Offline with Jon Favreau - Jon’s Twitter Fight with JD Vance and Elon’s Scheme to Buy Votes

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

How does J.D. Vance have so much time to fight with Jon on X? Why are the courts letting Elon Musk buy votes in Wisconsin? And are we, as a society, ready forxAI to be trained on tweets from Catturd and Libs of TikTok? With Max out on vacation, Jon is joined by The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel to process this week's online maelstrom—from horrendous deportations to Studio Ghibliesque edge lords—and to share what it was like for his boss to be mistakenly added to the Houthi PC Small Group chat. 

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We don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. I'm David Papadopoulos. Each week on Elon Inc., I'm joined by my Bloomberg colleagues to chat about the biggest stories on Musk and what they mean for us all. He tends to welcome a legal fight. There's a reason most CEOs don't do this. Who's actually in charge? No matter who's in power, Elon wins.

Elon Inc. every week, wherever you get your podcasts. We're just like making fun of the millennial posting tendencies of JD Vance. Meanwhile, the administration is detaining these people in horrible mega prisons abroad. And they're like, well, we can't do anything about it. And it's like, I know I think about this all the time because I... A month ago, I got in a fight with Elon Musk on Twitter and it was about... Your clout score must be amazing. I'm Jon Favreau.

And I'm Charlie Wurzel. Charlie, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. So for everyone, Max is on vacation this week. Charlie has graciously agreed to fill in his co-host and we've got plenty to talk about. But before we get to the news, you and I haven't really chatted since Trump and Elon have accelerated America's descent into techno-authoritarianism. As someone else whose job it is to consume the fire hose of news on the internet, how are you handling our new reality? Oh, it's so bad.

Just a waking nightmare. There's an old tweet by Darren Revelle that's like, this is terrible for our country, but it's tremendous content. And that's just the way that I feel about everything. It's all tremendous content if it were happening in some simulation, but it's reality. And I have this grand sort of framework for everything, which is like the stupidest possible thing that you see is going to be the thing that you are faced and have to relive all the time.

Never bet against the dumbest outcome. And here we are. It does feel very time is a flat circle kind of thing too, because we've now been talking about Donald Trump since 2015. That's so long ago. And it just keeps getting worse somehow. Like I don't, I noticed that you've, you've left X for blue sky.

How are you enjoying all that skeeting? Oh, it's wonderful. It's just one trading one very normal space for another. One, trading one very normal space for another. I, truly, so the reason why I stopped tweeting, so to speak, I still monitor it. I still like my account still exists. If you yell at me, I might see it. But I just don't feel like giving content,

like free, like literal free words to somebody's service when their like explicit political project is to like destroy like the media, you know, for example. Um, I just, I just feel like there is like, there's like a little bit of a, of a stand that, uh, that I wanted to take there. Uh, blue sky is like a fine alternative. I think like any of these spaces, they like the the rules get set kind of early and like being on blue sky like too long makes you feel like the world is like actually like moments away from just like it's it's you know the credits are like about to roll on like Earth, the experiment. So I actually find it sometimes like just as psychically painful to scroll through. But you know, at the end of the day, like I am, it's a site that doesn't deprioritize links

to the news articles. And like, I appreciate that part of it, because it like allows me to reach people as a journalist and you know, it is it's not like Being run by Gripers. So Yeah, my I've gone back and forth on this so many times and I'm on blue sky I only check it a couple times a week Mainly because I can only pick one platform to be one micro blogging site to be posting on all the time I can't like split my to be one micro blogging site to be posting on all the time. I can't like split my attention between two different sites like that. And the reason I'm so I do hate that I'm on Twitter and helping an Elon company.

But I feel like because so many journalists are there and because the reach is still the biggest of all these micro blogging sites, thinking as like an organizer or strategist, I feel like I'm gonna reach more people there and then once in a while I can go on Blue Sky and check out what's there. But I have that same feeling when I'm on Blue Sky for too long, which is the intensity and the outrage is so hyped up.

Sometimes I go there when I think people aren't freaking out enough on Twitter and then I'm like, what's everyone on Blue Sky saying? I'm like, all right, everyone's worked up here. That may, okay, I'm not crazy. The thing is though, like it gets a lot of shit for that exact reason. And some of that is valid, but it's also an accurate reflection of like how bad things are. Like things are legitimately really freaking bad, you know? And so it's like, it's not one of those situations I feel like where, you know, it's like,

oh, look at this like hysteria, it does not match reality. It's more just like taking in too much of it at once is like psychically so painful that it makes me wanna like literally detach and just go in the woods. And like, that's not helping my journalism or anything like that. So yeah, it's, I don't know, man. It's still no place is good.

So it's because it's the internet. So on last week's show, we obviously talked about the world's most famous group chat, but here we are a week after the most read story of the year so far, the Trump administration scandal that the vast majority of Americans have heard the most about and disapprove of, and no one has been fired, no one has apologized, no one involved has even acknowledged that it was a mistake to discuss imminent attack, not war plans on an

unsecure channel that included your boss, the editor of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. In fact, the main reason Trump was thinking about firing Mike Waltz is because he had Goldberg's number in the phone, because of course journalists are the enemy. And the White House said this week that the internal investigation is officially over. Really thorough. Mission accomplished.

