Breaking News from Pod Save America - Elon Musk Got Badly Exposed As Reckless and Arrogant In Shocking Interview

Episode Date: July 25, 2026

Jon, Jon, and Tommy react to Elon Musk's wide-ranging interview with The Economist’s editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, where they discussed Musk's role in USAID cuts, his broad dislike by the public, his meddling in European elections and whether he's racist, and finally his thoughts on AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Legendary has arrived in Alberta with BetMGM Casino. Sign up to unlock access to over 4,000 casino games, including exclusive slots you can't spin anywhere else. Survivors ready? The iconic TV show is now an online casino game, where you can tap into Island Fun. BetMGM has also brought the prices right, Game of Thrones, Family Feud, MGM Millions,

and so many more exclusive casino games to Alberta. Get Las Vegas right from your phone with live dealer games streaming from real tables. And every time you play, you can enjoy enjoy instant deposit options and fast withdrawals. BetMGM Casino and its legendary library of games are available. Download the BetMGM app. See BetMGM.com for terms.

18 plus Alberta only. Please play responsibly. Subject to eligibility requirements. If gambling is affecting your mental health or well-being, 21-1 Alberta is here to help. Call or text 211 or visit ab.211.ca. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with the Alberta Eye Gaming Corporation. Standard message and data rates may apply.

All right, guys. Friend of the pod, Elon Musk sat down with Zanny Minton Beddows, editor-in-chief of the Economist. What a British name. I know. She's good in this interview. Yeah. It's an extended interview,

and wow, is he mad and delusional. We are going to play you guys some clips of what Musk had to say about the impact of destroying USAID, his reputation generally and why he is loathed is the word she uses. His obsession with portraying this dystopian version of Europe

in London in particular, and then his unnerving take on our AI future. Very fun. Love it and John have seen some but not all of these who get to enjoy their real-time unvarnished reactions. The interview starts a little weird. Let's watch this piece right at the top. It scales across a line that I keep of...

What? Just kidding. That's from a Qualcomm product demonstration earlier. one. That was not Elon Musk. This was my fault. I was hoping you'd keep the part right after where they throw like a tarp over the robot. They throw a tarp over like it's a dead body.

We don't want anyone to see this. Don't look. There's children in the audience. There is something happening now where the more these robots emulate how humans move, when they go down their bodies flail like people. The way that the end of the arm is kind of like

oh, like it goes. Yeah. He sort of like put his hand up. I don't know why I'm gendering him. Yeah, it's 2026, John. Terrible robots that are coming for our jobs can be women. Anyway, we're going to get to Musk in a second. But if you like stupid shit like that and also incisive political commentary, please subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube. It's free and look, we got range here. All right, let's start with the first clip of Elon. He's talking about US AID. This is a fun one. Do you regret getting so involved in politics? Do you think it was a good thing to do? I think I got a little too involved in politics got carried away, frankly.

The way you shut down a whole bunch of programs probably, in fact, certainly caused unnecessary suffering. No? No? No. You don't buy that at all? It caused a lot of complaining. So you don't buy the idea that anybody, to put it really crudely and simply, any kid in Africa died because of the suddenness with which... Zero.

I just don't think that's right. When funding is stopped for fraudulent organizations or for something, do you think they're going to say, do you think they're going to say, well, please keep funding the fraud? Or do you think they're going to come up with a sad story that sounds sympathetic in order to get the funding restored? Obviously, it will be the latter. And that's exactly what they did. But zero died because of those. Zero. That's what I would take issue with. So we cut that down a bit. It's the full answer is longer. But in the full answer, he says, the US ID cuts didn't cause any suffering, but foundations could have have stepped in and should have stepped in like Bill Gates or like Jeff Bezos's ex.

Also, the funding didn't stop. It was just moved to the State Department. And then he ends with the accusation that they just came up with that sad story. So he's just all over the place. Yeah, none of those explanations really makes sense even put together, especially put together. USAID was spending somewhere in the range of $32.5 billion in 2024. Gates has over $80 billion in his NGO. So if you like liquidated that, it would get you about two years of what USAID funds.

No organization in the world could match what a government can do. Also, when we cut our aid budget, a bunch of other countries followed suit, like in the UK. It combines a couple things. One is what would happen if you slowly eliminate USAID over time and ask other people to step in and fill what you've cut. Even if filling it requires less money than what you were spending, if there is some waste involved, right? Then there's what happens when you abruptly and chaotically shut down a bunch of programs and then expect other organizations to have what instant analysis of where these various projects were. And then there's another part of this, which is just an interesting thing to me about what Elon Musk is like now, which is he is because of the internet and how it's broken his brain, there's just no tradeoffs, right? Like there's no acknowledgement that I don't believe the U.S. should be spending this money.

