fucking killed three people. Like who the fuck knows what was going on in that house. He also endured a lot of physical abuse at the hands of his classmates. Musk spent eighth grade, ninth grade at Bryanston High School where one particular set of bullies decided to go after him. He later recalled, quote, I was basically hiding from this gang that was fucking hunting me down for God knows fucking

why. I think I accidentally bumped this guy at assembly that morning and he'd taken some huge offense at that. Later that day while Elon was eating lunch, this kid snuck up on him and kicked him in the head and then shoved him down the stairs. When Elon reached the bottom, a bunch of boys gathered around him and started kicking him while the first bully slammed his head into the ground. He eventually blacked out. Elon had to go to the hospital and he was out of school for a week. He had to get a nose job as an adult to correct the damage done to him during this beating. That's fucked up. That's fucked up. Like that's beyond normal bullying, I'd say. Yeah, that's real fucked up. Yeah. And the beatings continued. A few years later, Musk claims that the same group

of boys found out that Elon had finally made a friend, which was not a normal thing for Elon to have. And they beat this kid up until he agreed to stop being Elon's friend. He also claimed that they got this kid who he describes as my best fucking friend to, quote, lure me out of hiding so they could beat me up. And that fucking hurt. Which, yeah, obviously it did. That's pretty bad. Also really feel bad for that kid. Yeah, that sucks for that kid. You're like the friend Elon Musk and you're being nice. And then someone's like, no good deed goes unpunished. Yeah. You're fucking dead. Not dead, but you know, that's really a lot. That's punishing kindness on either end. A lot of harm was done to the world as a result of these bullies.

How old is he? He's like fucking 15, 16 at this point. So he's already in high school. Yeah. Yeah. And things got a little better for him when he was like 16. He started going to Pretoria Boys School, which is a ludicrously expensive all-white prep school. And he spent the last bit of his high school there. He didn't really shine academically. He wasn't a great student, but he wasn't bad. He distinguished himself with his extracurricular activities, which were primarily building very dangerous homemade rockets out of explosives that he gathered himself. He still regards the fact that he didn't lose any fingers as something of a miracle. The relatively few classmates Elon was friendly with do recall him being obsessed

with space travel and solar power from an early age. Both of those stances were odd in South Africa. He talked a lot about the need for humanity to colonize other planets and the fundamental stupidity of fossil fuels. While Elon did not have great grades, his talent with computers was enough to get him into a special programming class where in 1984 he programmed a video game. It was based around defending the earth from powerful aliens. Elon graduated at age 17. He attended the University of Pretoria for five months before fucking off from South Africa forever to take advantage of his family history and move to Canada. And by the way, if we're going to talk about, take a look at Elon Musk's privilege, the fact that his grandfather

was a Canadian citizen and how that benefited him is actually more meaningful than the apartheid stuff. And in fact, it's very likely that Musk left South Africa in part to avoid his mandatory conscription and period of service in the South African military. There was no other reason for him to go to the University of Pretoria for five months, but to avoid getting drafted and spending time in the military, which is like a good thing. Avoiding serving in an apartheid military is like that's what you want people who might get drafted by an apartheid military to do is not, right? I mean, not just a apartheid military, but especially, yeah. My cousin in Ukraine, like my aunt wanted to make sure that her and him moved out before he was of age to get drafted in the

army. It's like it's a real concern. People don't. Yeah, I've had some Israeli friends who did the same thing. And in fact, one guy who I hung out with a lot in India who like can never go back because he like skipped out on the draft. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good thing to do. It's a good thing that he did. So good on you, Elon, for not serving in an apartheid military. But the bad thing he did. We'll talk about that at the end of this first part here. So he arrived in Canada in June of 1989. And when he landed, he had a handful of phone numbers from family members he'd never met. He called people and eventually found a second cousin in a small town, 1900 miles from where he landed, who was willing to put Elon up for a while. So he took a bus and he hitched a

ride to that guy's house. This is a big part of Elon's preferred version of his story, that he landed penniless in Canada and hitchhiked around with a backpack until he managed to put together enough odd work to keep himself fed and develop the idea for his first business. Parts of that are true. But what Elon always neglects to mention and what his biographer allows him to neglect to mention is the financial privilege he enjoyed. One gets the feeling, reading Errol's interviews, that Elon had access to the cash that he needed if his efforts collapsed. And he was privileged enough to afford the plane ticket and enough cash to survive for at least the first few months that he was in Canada, albeit frugally. Errol absolutely would have bailed his son out if Elon had needed