Mission accomplished. They did it. Which also means that the FBI and DOJ won't be investigating either because all federal law enforcement are now under direct control of the president. And then I just noticed today right before we recorded, the Washington Post reports that Mike Wilds was also doing business, official business, including talking about very sensitive information about foreign policy and battle plans and all the rest on his Gmail, which is even worse

than Signal, even worse than Signal. How much do you think our collective device induced ADD is helping these guys get away with what they couldn't figure out what to get away with, how to get away with last time. I feel a bit like somewhere along the line and I don't know, I think it was genuinely like Trump, Trump won, but it may very well have been post-January 6th, this idea that like, Trump had crossed the biggest red line, like he was sort of like expelled momentarily from public life, like the platforms banned him, and then he was like, well, I don't need any

of that. I don't care. I'll make my own and I'll just sort of, you know, actually start to marinate in the most toxic of all of the stews, right? Like I just, I don't give a shit. And I think that like that, broadly speaking, some of it is, you know, the world is the way it is, the devised induced, you know, frenetic,

like nothing can hold anyone's attention for more than a few minutes and look, oh, the next episode of Severance is on. Like what, you know, there's like, there's too much vying for your time. It's all so bad that you just want to tune it out. But I also think that there's just this fundamental and unfortunately sad and true understanding from this administration, which is just like, we don't give a shit. And like, if we look into the camera and say that to you, like, what are the, you know, quote unquote hall monitors going to do about it? Like, what are you going to do? Like, it's like the classic kind of like bully thing, right?

It's just like, I don't care that you think that's, you know, the way it is. And you know, weirdly enough, Elon Musk has done this running his companies for so long. It's like, the SEC is like, you can't tweet that. You can't do that. Here's, you have to pay these fines and he's just sort of like two middle fingers up. I don't care.

I don't play by these rules. And I think that that's sort of, that seems to me to be like the guiding light of this administration, the way they're handling absolutely everything. It's like treat everyone around you, even your own supporters with the utmost contempt, if there's any chance that they're going to question you

and just kind of steamroll that. I don't know if that has like an expiration date on it, if that tactic, you know, ceases to work after a while, but it's proven really sadly effective right now. Yeah, and I think that there's some important context that helps make it effective. One being that once you have incited an insurrection to try to stay in office and then get away with it in terms of escaping legal accountability, escaping the accountability of impeachment,

and then ultimately just winning in a free and fair election And then having the Supreme Court say that oh, yeah, by the way the president can't be charged Criminally for anything he does that are could be construed as official acts of the president Once you've got once you've passed that you know across that Rubicon. Why wouldn't you be nihilistic about everything? I agree. It's like after a certain while, like, you know, shame on us, right? Like, shame on just like there's no enforcement in any way, right? I have this feeling that like banning Trump from all the social media platforms, a fellow journalist, Ryan Broderick,

who runs a newsletter called Garbage Day, brought this up and I thought it was really a stoop point, was kind of like one of the last straws here that like really just like, Trump had tried for a long time always to sort of like operate within the frameworks of institutions that he still wanted to curry favor with, right? And then this, like, I really feel like that,

that January 6th moment, especially the being banned from these platforms, like he really wanted to get back onto Twitter. And then after a certain amount of time being exiled from it, it's like, you know what? No, I don't need this. Like the real sickos are actually over here. Like the real people who like,

I literally can't do any wrong with the people who actually embrace me, right? Yeah. Not all these other people who laugh at me behind, you know, closed doors. And I think that's truly when like the revenge thing kicked in completely. And it was like, no, this is actually scorched earth.

Like, I don't care. I don't care about what I'm going to do to the economy. I don't care about what Wall Street thinks of me. Like I'm in it for the sickos, right? And that's scary. Yeah, and you know, he's a lame duck, or at the very least, he's not going to be running for office again.

Whether he serves again is a question. Hopefully we don't have to entertain him. Never bet against the dumbest outcome. I've been trying to think about this just from a strategist perspective and trying to get power back at some point from people who don't hate democracy. And like I'm, I just don't know what the political pressure points are anymore because he doesn't, you're right, like you'd think, oh, does he care about his legacy? But he, his legacy is whatever he says it is in his head, right? And he's got a whole media apparatus and a bunch of people around him who will tell him till the day he dies that he was the greatest president of all time and

wonderful and then everyone who says otherwise is just fake or paid protesters or whatever else right and so I kind of think that the pressure point is Republicans in Congress right who may lose their jobs over this over what the president does in the next couple years maybe if whatever happens with 2028, you know, if other people want to run, that could be in the Republican Party, that could be a real clown show, you know? And so maybe that's a pressure point. But I do think, you know, and I've been criticizing Democrats too for not like fighting enough or doing enough, but some of it is constrained.