I think other foundations should step in. it's not our responsibility. We can't solve every problem in the world, but there might be some cost if we reduce this money. There's just no acknowledgement of that kind of thing. There's also just like a logic problem to his own answers, which is if zero people were hurt or died and there was no suffering, then why would other organizations need to step in? None of it makes sense.

None of it makes sense. So I interviewed Nick Christoff at the New York Times. He went to a bunch of places in Africa. He walked through the names of specific individuals who died because of USAID. He met their caretakers. He met their families. They're human beings that exist. Elon denying them.

It's disgusting. It shows how much this bothers him. So everyone should keep asking about this. It's like go to Africa. Go with Nick Christop. Go with some of these organizations. Go anywhere. Take a tour.

Just find some kind of information that is not in your fucking Twitter feed, Elon Musk. Just in terms of stats, 83% of USAID programs were canceled. 94% of the staff were laid off. Some were hired back through the State Department through an independent process. But they destroyed everything.

And then they built a little of it back. So we just wrong on the facts there. USAID saved 92 million lives since 2000. It cut deaths of kids 32% and overall 15%. And it was arguably the most effective agency in the U.S. government. And just for what it's worth, I interviewed this former USAID staffer turned whistleblower named Nicholas Enrich. He said that after they started cutting USAID, when he finally got to meet with like the Trump transition team and told them what they did on public health, one of them said, wow, there really is so much. that USAID does that we never knew.

This is the story that needs to get out there. And then another said, I have no idea you did all this. As a Republican, when I think of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it was just, you know, abortions. That's what they said to him. Which is a sort of perfect encapsulation of what these people are really about, right? Which is just, and Elon Musk, too, it's just a recklessness and a carelessness. And we're going to come in and, you know, he said somewhere else about like, well, it's just that,

you know, we're paying more interest. on the debt than we are for the Defense Department. And this is why we needed to cut money. And so he just comes in. He has convinced himself that foreign aid and other things make up a bigger part of the budget that they are. He cuts everything recklessly.

People die. And then he comes up with the story that people actually didn't die. Yeah. Yeah, it's a real, like also the arrogance of it, which is if the government is doing something good, I'd know about it. Right. Like, I'd already know about it.

And by the way, if I cut something and nobody tells me it was a huge mistake, I was right to do it. So really, we'll just cut everything. And then we'll fix the things when it turns out we got something wrong here and there. When a reality just has no clue what the government's doing day to day to day. It's just the worst. Also, on this debt and deficit point, we'll get to this later in the AI section.

But he basically argues that like money won't matter. Taxes won't matter because we'll have this AI abundance. So it's like, well, then why did you care so much about Doge? But we'll get to that. So there's a conversation where they're going back and forth about how much power Elon has. Specifically, they talk about Starlink where he can impact the war in Ukraine by like cutting off access. And by the way, Elon is done the right thing. he's cut off Russian access in the occupied territories.

He's done good things here. But she also asked about his obsessive demagoguery of Europe. And so it culminates to this question where she asks him if he understands that some of the stuff that he posts, like this is why people loathe him. Let's watch this reaction here. I mean, some people do loathe you? Yes, some people do. But do you understand why?

Do you think what you're doing is helpful for Western democracy? Maybe some people do loathe me. And that's probably true. I don't care. But the fact that, as you pointed out, a quarter billion people follow me is that I think a lot more people actually like me than don't. And I think a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize. Do you realize the media is despised? Do you realize that journalists, the view of journalists is like a favorable view of journalists is like 15%.

I do know that. In the United States. So the shoe is on the other foot. They hate you. They hate you far more than they hate me. Sure seems like he doesn't care, huh? That's the guy who doesn't care. Again, it just says so much is that, like, do you understand how much people hate the media?

Yeah, she can acknowledge that because she lives in the world of reality and can read opinion polls and understands facts. Do you understand how much people hate you? No, he doesn't. He can't understand anything that's wrong with anything he's done, anything. in his personality, any perception of reality is completely fucking warped. He's deranged. He's a deranged human being.

It's also this like, I can't tell like, is it just that his ego can't, that he has adopted a kind of Trump mindset where you can't acknowledge any weakness or flaw or a mistake? Or has he really he really imbibed his own feed to the point where he believes

he is a beloved figure except for the leftist detractors. And it's not just the feet. It is all the people that surround him. It's everyone who works for him. It's all of his partners. It's every fucking party with rich people he goes to and every fucking famous person he knows

just kisses his ass constantly. He's a classical narcissist. Yeah, I don't think he's just, yeah. No one tells him no. No one tells him he's a bad person. No one tells him anything he's doing is wrong. Yeah. It's been like that, and it's been like that for a decade.