it. And while that would have, you know, enacted a psychological price on Elon, and I don't want to discount that psychological price, it was not the kind of bohemian period he really depicts it at. He had a safety net. I think more people should be honest about that kind of stuff, because building that myth of like, oh, as an artist, this is how I did it. I didn't have anything special. I just went out and risked my dreams. Like so frequently we find out that these people either had connections or a financial security net. It's a totally different thing to go out on your own and pursue something when you know that if you fail, you might go on the street. It's not to say that there's no risk involved, period. But I think we should stop making, mythologizing

this kind of stuff, because then I think all the really crazy things that have to come together for someone to make it, to make their dreams come true, it doesn't just have to do with talent. It's like a million other things. And people that are born into privilege have like such a leg up. Yeah, and we will be talking about that more particularly in part two when it gets even more relevant. Elon spent a brief period of time after this doing working class gigs, the worst of which was probably cleaning out the boiler room of a lumber mill. He took this job because although it required him to wear a hazmat suit, it was the highest paid entry level job around. 30 people started with him at the beginning of his first week. By the end of it, he was one of three who

remained. For the next few months, Elon bummed around Canada taking odd gigs, saving money, staying with family and figuring out what the fuck to do with his life. His brother, Kimball, eventually followed him over. Elon enrolled at the Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in late 1989, a university that he had picked out because it had more hot chicks than the other school he was considering. Noise, Kimball, noise. Yeah, I mean, I was 18. And that's pretty normal decision making, just make it good. But it isn't weird. I think what's really weird is the idea that a particular area has hotter people than another area and making your decisions based on that as if that's some kind of... It's not good, but it is male. It's not good. Science is just

like dick science. It doesn't make any sense. But when you're hard, you're like, yeah, no, that makes all the sense. No, yeah, you go to school with all the hot chicks. Yeah, I'm gonna fucking follow this chub, this owner. That's how you do it. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So according to Musk's biography, quote, outside of his studies, Elon would read the newspaper alongside Kimball, and the two of them would identify interesting people that they would like to meet. They then took turns cold calling these people to ask if they were available to have lunch. Among the harassed was the head of marketing for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, a business writer for the Globe and Mail and a top executive at the Bank of Nova Scotia, Peter Nicholson. Nicholson

remembered the boys' call well. I was not in the habit of getting out of the blue requests, he said. I was perfectly prepared to have lunch with a couple of kids that had that kind of gumption. It took six months to get on Nicholson's calendar, but sure enough, the Musk brothers made the three hour train ride and showed up on time. Nicholson's first exposure to the Musk brothers left him with an impression many would share. Both presented themselves well and were polite. Elon, though, clearly came off as the geekier, more awkward counterpoint to the charismatic personable Kimball. I became more impressed and fascinated as I talked to them, Nicholson said. They were so determined, Nicholson ended up offering Elon a summer internship at the bank

and became his trusted advisor. Keep that in mind, too, because Elon shit talks this guy later, for no good reason. But yeah, that's neat, I guess. And this actually kind of gets what you're saying. I like knowing that Kibble's the charismatic one. He definitely is. Not a high bar, but this does get to another thing in talking about the nature of privilege, because I'm sure Elon thinks about that as an example of how he went out and seized life and didn't benefit from privilege. But there's a privilege in knowing how to talk to rich, fancy business people because you grew up in that world and you do understand what they expect and are impressed by. It's a kind of privilege that not everybody grows up getting. And that's the thing that even though his dad didn't make

that connection for him, his background and upbringing helped him make that connection. And that is kind of a level of privilege we don't talk about as much as we ought to, because it is a little bit less obvious. Yeah. I think it's very easy for someone that's grown up around a certain way of being to not understand that other people don't have that access. It's like that whole thing with fish not noticing that they're in water or whatever. You know what I'm talking about? It's that common metaphor that people use about how it is to grow up in privilege that someone needs to point out to you what it is that you have, that you've always just taken for granted like air. You don't process it as being anything that

