The Chaser Report - Horrible Bosses 3: Elon Musk & Charles Firth

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Pay disputes and dodgy union practises for all in today's Chaser Report! Aleksa deep dives into Elon Musk's recent lawsuits about inhuman treatment of human employees and animals alike. Meanwhile Lachlan brings forward a pay dispute that has plagued The Interns for over a year - which Charles wants to keep under wraps. Plus Gabbi has been asked (by us) to host Eurovision and shows us her favourite competitors this year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Wednesday the 16th of February. I'm Charles Firth and with me today are Alexa and Gabby. Hey-yo! Hello. Eurovision is heating up. Yes, it is. Eurovision, I don't know if you know this about me, Charles, but Eurovision for me is like my Christmas. Like, Eurovision is the thing I've celebrated without fail every year.

I believe there is an almighty power. It is the Eurovision board. and I've been keeping tabs on what songs are entering the competition this year. So if you don't know, every single country has like a competition, kind of like, you know, a country idol. Yeah, like a mini Eurovision within their country to select their song that they send to the big worldwide event. And does that include Australia? Yeah, we have Australia decides.

That's what it is. Oh, okay. So I don't know when that is. I don't care, because here's the thing, you don't watch Eurovision for your own country. Right. I don't give a flying fuck what Australia is doing. I go for them, I support them, it's great fun. But I'm looking at the small European nations

because they own Eurovision. They are the best every year and they never get the credit they deserve. So one of my favorites that I've been keeping my eye on was Latvia, right? And Latvia, there was this song that I was like, they're never going to pick it. They're never going to pick it.

It's too vulgar. They're never going to pick it, but I want them to pick it. And it got picked. This is the song they picked. Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy. I like them both fresh, like them both juicy. I am obsessed.

Wait, did he say he liked them both fresh? Yeah, that's, yeah. What's a fresh pussy? Look, let's not focus on the details, all right? I don't know what he's talking about. I don't actually care about the details. You know what's funny about that song? It's about climate progress.

It's about being green. It's called to eat your salads. I don't give a fuck about the environmental message. I don't care about the implications of what fresh pussy is. I want them to say pussy on a worldwide stage, and I am very excited. Because the thing is, they're notoriously censored. It's impairing, it's saying eat pussy, saying, you know. You familiar with the concept, child?

Pleasure women. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy. It's like, it's a win. But Eurovision is notoriously censored. So last year, there was an entry that had middle fingers referenced, right? and they couldn't do it. So instead, the band painted their middle finger red

and kind of just held their hands up to insinuate. So I'm sitting here going, and they picked the pussy song, what's going to happen? Are they going to have to blank it out or something? Maybe they'll just have to say vagina instead. Yeah, technical term. Or like, I suppose, I mean, they're from Latvia. There could be a word for it in their language,

which I can't remember. A secret language that no one else speaks. It's perfect. But so I got so excited that I was like, I have to find other favorites. You can't go to Eurovision just liking one song. Can I just ask, did the Latvian people decide this? Like, who was the decision-making body?

I can't remember whether it's like a vote base or whether it's like a board of people from Latvia pick, but I think it is a bit of a popularity thing. Is it possible that they didn't know what the song was saying? Oh, no. No, they know. They know. All European nations, but mostly speak English as a second-year. I just assumed, like, the Latvian 60 Minutes

had a puff piece on this guy before the election. Yes. And it swayed everyone to the meat and pussy. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that 60 minutes interview would have been a lot better. And his wife would have been like, yeah, I really support this guy. I wrote the song. But anyway, so I got invested, right?

And I was like, I'm going to check out what some other countries are doing. And I think, I've hit a gold mine. And it's really hard to decide, right? Moldova, they film the auditions. Not just like a selection of the best songs to then pick their one winner. They film the, they just go, if you want to audition, you'll be filmed and you'll be in the running. It is the best thing I have ever seen. Moldovan auditions are the best thing about it.

First of all, there was this man, the first song I'll show you. This man, you have to, I know it's a podcast and then he did stop picking visually, but this is an old guy probably in his 70s who is singing this song with the expression of somebody who's just lost their loved ones. He's dressed like he's at a funeral. Yeah, he's dressed like he's at a funeral, but he sings like he's out of karaoke bar at 8 p.m. on a Thursday. he just keeps going the entire time the best thing i've ever seen i've ever seen uh and then the next one

i just thought that's the winner i was like that he has to win it just kept getting better the next song is called magic carpet and yes they had a carpet on stage And so I was the best, okay, okay, so you think that's going to win. And just when you think that's going to win, I think I found the winner. This next song is called, I just had sex with your ex. Play it, Charles. I must confess, my life's complex, my life's grotes. I just had sex with your ex.