It was pre-Twitter as a point I was getting. This is pre-feed. I mean, I'm sure it's made it way worse and he feels attacked. But like, clearly, yeah, what he's getting at there is the problem isn't me, it's you. The media is, you know, portraying me wrong and you're hated more than me, therefore you're the bad ones, okay? Potty of America Breaking News is brought to you by Act Blue. With so much at stake, campaigns need the right foundation.

For over two decades, Act Blue has been the go-to platform powering Democratic candidates across the ballot by providing the digital tools to fundraise, organize, and win. And this year, they've launched an organizing platform built specifically for the people doing the work. ActBlue field tools. This all-in-one platform handles texting, phone banking, and can focus on what actually wins campaigns, real, meaningful conversations with voters. Act Blue never sells your data or your personal information so you can stay focused on what matters most, donating, organizing, and helping Democrats win. This November, the elections could come down to just a few hundred votes. The work that wins those races starts this summer, and it starts with you. Get started at actblue.com slash crooked.

a long back and forth about his constant demagoguery of like the UK as a dystopian hellhole and his support for far-right parties in Europe. Let's watch that exchange. You say things like, quote, civil war in Britain is inevitable. Just a question of when. When were you last in the UK? A few years ago. Exactly. Well, if you have a large and growing... rapidly growing, a group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to Western beliefs,

at some point there will be a reckoning. They will try to implement their views, and those who oppose it will oppose it, and that's what you call civil war. And obviously, this is the trend. And you absolutely do live in a cloister existence. And if you'd like, We can go on a tour of Britain. Sure. I'd be very happy to come on a tour of Britain. Is there anyone more cloistered than Elon Musk? It's amazing.

It's remarkable. Like, imagine, like, even if he had really quite galling to be like, I think you're heading for a civil war. When did you last visit? It's been a while. But even if he does go to England. I was just there a couple years ago. Right.

But if you go, even if Elon Musk, what does it look like for Elon Musk to go to a place? It's to the nicest. Private jet, private hotel, private hotel, private space. Security around him. He's in a bubble. engaging only with the people who are pre-set and part of this plan to meet. So he has no real exposure to the world anymore.

And there's something so, like, I think we're like Joyce Carol Oates who really got him once. I'm just like, I don't even, does Elon Musk ever reveal any things that bring him joy, photos with family, books he's read, meals he's made, anything like that, time with friends. And when you hear someone say like, well, if you have people that oppose one another, it'll eventually be a reckoning. That's called a civil war. That's just like read a fucking book, my man. Like that's just like a guy that's not reading the articles.

Or people can just debate those ideas that they disagree on. Also, what are Western beliefs and what are the beliefs of the people who are in UK? He's talking about Muslims. Yeah. We have a whole, Are You Racist section in a second? But just a quick thing on his support for far right parties in Europe. So there's a couple pieces of there's Germany where he made a virtual appearance at a far right AFD conference in 2025. These are people that are so extreme that parts of German intelligence.

that named them as like dangerous extremist group. He told them to save Germany and he told Germans to move beyond their Nazi-era guilt. So that's a good advice. I did a conversation with Alice Vidal from the AFD. Forgive yourselves. Yes. In that interview, she said Hitler was a communist, not a conservative, but rather a communist and a socialist. And Elon was like chortling along.

In the UK, he started as a fan of Nigel Farage, who's this like anti-immigrant pro-Brexit politician. Imagine like a cigarette butt in a beer. It's like, that's Nigel Farage. as a human. Farage wasn't right-wing enough for Elon, so now he likes a guy named Rupert Lowe, who started an even more right-wing party called Restore Britain. He's also were supported this dude Tommy Robinson, who's this violent criminal like soccer pooligan guy, who's so hardcore anti-immigrant that even Farage won't touch him, but Musk spoke at Robinson's rally in 2025 and he told the crowd, you either fight back or you die. So it seems like he's

fomenting civil war. By the way, Robinson wants to forcibly deport half of Britain's Muslims, which is about 2 million people and ban the Quran and a bunch of other shit. And then in France, he said Marine Le Pen is quote France's last hope. She is from the National Rally Party. National Rally used to be called National Front. One of its founders was a literal Nazi