is unique. You think everybody has this as opposed to, oh, actually, I'm in a very small percentage of people that have this security or this access or this whatever. Yeah, you got it right. Yep. So during his time at Queens, Elon met a young woman named Justine Wilson. They would later end up marrying. But at the time, Elon was interested in another young woman, Christie, who recalls that when they met, quote, I believe the second sentence out of his mouth was, I think a lot about electric cars, which gives you an idea about this guy's game. He also told you that he was frustrated by the fact that he needed to eat. He didn't like that he had to eat food. And if possible, he would prefer to get his nutrients without wasting time,

which is very much a prediction of soylent culture. So thank you for that, Elon. Now, while things didn't work out with Christie, Musk wound up building something of a relationship with Justine. He considered her, quote, the hot chick on campus, and he hit on her relentlessly. After his justice, his father had done with his mother. I was just gonna say. Yeah, yeah. Like son. Mm hmm. She initially agreed to an ice cream date, but broke the plans off with him via post it note, which dudes should recognize as a sign that shit ain't happening. But Elon did not do that. Instead, he found Justine's best friend to talk to her to figure out where Justine usually studied and what her favorite ice cream flavor was. And then he showed up there later with ice cream to

force the date into happening. It's the sort of story that like different groups of people will either see as romantic or a big old pile of red flags, depending on who does the telling and who does the listening. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we've all heard the story where that ends really ends really well. But we've also heard way more stories where that does not end very well. Yeah. And it definitely like obviously they get divorced and it was not a pleasant divorce. So it doesn't end well. So Ashley Vance, his biographer seems to think that like view this as kind of romantic. But her write up is still pretty unsettling, quote, Wilson had dreamed of having a torrid romance with a writer. I wanted to be Sylvia and Ted, she said, what she fell for

instead was a relentless, ambitious geek. The pair attended the same abnormal psychology class and compared their grades following an exam. Justine knocked to 97, Muska 98. He went back to the professor and talked his way into the two points he lost and got 100, Justine said. It felt like we were always competing. Musk had a romantic side as well. One time he sent Wilson a dozen roses, each with its own note. He also gifted Wilson a copy of the Prophet filled with handwritten romantic musings. He can sweep you off your feet, Justine said. The Prophet thing does not sound romantic. Yeah, I mean, she's like a writer. It was to her, I guess. Like, I don't know. It all sounds kind of weird to me too, but it clearly eventually worked.

I don't understand what that means with romantic musing notes, musings as notes in the margins. What does that even mean? I think it means that he like wrote a romantic stuff about how the poems and how the Prophet made him think of her and stuff, I'm guessing. Like a little asterisk and like, this reminds me of your pussy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably, I'm sure that was each of the notes. It was just a book filled with marginalia that was like, this line reminds me of your pussy. This line also reminds me of your pussy. Now I get it. Now I get it. He is charming. It's true. It worked. Yeah. The two dated on and off throughout college. Justine had a lot of options for guys to pursue and she didn't really seem to feel the need to just stick with just Elon.

Meanwhile, Elon was somewhat fanatic about pursuing here to stay in her orbit. Justine later recalled, quote, he would call very insistently. You always knew it was Elon because the phone would never stop ringing. The man does not take no for an answer. You can't blow him off. I do think of him as the terminator. He locks his gaze onto something and says, it shall be mine. Bit by bit, he won me over. Oh my God. That is so creepy. It's not. It doesn't sound great. And again, though, yeah, it's weird because like, it's like, what is that a description of your favorite husband or your favorite rapist? Like what? He's definitely not her favorite husband. But it also worked on her at some point. I don't know. It's like, it's not a great story. It

definitely hints at a guy who isn't going to be great at having a healthy relationship, which he wasn't. Also just sounds like love bombing. Yes. This is what he does to get you, just blinds you and bludgeoned you with his love. And then once he has you, he's like, all right, now that this is on lockdown, I'm just going to ignore you later. Yeah. It's a lot of things. Elon was well known during this period for being the kind of dude who didn't really drink or party. He mostly focused on academics, studied business, competed in speech and debate, and pined after a hot girl who was only vaguely interested in him. In 1992, after two years at Queens, Elon achieved his dream of shimmying into the United States