Some of our ability to fight this is constrained by the this nihilism that you're talking about that that they just don't give a shit. Yeah, although I do think it meets, it does at some point meet reality, right? Like something that I have felt, like I've seen examples either on social media or elsewhere, like anyone has, of these people who like with the Doge firings etc. right where people who are in the universe

of of the true believers sort of seeing this thing that's like all right so you know I'm all for all this you know government efficiency stuff like Trump can do no wrong also he fired my nephew who's been working for the park service diligently for 15 years with an email that said, dear first name slash last name, comma, right? And it was like this like sort of lack of dignity, lack of like respect, lack of, you know, all this, like there is a point and maybe this is just like me being optimistic to a fault, but like, I do think there's a point with all of this stuff with this nihilism with the, you know, treating lying to your supporters faces again and again and again, sort of treating them like they, you know, like you don't respect their intelligence. There are moments when all of this stuff that plays really well online, that is like it's

really great propaganda like does meet, I think certain parts of reality if it gets extreme enough. And I think that like, you know, the firings is one of those examples where it's like, wait, what is going on here, right? I'm not sure if, you know, people being, you know, kidnapped off the streets in black vans, if that works for that group of supporters,

but I definitely think like the firings thing has triggered some like people's, you know, spidey senses tingling being like, this doesn't seem right. I don't know. I do think that like, when I think about that nihilism, I've seen some cracks in that facade as it relates to like, well, wait a minute, the guy from Twitter

is like actually doing something that affects like, well, wait a minute, the guy from Twitter is like actually doing something that affects like, me in meat space right now. And that's, I don't like that. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Offline is brought to you by Zebiotics Pre-Alcohol.

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off. For the people who don't pay attention or don't pay close attention to the news, which off. For people who don't pay attention or don't pay close attention to the news, which is as we found out, you know, in the last election of last several years, probably most voters, they, you know, it could be something as simple as the tariffs causing, you know, either tipping us into recession or just, you know, making inflation persistently higher or, you know, either tipping us into recession or just, you know, making inflation persistently higher or, you know, God forbid, some combination and we're in stagflation territory. And then they don't even have to pay attention to the what's coming out of the Trump administration.

They just feel it in their everyday lives, which is a big reason Joe Biden lost. So if you have that big reason Joe Biden lost. So if you have that and you combine that with people are like, okay, well, why am I paying more for shit? And also Elon Musk is like rampaging through the federal government and they're kidnapping people off the streets. And like, what's the good part about this? I don't think it can be,

it can't be overstated how unpopular Elon Musk is. How much of a vulnerability he as a human is. And I think that having covered him for a very long time, he also has a kind of a perishable good. He has a real shelf life in terms of like, oh, you know, this guy's interesting. He's got some ideas and then like cut to like two months later and you're like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You know, like it, I think like we can see that

like there is a possible like real vulnerability with Musk turning people off because again, like it's just the optics real bad, like unelected, you know, richest man in the world wasn't, you know, isn't from here, you know, and has a lot of opinions about like, who should be employed and who shouldn't be, I think, or like getting rid of your social security. Like those things are just very, I think that that could be a real crack in the nihilism

facade as well. I do too. And we're going to talk a little bit more about Elon before we move on from this topic. Since you work at The Atlantic, what was it like there last week? What were the Slack channels like? Really and truly, I can't speak to the inner workings of the place in that sense. But I think that for every single person in, it's not that different from being on the outside.

It's an unbelievable story, right? It's just like, it's fundamentally unbelievable. You know, Jeff wasn't asking for like, you know, consensus editing or anything on that. Like I wasn't involved. But I do think there's a strange thing, I'm sure it's happened to you in your life, where either your organization or you or something

are at the center of a massive, massive story. And yet you still feel like an outsider to it. I think that's very much the vibe, right? It's like, you know, I personally, like, I thought it was really, like, admirable how the whole thing was reported and handled, you know, not to be like a homer for the publication, but like, I just think it's a really, you know, not to be like a homer for the publication, but like, I just think it was, it's a really, you know,

tricky reporting situation to be thrust into without, you know, trying to go after that story. And I think it was handled pretty well, but it was also, you know, just as a person who like comments on the news a lot myself, like there was a need to sort of be at a remove there be at a remove there because there's just so many moving parts. It's a tricky story. So I personally felt like as kind of a gog by the whole thing as anyone else and kind

of watched it play out. Yeah. I thought you guys and Jeff handled it incredibly well. I mean, especially at a time where so many of these media outlets are capitulating or settling or whatever you want to call it with Trump. And it was a delicate situation, right? Like at first everyone was like, release all the signals. And you're like, well, you've got to be careful there and let's talk to some lawyers, let

this play out. And I also think that Goldberg felt like real responsibility about national security and operations and making sure that, you know, troops are protected and potential undercover agents and all that kind of stuff. So I thought it was, it was a delicate dance, but it seemed like you guys handled it really well. In speaking to like the internet part of all of it, right? Like what you were saying with like people sort of demanding the whole story at once exactly in the way that they want it.

Like there's always that engine of the internet. It's like assuming really like bad intentions, et cetera. And it's like, I think if there's one thing, and this is not even particular to this story, if there's like one thing as a reporter that I would love to communicate to just like the news consuming audiences of the world is just like, there's so much that is going on

to try to make sure to get everything right, like with any story, right? And it's like, sometimes that just means it's not like, you're gonna get all the information, you're just gonna get it. Like once everything is perfectly, you know, buttoned up and you've gone through all the appropriate stuff. But I don't think people realize news gathering is just like a painstaking process. It just is.