who was a member of the Waffen SS. So those are the parties. And in the interview he's like, oh, but they're actually more moderate. They're not far, right? He says they're moderate, yeah. I was looking the other day for something else about his tweets just in the last year

because we've kind of forgot about him once he got out of politics. Like, he, just this year, one user said white people face a choice between being conquered, enslaved, raped, and genocided while being called racist or reclaiming our nations and our dignity while being called racist. He replied, yes. He also wrote, whites are a rapidly dying minority. He endorsed the conspiracy. There's a genocide against white people and promoted a claim that white people would be, quote, slaughtered by non-whites if they become a demographic minority. This is what he was like saying on Twitter. Yeah, the like we've moved on passing on because he's not with Trump every day, but like the one of the most powerful people on earth, the richest person on earth involved in politics still all across the world, they're just actively promoting unadulterated, unalloyed, white supremacy over and over again. With a huge algorithmic boost. Someone tweeted white solidarity is the only way to survive. He replied, true. What, like what definition of racism? is there that does not include that.

Okay, John. Tell me what racist is. You know what? Elon was asked if he's a racist. Oh, yeah. I want you to tell me if you think this answer is convincing. People say that you're a racist. People say that you're, you know, there's all kinds of things said about you, which I'm sure you would disagree with. But I just don't understand. What is the motivation for doing that? Are you fermenting? My partner is, she's half Indian and my, and I have poor children with her. I don't think there's any racism there. Are you anti-Muslim?

Um, I am, I'm against, uh, having, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if ethical views, uh, I'm against, for a no intethical to one. I'm against, uh, the imposition of, um, rules and laws that are, uh, contrary to to what we've come to accept in the West. Guys, I'm not racist. Some of my favorite estranged children aren't white. That's basically his answer.

I'm against rape and murder. It sounds like there he has convinced himself that all Muslims believe in implementing shirala. That he doesn't want to say shirah. And that's, that's his, that's what he's trying to get out there. Yes, I think that's right. He's not a racist because his views that's,

certain people and cultures are inferior is true. Right. Exactly. I'm not, Indians are okay. See? Yeah. I just hate certain race. I have problems with certain races. Some of, and each of these races and ethnicities and religions, some are good. Yeah. A few are good, but not all of them. Most of them are not. That's his belief. He's arguing that there is a fundamental values problem with an entire religion. Of course. Right. I mean, it's, he's incredibly extreme. But also it's like, ask, ask Grock, ask your own fucking biased chatbot because even Grock would tell you that what you believe about Sharia law and Muslims is not true. Yeah.

That's what I'm saying. Like it doesn't, if he wanted to know the correct answer, if he wanted to seek truth, he could do that even through his own biased chatbot. He chooses not to do that. It's like sort of this, he brought this like mannequin struggle that came from like we're going to make Tesla because we have to save the planet. And we're going to do these new technologies because that's what the future is. And we have to like win.

And it's like either it really is like he internalized this this idea that like human beings will either leave the earth behind or will die on this earth. That is like the great, the great struggle ahead of us. And it's inspiring to him personally and it inspired others around him to kind of get behind him in these these companies, even when his promises were sort of far beyond what they could actually do in the amount of time he hoped he could do it. But he took that same idea and he applied it to politics in this very kind of like puerile way. and it's like either the person I like someone who's barely paid attention for a long time to politics comes in and it's like oh my god if we don't win the world is over the world will end if my side doesn't win because these are the first elections I've ever paid attention to yeah that's funny that he kicks this whole thing off by being like yeah maybe I got a little too involved in politics it's like yeah how about we learn from that by the way that jacket he's wearing the black leather jacket it says grok on the sleeve it's just that bothered me okay uh finally let's like what the

AI part. So the beginning of the interview is all about AI, the companies is working on all that stuff. Watching this part of the conversation during this week when we had like this AI chat pot jailbreak from like a containment testing area and literally hack into another company was not confidence inspiring. We cut this down a bunch, but this will give you like a flavor of what he thinks. I think what we can and should try to do is to make sure that the AI has good values, that it cares about humanity and that it wants us to be happy and prosper

you're sure that humans will no longer be in control in 10 years' time I think it is unlikely I think even last year you said where was it Tetruz's podcast you said there was a 10 to 20% chance of killer robots wiping out humanity so you sounded worried then now you seem very relaxed about it

have you changed your view I guess I've come to change the meds my sort of philosophical conclusion is to look on the bright side. All roads lead to acceleration of AI. So then I'm like, okay, well, you can just sort of be sad about it or join the club, I suppose. What club? What's in that club?