I just had sex. Send him. I want, I just had sex with your ex from Moldova, and I'm so glad we have, instead of meat, I ate veggies and pussy. So, but wait a minute. So which one won? I don't know yet. Oh, you don't know.

I don't know. Surely the carpet one. Well, I don't. It's so close competition. I have no idea. It could go anyway. I mean, they could pick a normal. There were plenty of other, you know, normal songs.

But that's what not, that's not what you're about. They should have a song about eating carpet. Oh. Oh. Yeah. But anyway, so I'm going to keep my eye out for some more smaller European nations and see what they're up to because I, I just, I'm obsessed. Oh, well, this is great.

I think we should turn the podcast into the river. I'm angling for Sam Pang's job one day. That's, I want to just do it once. I think you should go to, I think you should enter Australia decides. Oh, and they would never pick me. You have to have done at least one reality TV show in this country to be even considered. I reckon Press Club would do all right. Press Club might do all right.

Do you reckon we should try it? Yeah. Press Club. I just wish that we took the Moldovan approach and just let everyone who auditioned be televised. It's great. Well, there's not much else going on in Moldo. This is all they've got. Coming up on the show, we've got Alexa.

Well, he's already here. You're already here in each. Yeah, what it would. Sorry. Coming up on the show, Alexa, what are you doing? It's talking about how much I hate Elon Musk. Great. And also, Lachlan has an intern issue, Charles Lee wants to raise with us. Oh, dear.

Yeah, I know. I don't know who's in trouble, but it's not me. Oh, is it made? Whatever it is, Alexa did it. What? But all that coming up after this with Rebecca Deunamuno in the Chaser Newsroom. Grace Tame has been hailed as the only person ever capable of making weed even cooler than it already was. After the Daily Mail dug up an old photo of the Australian of the Year ripping a bong, with plans it would demerit Thames public image,

weed sales across the country skyrocketed with shelves in supermarkets depleting all stock of Gatorade bottles and garden hoses. Aspiring musicians Scott Morrison has introduced a ukulele discrimination bill into Parliament. Morrison has moved for the bill to be passed in order to provide additional protections to the ukulele community, which, according to him, are misunderstood and harassed. by the rest of society.

The Office of Dom Perrote has suffered another devastating loss after results from the recent Bega election came out with a vast swing toward Labor. Perrote, however, has been in a surprisingly good mood despite the loss with staffers saying he was happy to lose the election upon finding out it was by. That's the latest headlines from the Chaser Newsroom. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno.

and there are definitely not any photos online of me smoking a bong. Mm-mm. Nope. Alexer is here and Elon Musk has been in the news again. Yeah, he's fucked. He's the worst. Oh, whoa, what's heaven? He's, well, I mean, he's...

I mean, yeah, I knew he's... He's fucked for a lot of reasons, but this week there are two specific reasons that we're all focusing on. Two heinous crimes. I did notice he was on your list on your desk with just a bunch of red blood marks through it. So, yeah, he must have done something pretty bad.

He's sort of turning into a Bond villain, isn't he? He looks like a Bond villain. He looks leathery. I was saying this before off, Mike. I was saying he looks like a leather suit. And also he's got a South African-X-in. Yeah, classic. He's got some competition from Jeff Bezos, though,

kind of Lex Luthor looking dude. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I think Jeff Bezos is a sort of comic evil villain. Yeah, he's a bit more of Dr. Evil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about this another time. But what's he done? In all these superhero movies, you've got, like, multiple villains to deal with in, like,

trilogies and... Yeah. So what's the no-way home of capitalism done this week? Well, he's done two fucked up things. One of them is to do with, like, these pretty horrible racial slurs involving the word monkey. That's horrible. I won't go any further into it. Oh, my God.

And the other one is to do with actual monkey. like the animal, not the band or the... Oh, shit. Pretty much Tesla owns this megafactory in California. There's no union. The company's cracked down on any worker organization. And they've got this unique thing going on there. Well, actually, it's not that unique.

I feel like it's pretty common among big American companies. And I think we've got a similar thing here at the Chaser as well. But workers have to sign an arbitration agreement, which means they can't take any complaints in the workplace to court. Instead, they do, like, secret proceedings with private judges in the company. A company court Yeah, yeah Oh my God

I thought that was like From the 1870s I mean No no it's still going How don't even allow that How is that a law? I don't know He's a big rich man

Um And there's no option to appeal You know So you kind of just go there With your issue And they say nah So the judge goes I hereby agree with my boss

Because I have no other choice So obviously A system like this Issues don't get sold And there were these pervasive complaints since 2012, that kept getting hushed and kind of fucked up in their internal mechanism. Pretty much workers were segregated based on race. That's so fucked up.