It's like you have to do a lot of work to make sure that you are giving everyone information in the best and most responsible way so that they can use it and take action. And you might get it in a couple days as opposed to the timeline everyone operates on now, which is immediately, which is what people want. So I have to admit, last night I did get in a Twitter fight with the whiniest and most online member of the group chat, JD Vance. This happened-

Congrats. Yeah, this happened because once again, you guys over at the Atlantic broke some big news. The Trump administration for the first time has admitted in court that they sent a father from Maryland to rot in the El Salvador mega prison based on quote, an error and quote, an oversight. Even worse, they're also arguing in court. They have no ability to bring him back. The man's name is kilmar abrigo Garcia

He was accused of being a gang member based only on his Chicago Bulls hoodie and an informant who said he's part of an MS 13 chapter based in a state where he's never lived He actually came here in 2011 because actual gangs were threatening to kill him He married an American citizen had had two kids, was working full time. And in 2019, a judge gave him special legal protection from being deported to El Salvador, worried that he would be killed there. A few weeks ago, ICE agents grabbed him anyway and sent him to the mega prison in El Salvador, where he was supposed to be protected from being deported to.

I got very angry. I tweeted the story. I tagged in Marco Rubio and Elon, my boy Elon and JD Vance and asked if they wanted to comment because I knew they were all pretty online. And at 1 a.m. Eastern, JD wrote back and said that Garcia is a convicted MS-13 gang member, which is a lie, with no legal right to be here.

Another lie said that clearly I hadn't read the court documents, which clearly he hadn't read the court documents, which is why he made those false statements. And then he told me it was, quote, gross to get fired up about this. Um, and then a bunch of other people, including reporters and Grok, called him out for lying. And then he got even pissier. So my question to you is like, why do you think the vice president of the United States is spending so much of his time tweeting at random podcasters? Because I am, I am not the first Twitter fight he's

been in lately. And there's been some like, you know, right wing influencers, random accounts, some red state guy that he's been fighting with. He's fought with other people. He's like, he is very online, very online. It's interesting, right? I mean, even like, there's obviously a lot of like parallels to Trump in the, you know, in the first administration doing the midnight tweeting. Okay, so I have this theory, I think, that this administration's sort of communication strategy is to be creating content always like influencers, right? Like there was, I think it was the day before the disastrous Zelensky Oval Office thing,

like they brought a bunch, like Mike Cernovich and a bunch of other like Jack Pesovic and these guys like brought him in and gave him the Epstein binders. Oh yeah. And then like walked them out, you know, the back area and they're like, oh, they just happened to be like, oh, the prime minister was here. Like, oh, so there's just, you know, happened to be cameras, like getting all these clicks and they're like holding the binders up like,

yeah, we got it, you know. I feel, and then cut to the next day, I believe it was, like the whole Zelensky thing was a setup, right? It was a content thing. Like it was a spectacle. Trump said it afterwards, like, well, this is going to make good TV regardless of what you think of it. I think that this administration really feels like the way to get its message out, the way to sort of keep the base energized, to keep like some support for all of this like genuinely

pretty unpopular stuff that they're doing, is to just be feeding as much red meat as possible at all times to their audience in the way that an influencer does, in the way that it's just like you are just you are constantly on board. Joe Rogan is podcasting 15 hours a week, right, for a reason, like it's keeping the content moving. And I think that that's a little bit of what's going on here. I think there's probably other motivations, right? Like I think that this is probably a way for Vance

to try to flex whatever muscles and power he has, right? Like, you know, one of the lessons I think from the group chat was that he was sort of like, I disagree, and everyone was like, we're gonna keep going Like, you know, one of the lessons I think from the group chat was that he was sort of like, I disagree. And everyone was like, we're going to keep going on. You know, it's like, like, it didn't seem like he had a ton of power in that, in that, in that interaction. Doesn't seem like he has just, you know, a ton of power in general in the administration, even compared to someone who's not really in the administration, like Musk. So this is, you know, I think getting in Twitter fights is a very visible, highly

visible way to LARP vice president, you know? But at the same time, I think it is part of a broader administration goal of like, this idea of this like this shamelessness of that, like the guard rails are off type thing is being constantly messaged, right? Like we are going to bring in Zelensky into the Oval Office, and we are going to try to humiliate him because like we will do whatever we want to do. And then that is going to be like the content that is projected out wide. I think that that's sort of broadly the strategy. Whether or not like it fits perfectly him feuding with you at one in the morning on Twitter,

I don't know, but unfortunately for you, that's what he's doing. I feel like JD Vance in particular has a very specific millennial poster vibe to him, where he, like debate society kind of thing, right? Where he's just like, if he wasn't vice president right now, he'd be doing one of those Jubilee videos. Like you know, getting a bunch of people

that live to debate him. Just cause he seems, he seems, and a part of it though, I think, I think you're right. And it also goes to their grievance strategy, right? Like everything, it's a specific kind of content that they wanna put out, right? Which is in one way they wanna show dominance

in the other way they wanna be aggrieved all the time even though they have all the power, right? I mean, JD Vance eventually after he got sort of embarrassed because everyone called him out for lying. And then at one point he was like, you know, the guy was detained under Biden and released under Biden in 2019. And then everyone was like,

in 2019 Trump was president. He was like, and then he had to edit his tweet. So then he just puts up another tweet to like end the whole thing just on its own. And he was like, you know, the media wants us to believe that the real victims are the gang members who terrorize citizens and not the people who've been killed from these invasions and blah, blah, blah.

And you're like, no one fucking said that, man. No one. No, everyone thinks that you're a victim if you've been murdered and so is your family, but you're also a victim if you're in a prison with no due process and you're innocent. Everyone, both people are victims, you know? This is, I mean, it's a total strategy in all of this immigration or mass deportation without due process stuff.