by transferring to the University of Pennsylvania on a scholarship. His goal was to get a dual degree in economics from the Wharton School and a bachelor's in physics, mustered well at pin, and made some of his first real friends based on shared interests. He was happy during this period of time. You might think that this would have instilled in him a deep sympathy for non-U.S. citizens attempting to move to this country to start a life. The truth is less clear and a lot uglier. In 2017, the newly installed Trump administration formed an economic advisory council. Elon Musk was invited to join, and he chose to do so. The Trump administration then went on to push for substantial and vicious restrictions on immigration, including immigration

from countries undergoing severe domestic strife, which blocked out students who, like Musk, might have sought an escape from serving in their nation's repressive military by seeking a foreign education. Thanks to Stephen Miller, Trump's senior advisor, the White House actually spent months attempting to stop students in the U.S. illegally from even attending public schools. The administration also attempted to restrict the issuance of H-1B visas, and Musk was silent during this period. He remained on the council when Trump attempted to pass his immigration ban on people from Muslim-majority nations. Elon did tweet this at the time. Regarding government policy, there are often things that happen that many people don't agree with.

This is normal for a functioning democracy. The Muslim immigration ban is not right. They rarely warrant a public statement. However, the ban on Muslim immigrants from certain countries rises to this level. It is not right. The Muslim immigration ban is not right, which is a very unequivocal public statement. However, he deleted those tweets almost immediately and replaced them with the more milk toast statement. The blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country's challenges, which is kind of shitty and cowardly. Yeah. Musk remained on the Economic Advisory Council until in June of 2017, the president withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accords.

This prompted Musk's very public withdrawal from the council. It is interesting where he chose to draw the line with President Trump and our current fascist adjacent administration. And that's where we're going to end for part one. Boy, I think that probably that Elon Musk lovers are going to come for me, huh? Yeah, it's weird. I wonder if they're going to, like, by all rights, they should come for me mostly because I wrote the giant thing about him. Yeah, but so he has a woman, so she'll get it, she'll get it worse. But not just that. They're not going to think that I'm just like out here just saying whatever is a comedian. They're going to be like, Robert was trying to be objective

and that bitch wouldn't have it. I mean, yeah. Just happy to be here. That's all. Yeah, you wouldn't. Yeah, that part is lame. I mean, you know, Elon Musk, more like Elon. I have a great transition before you smell function all the way. Okay, what's that? So my album, my stand up album, Father's Day comes out on June 24th, which is Father's Day. And if you've been like, she seems like she doesn't have a dad. She's real down in Elon for being a bad dad. You are right. I don't have a dad. So if you want to hear more about that, you will love my album, Father's Day. And if you want to stop having a dad, that's also an option if you choose to. I don't know where you're going with that one.

I don't know either. Yeah, that was like a start to like, what, like, are you going to tell me how to divorce my parents? Where's this going? Yeah, what's happening there? I mean, I am lawyer adjacent and I do pro bono work helping children divorce from their parents. Yes, I do that. But that is my job now. This is not, that is not your job, not your, no. And you can also listen to Sophia's podcast. You can listen to Sophia's podcast. I have a podcast about 90 Day Fiancé with Miles Gray from the Daily Zeitgeist. It's called 420 Day Fiancé. It's really funny. Hell yeah. And I also have a podcast about Love and Sex Around the World called Private Parts Unknown with 40 Cossacks. So check that out.

Man, it's wild that you do a podcast and don't like Elon Musk because he totally smoked that blunt on Joe Rogan's show, even though he has denied people workers' compensation claims because they tested positive or his companies have denied people claims because they tested positive for marijuana. Right. But he looked like he didn't know how to smoke weed and he definitely didn't inhale. No, he looked so cool with his blunt, with, he looked so cool doing the thing that he will fire and deny people compensation due to them for indulging in, even though it's fine for him, even though it shouldn't be. Anyways, fuck that guy. Different rules for billionaires, you know? It's just a different world for them. Yeah, he's pretty cool to Joe,

to relatable $100 million worth Joe anyway. The episode's done. All right, guys. That was really fun. Find me, the SOF, my way. Bye. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup. Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut?

That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price?

Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.