Yeah, it's insane. And not only workers, but supervisors and managers all use these horrendous racial slurs directed at black workers, which, you know, don't have to repeat on the podcast. And these aren't, like, racist micro-regions either. These are people dug into, like, proper old school, like colonial racism. It's like well-research, hard-hitting. year is this complaint like I know that's coming to light now but what year are they talking about what started in 2012 so we've had a decade that's so fucked yeah it's so long and the worst part was

Elon Musk knew and he they dug up these internal emails so he responded to this like huge racism mission with his company and his angle was like you know a Tesla where like building the future we're all entrepreneurs and we're grinding and the company has a culture that's quote hardcore and demanding no and so it's like anyone who makes an quote in unintentional slur should apologize, but he added that anyone who complains should, quote, be thick-skinned and accept the apology. What the fuck? And so after a decade of ignoring these workplace abuses,

it finally exploded into the public sphere. And now it's the largest ever lawsuit on the grounds of racial discrimination in California. Wow. So you've got these like hundreds of people who are essentially. Oh my God. What a cunt. Yeah, yeah. But there's more.

So he's got two big. stories this week. The other one is to do with Neurrelink, which is his, I don't know, bizarre, like, mind slash machine thing where you can, like, plug your brain into the internet directly. I hate that. Yeah, that's the thing. And so he's experimenting on monkeys for this, which is bullshit because, like, who even wants... The Apes. It's the plot of Planet of the Apes. So what's the idea you're putting, he's putting chips into monkeys' brains as a reason? So to allow you to interface directly with the internet, instead of, like, using your thumbs, which he says is, like, too slow.

it's faster if you're like bam straight to Wikipedia from your... I mean, I know it sounds evil bond villain. It's Planet of the Apes. But don't you think that would be sort of cool if you could do that? No! No, it wouldn't be cool! I think it'd be terrifying.

Terrifying! Also, I remember watching him like a couple of years ago on Joe Rogan. Oh my God. But he poses as this like techno messiah and he's like complaining like how technology's moving so fast and like government can't regulate it

because you know it's too fast to be regulated and he's like complaining about this And it's like, you're the dickhead who's doing it. Like, you're the guy who's pushing in it. Stop. He's like, no one will listen to me. So has he managed to get the internet into monkeys' brains? Well, he managed to get a lot of other things into monkeys' brains.

So there's a fucked up stories. So pretty much like all the monkeys that he experimented on were like self-mutilating, like ripping their own fingers off. Oh, what? One of them, this macaque had electrodes implanted into her brain and was overcome with vomiting and retching and gasping and days later. just collapsed from exhaustion and fatigue. So 15 of the 23 monkeys died and every single one of them had debilitating side effects.

But like, which is, you know, torturing animals, fair, whatever. People do that. But the reason it's come to light now is just in January, he posted a job listing because they're starting clinical trials on humans this year. No. Oh, no. No. So even though, like, most of the, like, pretty much all the,

these monkeys had these horrible side effects. It's like, well, it's time for the next step. The point of clinical trials is to see if it might work. If it doesn't work, you don't do it. But how, I mean, that cannot be. This is a Spider-Man plot. Experiments have to go past ethics boards. You can't just.

Well, I don't know. We just revealed how he doesn't go past the judicial system. Do you really think the can't goes past ethics boards? Well, no. This guy has got to be stopped. He's got to be shot. We need to dispatch James Bond immediately. We need to get Javier Bardem on a bus.

out villain the villain I'd love to help with this mission of stopping Elon us but I've actually decided to tell you guys this is my last day on the podcast so I saw this job application Have you signed up? I've been accepted for the job

of head race segregator The Chaser Report News a few days after it happens So Loughlin has dropped in And apparently there's some issue With the interns What's going on? I don't like the direction

that you've gone at this child's issue with the interns. Oh, thank God. I was so worried that I'd done something. And I completely blamed Alexa in the intro. I already packed my desk. I can put my laptop back. Well, that's because you're working for Elon Musk, but anyway, keep going.

Gabby and Alexa, we're the victims here. We are the victims of a year-long pay dispute and disagreement with this very man right here. Oh, our very own Elon Musk. This was already arbitrated in the Chaser Court, though. Yeah. Yeah, we've already decided. And he said no.

And apparently, according to the court that I set up, you're actually all overpaid. We can't argue with the court. And so this is the issues. We're at the middle of, the chaser interns have been at the middle of a whole lot of big controversies and conspiracies. We did fairy bread gate. We did steak gate. But this one really takes the cake. Gate.