Like it is this idea of trying to pin it on the, you know, basically trying to turn everyone into, oh, like you love criminals, you know, you love criminals, or you care more about, you know, random Hispanic person than you do about the safety of your country. Really, that whole false binary, that's an argument no one's making. I would also say too, you know, there is,

whether this is intentional or not, this is what ends up happening. It's like, you started this with talking about the Atlantic article that came out and this story that is just like, positively heinous and like, it made you enraged for good reason. Like this thing that like anyone

who's not so down the rabbit hole reads and goes, this is fucked up, right? And then it becomes through Vance getting in this Twitter fight and this type of thing, it just sort of becomes about like posting wars, right? And this type of thing. Like there's a way in which all of this in some way. And again, I don't know if it's just the way

of the internet and the way of social media or if it's part of a deliberate strategy, but there's this way in which it dilutes the seriousness of what's happening. I'm not saying you're doing that. I'm just saying this is what happens, right? We're just like making fun of the millennial posting tendencies of JD Vance when meanwhile, like the administration

is detaining these people in horrible mega prisons abroad and they're like, well, we can't do anything about it. And it's like, I know I think about this all the time because I, I got in a couple, a month ago I got in a fight with Elon Musk on Twitter and it was about your cloud score must be amazing. But it was like when they, it's funny, the moment that, that Elon responded and then JD Vance responded, I went into this different mode where I was like, I'm not going to attempt to like just dunk back on them.

Like I want to now provide facts here. And I want to, in the case of Elon, I was like, you know, the USAID had canceled a bunch of food that was going to like starving children. And I was like, I want to do whatever we can to get the food to the kids. And I was thinking, and when JD Vance responded, I'm like, okay, what do I care about now?

Right now I care about somehow getting these people out of this fucking prison, you know? So I sort of like pulled back from the usual like dunking that I might do if I didn't think they were ever going to reply to me, which are probably like most of my other tweets, you know? But you're right, because you I think they want to suck you into an argument that is a very online, like, let's go back and forth and dunk on each other and decide who won the you know, who won the posting contest, as opposed to like, oh, this

is about like real people who have real problems and who are being wronged in very serious ways and what are we gonna do about it? Yeah, it's so hard to like, it's so hard to overcome that, right? Just in general. And I think that there is a part of me, again, I don't really know,

you never know like how intentional any of these guys are, or if they're always just like shooting directly from the hip, like whatever. There's a possibility that this is actually like the end goal for a lot of things, right? That there are like, there are people who are trying to put forward really, you know, unpopular policies or gut the federal government

or do whatever, exact their political revenge on their enemies. And then I think there's plenty of people who are just like in it to dunk on people and win those fights and grease their cloud scores. Yeah, it's a, I don't know. Owning the Libs becomes an end in itself, right? Yeah, totally.

Not even a means. All right, quick note. If you're enjoying offline and looking for ways to keep supporting our work at Crooked Media, the best way to do so is by subscribing to Friends of the Pod. With your subscription, you can now enjoy offline ad free. Plus, if you're not sure yet

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You ever been on a road trip where one person insists on controlling the music? You're just trying to enjoy the ride, but now you're stuck listening to nothing but their favorite band. No discussion, no compromises, just their way or the highway. That's kind of what's happening with some people who practice Christian nationalism. Some folks want to take over the wheel and force everyone to follow their beliefs, shoving religion into our laws, our schools, and even our personal choices. But hey, this country was built for everyone, not just one group. That's where the Freedom

from Religion Foundation comes in. Think of them as the GPS keeping church and state in separate lanes, just like the founders actually intended So whether you've always been secular or left religion behind if you don't want someone else dictating the trip for you FFRF has your back join them go to FFRF.us Slash freedom or text the word offline to 511 511 and become a member today Text offline to 511 511 or go to 511 and become a member today text offline to 511 511 or go to

FFRF dot US slash freedom because when it comes to freedom we all deserve to choose our own route for membership information Text offline to 511 511 text fees may apply All right, let's uh, let's talk more about your friend and mine Another extremely online shit poster Elon Musk. He was in Wisconsin. He was trying to buy a Supreme Court race there and it became much more literal by the end. He was handing out a pair of million dollar checks in Wisconsin on Sunday night.

We're recording this Tuesday afternoon. So by the time you're all listening to this, we'll know who won the Supreme Court race. But I think you summed up my reaction to the payments in a succinct post on Blue Sky. You said you quote, genuinely feel insane. And I guess my question is which part feels like there's a lot of lot of things to feel insane about in relation to Elon Musk Trying to buy a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin by going there and handing out million dollar checks Yeah, it's like an onion of insanity right with the layers Okay, first thing that made me feel insane was he

he's up on stage during that America Pac rally and he's talking about how like people are mad at him and Tesla and all the hate towards him and he's like, it's George Soros man. It's an evil billionaire who's involved in politics behind the scene who's just trying to buy like influence and he's on stage as the richest man in the world About to present a publishers clearinghouse sized check to a person for To get them to vote the way he wants them to vote because he's doing it, it's just like the lack.