Is that the club that protects you from the killer robots? It's like his position on AI has gone from, let's slow things down. Remember he's a signer of the letter. It's like, let's do a six-month pause to like, hey, let's just enjoy it. the ride, which shows that he's gone from, you never really cared about AI safety. This was all about, you know, financial positioning and business competition. He talks about love you like this. He talks about how the universe ends when it just expands to the point where everything kind of cools and freezes, right? This is, this is a time frame that is tens of billions of years, if not trillions of

years, and then suggest that's somehow an argument for not being worried about the robots taking over this decade. Yes, a classic, a classic, in the long run, we are all dead. And that is, of course, that is true. I, too, worry about the heat death of the universe, but between now and then, I also have to pick up the dry cleaning. There's this thing going on now with all the AI companies because they were honest at first about how scary this could be, and they were trying to somewhat be responsible. And then everyone is like, well, now public opinion is very turned against AI. And so now the message has gone forth probably through a bunch of consultants to all these companies that now they have to emphasize the bright side.

So you've got Dina Powell putting out videos of AI with meta and by like how it's wonderful and optimistic. And then all the Republican lobbyists who clearly they've hired have been like, this is a great story they're telling now. They should have done this from the beginning. And so now they've decided they're just going to lie to all of us so that they can get more customers and they can continue to just have this bubble be as big as possible. I think we're going to look back on this moment and realize that putting all of these disparate technologies under the like one idea of AI is really. been making things harder to have an honest conversation about it, as it would have been if we said, like, will electricity be good? Right.

Will computers be good? These are powerful, varied technologies. And like, we just need to, like, this, like, even the term AI, it's meant to evoke this kind of, like, a mysterious idea of intelligence, which we don't, we couldn't define for ourselves without the computers. So, uh, uh, I think that's why it ends up in this sort of like metaphysical notion of like, like are we accelerationist? Are we, is it sentient, whatever?

And it's like, I'm sorry, what does it do? Is that good? Is it safe, right? Like the basic questions about what they're implementing. And in D.C., it's all about are we winning or losing a race with China? And then the companies all yell like, oh, no, the Chinese stole our models and broke them down. And now they're repackaging them. It's like, well, you guys stole the whole internet to make your models.

So I don't know that I feel bad for you. Meanwhile, he there at one point says like, yeah, I fully expect China. to leapfrog ahead of us at some point. Yes, because they have more energy, basically. He also compares, she asked him about like, what about work? What are people like not only needing money, but wanting work?

And he's like, oh, well, you know, UBI will be the financial piece, but she's like, people like like like to do things. And he said he compares work to gardening and making dinner with tomatoes from your garden versus buying like perfect ones at the store and that you might find satisfaction in that. I was like, okay. Elon, make a capraise.

I want to watch you make a fucking. out. And this guy's life is work, by the way. He's like, oh, it'll be fine. This is what Andrew Yang told me for offline this weekend. He was like, yeah, I just think there'll be three areas, nurturing and caring for people, artistic expression and physical fitness and wellness. And maybe there can be like many economies within each of those three areas where you,

and like, I was like, this is wild shit. But this is what I mean when they're like, I'm sorry, what are you basing that? Like, what are you talking about? Like, that is such an abstract. and grand pronouncement about the future based on what? Like, these models can tell me what year the Russian, like tell me details about history quickly, but also can make pictures of people.

Like, what are you fucking talking about? And also it's like the same people that like tore apart our society with social media feeds are now like, it'll be fine. Well, I'll just make tomatoes together and have universal basic income. At one point he refers to a future where humans have agency, quote, in a small way.

Hmm. So, I mean, like, the robots let us have a small area of decision making. And it's like, this is, that kind of shit is annoying when it's like Sam Altman, like, pontificating on the like, you know, Lex Friedman podcast, whatever. Like, this guy was sitting in the White House, like making policy on AI. Buddies with fucking David Sacks, the, I guess former now AI czar, who is sort of letting these companies run rough shot on humanity. It's like, that doesn't feel good.

I feel like Christianity is next for him. I think he's going to become, I think he's going to swing the other way. He's going to find his way into a church. And then he's going to start, I think, like, like, the light of creation is the next topic for him. That's my, that's my little May soft prediction. He's basically there with his whole, like, I want to extend the life of consciousness to the moon and to Mars and blah, blah, blah. But then he's like, it's in my S-1 for SpaceX, which, by the way, is down, like 40%. Anyway, that's it for this episode of POTS of America on YouTube, only about Elon Musk.

I don't feel great about it. No, I don't either. Hope you all have a nice Saturday. But is he happy? No. No. Clearly not. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pellev, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized

with the Writers Guild of America East.