We've just reached the one year anniversary of soft serve gate. Oh, this. One year ago, Charles Henry Danger Bergman First. Fifty-seven years old. Promised the interns that if our shitty little Twitter page got a thousand followers, he would pay to have all of us, he would pay 70 cents for each of us to have a soft serve.

Do you recall this meeting? I do. I was made to forget by the mind control machine, but I remember now. No, this is not true. If you go back and look on Twitter. Charles, it's three on one. No, you will see quite clearly that at that time you said,

oh, you know, if we get a thousand likes, our boss will give us soft serve. And I replied, no, you won't. Gaslighting. Gaslighting, gold boss. The second we did. So this was met, of course, naturally, by international acclaim. Everyone started following us. We got a thousand followers, snap.

And where were our soft serves? Nowhere to be seen. Because Charles turned his back on a gentleman's agreement. Well, I hadn't at all. There was nothing in writing. There was in writing. Actually, I think you'll find that in my contract that I haven't read. You say at the bottom, Gabby, once you start working for us,

once the Twitter account gets a thousand followers, well, buy you guys ice cream. That might be true. I did say that to Gabby. But that was part of a divide and rule thing. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I thought it was for all of us. Your brain does smell like softserve.

He's turning us. Don't let him turn us against each other guys. I'm happy to give Gabby a soft serve every day. Don't take it. It's just everyone else. Wait, wait, I can get soft serve. Yeah, you can get soft serve. Gabby, you've got to.

And I'll make you an official, I'll make you a judge on the company court. Oh my God, a female position CEO. Okay. You can be the, yeah, you can be the woman. I think I would. Gabby, don't do this to us. Please, there's more. What's in it for me?

What's in it for you? I'll tell you what's in it for you. So someone that we actually genuinely don't know and it's not affiliated with us at all. Oh, yes, the union. A Twitter page called the Chaser Interns Union, which has every day for the last year tweeted at Charles saying, I demand soft serves for interns. Yeah. We recently got fan mail. What?

So I can offer you, Gabby. What? This looks like a ransom. Wait, that's the thing that arrived from Queensland. Someone said us from Queensland. plaque. It's a purple and white plaque of the word soft serve. I love it. I love

it. You know what? That's not just a plaque. That's actually... Oh, shit. I broke it. See what I mean? He's trying to... He's trying to... He's trying to... He's trying to... You know what? No, I will stand. That's a stencil. You could go around and spray paint there. All over the office. All over the office.

As part of your protest. I think you've swayed me, Lockwood. I think until we all have soft serve, we don't have soft serve, you know? All for one. No, Gabby. Gabby. Gabby. I could give you two soft serves on Sunday. Oh shit. Sprinkles. You could get sprinkles once a week.

It'll never give you a flake though. Never. Never giving you. I think I can make everyone happy. It's trickle down soft serve, all right? Charles, how much do you value me as a worker? I, oh. Would you say about six soft serves worth?

Put it this way, you're completely replaceable. Right. Okay. But like, would you give me six softserves? You're definitely better than ever. everyone else. Okay, great. So if I bargained for six. No, not six. Five. No, I reckon like two. Three. Okay. Three. Okay. All right. Everyone gets half a soft serve. I'll get three soft serves and I'll bring them. I promise. Like, you can just have my word on this. I won't eat them myself. I'll just,

I'll bring the three soft serves to all of us and I'll just create our own little communist utopia in the office. Well, I thought Trickle Down would involve you eating them and then us getting them after you've eaten them. Right? Isn't that? That is usually how Trickle Down works. I just thought I'd be a bit nicer. I just figured you wouldn't want to literally eat shit. So it's up to you. I'm happy to... Or you thought wrong, Gabby.

Look, I think... I don't like where any of this is going. I think it's inappropriate for you to discuss soft serve at work. I think that is a... We're not eating shit. That's fine. That is a breach. That is a breach of company policy for you to discuss what sort of...

soft serve you get and and frankly you know I think all soft serve privileges are here by revoked we didn't have any soft serve but the whole thing is like when I go and get my soft serve each day I don't have enough hands to get it they give you trade I just want a soft serve yeah you know what lucky I'll buy you a soft serve thank you gab if you're not CEO just act like you are Hey. Soft serve for the job you want, not the job you have. That's right. Our gear is from road microphones and we're a part of the ACAS creator network.

And I'm saying the outro announcement because I want Charles's job. By the way, if anyone donates on the basis that I will then pass that donation on for soft serve. It's not coming to us. He still owes us $50. He does. He stole $50 from our account. I did, yeah. It's never paid us back.

We got that posted note, but I'm sure he's going to close. And then he's going to claim that it wasn't really. Post a note is actually followed by a tweet that says, No. No.