Well, calling out paid protesters. Right. There's not even like a, there's no irony there. Like he doesn't sense, like I think he genuinely doesn't see the issue there. Like I think he really doesn't see it. And this has been very consistent with Elon, right? Which is he is, there's no one who could ever disagree

with him in a good faith way, right? Like you have to either be evil or you're a paid protester or you're some kind of shit. Like there are no good faith disagreements with this man. This is also how his like negative polarization against the media, which then I believe led him into the arms of, you know, a lot of these people ultimately leading him to, you know,

become sort of like the, you know, the sorrows level of mega person, you know, like whatever we're gonna call it. But it all stems from that, that notion, right? Like this is a man who was hailed for so long as a Tony Stark, Thomas Edison, once in a lifetime visionary genius human being who could literally lasso the future

and bring it into the present. And the tech press for a very long time, there's obviously people who wrote negatively about Tesla or whatever, his companies, things like that. But for a long time, it was very, very credulous of everything that he was saying, taking him in his like predictions that we're gonna be on Mars by whatever 2025,

and we're not like at face value, but it just this fawning kind of nature. Cause that's the tech press kind of until a certain point operated largely that way. There was a little kind of like a press release style culture wasn't very hard hitting. And then when the tech lash came and when people started really like looking into this

and covering in more of an antagonistic way, it became this like, I really, it's not that deep, you know, like he saw it and he said, well, like, if they're saying this about me and it's clearly lies because I'm great, then they must be doing this for everything, right? They must, like you hear this a lot in like Silicon Valley, like X publication took something of mine out of context. Can you imagine what other lies are there, right? And sometimes it's an earnest mistake, sometimes it's not.

But it's based off of this idea of like, no, no, no, certainly I'm not wrong here. Like certainly it's not me. So therefore it must be you and now you need to be destroyed or whatnot. It's the genesis of, I think so much of this, just driving him into the arms of, you know, the only people he hasn't alienated yet,

which is this like this MAGA coalition. Right. And it is, it's just so simple that it almost doesn't seem like that is the explanation, but it's just, it's an unbelievable ego and narcissism. And I think you, Ellen, you see this, I mean, you've covered this, you see this with just a lot of these tech founders and Elon is, you know, maybe one of the worst, if not the worst, but, you know, there's Zuckerbergs right up there and

they just they think that they're right. They're not used to being challenged by their employees. And they're also used to be used to being like fond over by all kinds of people telling them they're geniuses and they're solving all the world's problems. And like you said, the press for a while was just kind of going along with it. And then they've always had, they've always sort of looked at government and politics as a bunch of idiots who were inefficient and couldn't quite figure it out. And if only they let the tech folks try a hand at politics and government, they could fix all the world's problems because we could just innovate our way out of it.

And to be just a little bit, like having covered this for a depressing number of years now, like there is like a little bit of, like I can understand where some of these tech people are coming from, right? Like they have built successful companies, right? Like all the sort of fawning praise over Silicon Valley, you know, in the mid aughts in the early 2010s

was predicated on this notion of like, you know, there's not a lot of like inspiring engines of American ingenuity and like building stuff, like making stuff people use, you know, like the technology like export was this real, like I think signifier of American progress and of like progressive ideals and all this stuff. And they were internalizing all that

and basically saying like, you know, yeah, like Detroit is not the hub of innovation anymore. It's Silicon Valley, like We're the ones doing. And then when the tech lash came, I think there was this understanding of like, who the hell are you guys to say this about? We have been told that we are the ones who build, who do. We are the ones who you should be listening to.

And that like, indignation. And the last thing I'll say is I think the final straw for all of them was COVID. Because there was this moment where like, indignation. And the last thing I'll say is I think like the final straw for all of them was COVID. Because there was this moment where like, you know, the George Floyd style protests, there was this, just the remote work of it all, was like, you know, taking their sort of physical power away in the terms of like, you know,

their dominion over their offices and like the flexibility that their employees can have. And then this notion of like bringing your politics to work, right, was just like, like a ghastly betrayal for them, because it's like, no, no, no, no, we like we are the central figures in this story. You're all peripheral players. And I think a lot of this has been this like revenge similar to Trump has been this feeling of like, like we're taking the reins back and it's gonna feel bad because that's the nature, like get in the right order in the hierarchy.

You wrote a piece recently about the book, Careless People, Sarah Wynne Williams, former meta employee, senior Meta employee. We've talked about the book on this show. We tried to have Sarah on and then the gag order came from Meta, so we still haven't had that interview. But you came to sort of a conclusion about the book that I shared, which is, you know, a lot of it has been, at least some of the broad strokes had

been reported in the past. She obviously adds a lot of texture, especially about Mark and Cheryl and some of the personalities at the top of Facebook and Meta, like more so than I had read anywhere else. But there's something about reading careless people at this moment that felt almost eerie. And you wrote in the piece, the chaos of the past two months, the looming constitutional crises, the firings and rehirings is what it feels like when a government is run, at least in spirit, like a technology company. When Williams's book is impressive, much of it as meta notes is older news.

What's most disorienting about Careless People is that it is packaged as a history of sorts, but its real utility to the reader is as a window into our current moment, a field guide to tech autocracy. It did feel like that. I was thinking the same thing when I read it, which is this, what it made me think of Zuckerberg is,

Zuckerberg didn't go through some transformation necessarily. Like this was always, this was his personality all along. And he, I think what Sarah chronicles at least, is that he went from not giving a shit about government and politics and not wanting to meet world leaders because he kind of thought like, I don't really need them and who cares?

And I'm doing something more important anyway, to then thinking who the fuck do these people think they are trying to regulate me or trying to, you know, get me to behave in a certain way in their countries or with their governments or change my platform in any way that might, you know, help the broader good because I know what the broader, I know what the public good is, right? And I'm Mark Zuckerberg, and who's going to challenge me? And it's like, that is the, that seems to be the running theory of how Elon Musk is participating in government, how the JD Vances of the world are, and you know, it fits with Trump's whole style as well. It's, it's a little of that, I think, for certain, like, or not a little, it's a lot of that. It's a little of that, I think, for certain. Or not a little of that, it's a lot of that.

And that notion of like, would you just leave me alone while I like save the world, okay? Like, just like, you don't, like, please. None of this, right? There's an element of that. But I also think that there is this element of like software engineering style. The cliche is move fast and break things,

but to sort of like build on that a little, it's more like move fast and we can delete it later, right? Like, we're going to push out some code. You know, it's not great, but let's like, we'll get it in the update, like the app update, right? Like this idea that, like, stuff, it doesn't matter that we can, you know, that we're a little bit reckless with this or that we're completely shooting from the hip and making it up, building the plane as we fly, etc. Like, that's okay because, like, we'll get it on the next iteration of this. And you see in the book, I think, chillingly,

with what happened with the genocide in Myanmar being probably the canonical example of this, is like, you can't delete that. People died. A regime crumbled. These things, when they interact with the physical world, or, you know, more clearly, politics, like, these things, there's no undo button, right?

There's no Ctrl-Z or whatever. Like, it's so real. And I think it's the thing that they can't grasp. Like, it's, to me, the fundamental thing that I see with Elon and, like, Doge, which is just like, yeah, we're going to get rid of all that code in the social security system because it's old and it's not good or anything.

And it's like, yeah, but also like there are people whose livelihoods depend on those checks. And like if they don't get them for three weeks, like you can't necessarily undo some of that damage or like what if you break the whole thing? You know, like it's there's there's this feeling there that everything is treated a little bit like code and in that world the the optimism of it the you know, sort of like the techno utopian part of that is that like there's infinite permutations infinite abilities to go back to make things better better, to rewrite your history, to update and revise. But in reality, it's like, no, the reason the government is so slow, sometimes awfully slow, sometimes incorrectly slow, is like the stakes are so fucking high and real people are involved and you can't delete.

So yeah, it's frustrating. It reminded me of when Elon was in the Oval and or I think maybe he was at the cabinet meeting and he was like, yeah, you know, like I'm willing to admit when we make mistakes, like we briefly turned off Ebola protection and then, but then we realized that we turned it back on as if it was like a machine or it was like you're saying.

It also turns out that the Washington Post later reported that they didn't turn it back on. They were just lying about it. Yeah, they were just like, but the idea that like, yeah, we're gonna break a few things, we're gonna have a few programs we're gonna turn off and we'll come back to it later.

It's like, well then people will be dead or people who were counting on checks won't get them or whatever else it may be. It is, it's quite bad, it's quite bad. Offline is brought to you by Haya. Typical children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise filled with two teaspoons of sugar, unhealthy chemicals and other gummy additives growing kids should never eat. That's why Haya created a super powered chewable vitamin.

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social media is awash in studio, Ghibli-inspired, AI-generated memes and portraits. If you're confused by that sentence, just know that I am too. So I have no idea how to make these memes, nor why they're all over my feed, but Charlie, you wrote a great piece about this trend this week for the Atlantic,

which was really a piece about the evolution of the White House Twitter account, which is wild. Before we get to that, what the White House tweeted, can you explain to me, someone who has the most basic understanding of how chat GPT works, I use it once in a while for some research things here and there, nothing else, why I'm seeing all these memes on my feed? Yeah. Well, you know, former speech writer like yourself, you know, you can't use chat GPT, you gotta, you know, keep the walls up.

No. Okay, so essentially, chat GPT, OpenAI is the company behind it, obviously a very famous product. They had a product update that did a number of things, but one of the things that it included was an update to its image generating capabilities and its abilities to mimic different styles, right? Like the image generators were able to do this before and even quite well in some cases, but this update for whatever reason, I mean,

more props to them, like it's really good. Like you can say like, you know, give me that viral hippo mood dang, like, make him a Renaissance painting. And it does, and it looks like Vermeer or whatever. You know, it's like, or whatever. It's beautiful. As much as a, you know, a chat GPT image can be.

And so somewhere, you know, how trends start, you never really know, somebody started posting them in the style of this studio Ghibli, with this famous Japanese art studio that's made a bunch of very critically acclaimed anime. The creator of that studio happens to believe that artificial intelligence is an insult to life itself.

That's its own little side category. So it's like a real just like punch in the face of this brilliant auteur and artist. That aside, these images started going viral because they were really good. They were just like really. And so it started with, you know, the first ones that I saw were really totally understandable and normal. It was like I took a family photo and ran it through and now it looks like this, you know, this famous cartoon style, whatever.

And then of course, like, you know, it hits the fever swamps of X and it just immediately becomes like, the first one I saw was like, the JFK assassination. Like, Zapruder film still of like, you know, Secret Service agents over slumped over the president's dead body in this style. And you're like, whoa, okay.

So then immediately we have, like, 9-11, we have Abu Ghraib photos, like, just like crazy stuff. I mean, the worst one I saw was a re-enactment or whatever of a still of a security camera from Columbine of the two shooters. Yeah, just like real, like I am not thinking about, you know, anyone's humanity in this process. Anyway, it went sufficiently viral that like any influencer or content creator, the White House decided

to get involved in it in its own way, which it took a photo of a woman being arrested and crying in handcuffs by ICE agents and, you know, ran it through the Studio Ghibli AI thing and just tweeted it out, just like that, with no real context. And you wrote a piece about this and it's part of this trend from the White House and especially their Twitter account, which by the way, it is wild what the White House Twitter account has become.

It's nuts. I mean, we saw when Obama was in the White House, it's just like the official account where you like, and it was by design relatively boring, right? Like you're putting out press releases and the president's speeches and whatever else. And now it's just like, it's just trolling people all the time. And like there's the ASMR deportation video,

which was just fucking gross. And it really is, and you wrote this in the piece, but it feels like the goal here, whether it's intentional or not is, or at least the result is really dehumanizing people. And I don't love to just like jump to that explanation or fall into that trap, but like this is, when you look at the deportations,

when you look at the we're gonna kidnap people and stuff, this is what they're trying to do, which is like, oh, this is no big deal. We think it's funny. You can laugh at it too. We can all laugh at it. It's fine. It's not real.

It's the internet. Don't pay too much attention to this. That's how it feels to me. I think it even goes beyond that. Like truly it's like these people are, it's almost like these people aren't real, right? Not just like this thing is not real. It's like these I think it even goes beyond that. Like truly, it's like these people are, it's almost like these people aren't real, right? Not just like this thing is not real. It's like these aren't actual,

like the reason why I decided to write this piece was I've been thinking about it for a while, but when I saw that ASMR deportation video thing, like there is a scene in it, it's 41 seconds long, but there's a scene in it where literally they are laying out shackles and it's just the sound of chains hitting the ground and like, the way that it is shot and put together is in this way of it's like, you know, first of all, ASMR videos are like

sensual, right? Like truly, like there's like a like almost like borderline, like erotic thing with like ASMRs, right? Like that's why influencers capitalize on it, all this stuff. And to use that framework to talk about the rattling of chains, the sound of men being held in literal bondage, walking up to be deported. There's this feeling of true release of true like, release and joy that is like strangely psychosexual that I think really like it made my stomach drop because of that realization of like, oh, they are not like this is not a portrayal of these people who

are being deported as not only worthy of human dignity, but like people themselves. And that is just like really genuinely disturbing. And the fact that it's coming from something that bears the White House. Like I'm trying not to get like all, you know, on the high horse about institutions, but it really is. It's the White House, you know, like it's, it's like, it couldn you know, like yeah, it's it's Like it couldn't be more alarming to me. That's sort of why I wrote about it. It's just like it just signifies something The word I use was like sinister like there's something Sinister about the way that they're excited about it and that's kind of yeah I also it made me think that if we

You know a problem we've talked about a lot with social media and the internet, but especially social media, is that it sort of flattens everything. It does, you know, you can get in fights on social media more easily because you don't see the face of the person, you don't see their expressions, that sometimes you don't even know, you know, what they look like if they don't have their picture up, right? And so there's this anonymity, which makes kind of dehumanizing behavior easier to do. And I think that now with the way that the politics are

of MAGA and Trump and Elon, when you combine that with how we all get our information, part of me feels like if we're gonna survive this, like we're gonna have to maintain our sense of humanity, which requires us to not be swimming in all of this filth all the time, because you can very easily see how people can just, even if they don't start there,

sort of go to a place where they're like, oh yeah, it's another joke and whatever, I'm not shocked anymore and I've seen it all and I'm going to laugh too and whatever else, right? Like I do think there's a danger there. Yeah. I mean, again, there's a way in which like some of this can read as like, you know, you're clutching pearls when people are having fun online with some of the AI art stuff. But I do think that there's something troubling instinctually about this, open AI comes out with this tool.

Very quickly, the meme on a place like X was, how do we take like fucked up moments of like news and politics from the last century and like run them through this thing? Like that is sort of the instinct there and like, you know, the person who did the Columbine shooter like image in the Studio Ghibli style was an employee of X is one of Elon Musk's employees at X and like the thing was captioned with like, oh my God, like open AI let me do this, like LMFAO, right? And it's just like that detached irony, like again, I get it, like this person is not him,

like they're not like school shooters themselves, right? Like it's, I understand they're like edgelords having fun online and or like being provoking or like this detached sense of irony. But it's just like that instinct feels really corrosive. That like that is what we reach for whenever there's like a new piece of technology or a new thing to talk about. We like bring it into this prism.

And it is at the end of the day, it like if it's not dehumanizing it's like it's flattening like you said or like putting another layer between you and the humanity of something else. Yes, yeah and it is something for people to be aware of when they are scrolling through their feeds and seeing that. Charlie this was fun even though even though the state of the world is fucking awful next time you come back we'll have to have better news, hopefully, to talk about on the internet. But this was great. Thanks for doing it.

Yeah, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. As always, if you have comments, questions, or guest ideas, email us at offline at crooked.com. And if you're as opinionated as we are, please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. For ad-free episodes of Offline in Podsave America, exclusive content, and more, join our friends at the pod subscription community at crooked.com friends. And if you like watching your podcast, subscribe to the Offline with John Favreau

YouTube channel. Don't forget to follow Crooked Media on. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. The show is produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illich-Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Audio support from Charlotte Landis and Kyle Segland. Dilan Villanueva produces our videos each week. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, and Adrian Hill for production support. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Thank you.