Regular readers of this space know we frequently track the lengthy pauses in Elon Musk’s speech while he gathers some bullshit his thoughts, but we got an all-timer in the billionaire influencer’s bizarre and wild CNBC interview on Tuesday.
Let’s go to the tape, where we find an Elon-pause that may never be topped:
That’s reporter David Faber interviewing Elon at the Gigafactory in Austin. At the top of this clip, Faber questions Elon about his frequent tweets that appear to elevate conspiracy theories.
Elon: “Well… yes, but I mean honestly, you know…” [strange, sucked-in indignant chuckle]
That’s right, I’m inventing a new category live right here, the strange, sucked-in indignant chuckle Elon employs when cornered. That’s x1.
(This is a data-first operation we run here, after all)
Anyway, Elon was telling us why he promotes conspiracy theories:
Elon: “Some of these conspiracy theories [strokes chin sagely] have turned out to be true.”
David Faber: “Which ones?”
Elon: “Well, like the Hunter Biden laptop.”
David Faber: “That’s true?”
Elon: “Yeah, so you know, that-that was a pretty big deal, there was... Twitter and-and-and-and others engaged in acts of suppression of information that were relevant to the public. That’s a terrible thing that happened, that’s like an interference.”
One might say, “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” For example, if you were a wheezing, deflating orange balloon with nothing else of substance to say.
That brings the conversation to Elon’s recent tweets about George Soros, which appeared to echo neo-Nazi conspiracy theories. From Hunter:
On Monday night, Musk tweeted that "Soros reminds me of Magneto." Possibly while high, this exchange happened:
"Soros hates humanity" is a level of vitriol not commonly seen except in white supremacist circles. Not to mention that ”wants to erode the very fabric of civilization" is a direct lift from neo-Nazi conspiracy claims. These claims theorize Soros, a Holocaust survivor, is secretly orchestrating the arrival of asylum seekers who are not white at our borders and at the borders of "white" European nations. They claim this is happening while he is undermining Europe through his charitable support for groups that promote free elections during a time when multiple European democracies have been backsliding into authoritarian-minded oppression.
At 1:05 in the CNBC interview, Elon attempts to hand-wave that away:
Elon: “I said he reminds me of Magneto. This is like… Calm down, people, [unclear] metaphoric, let’s not make a Federal case out of it.”
[pushes out a barked laugh]
For you scoreboard watchers:
- Sucked-in indignant laughs: 01
- Pushed-out barking seal laughs: 01
Try as Elon might to laugh all this away, he’s reminded by David Faber he literally tweeted, “Soros hates humanity.”
Elon: “Yeah, I think that’s true. That's my opinion.”
David Faber: “Okay, but why share it? Why share it, when people who buy Teslas may not agree with you, advertisers on Twitter may not agree with you, Why not just say, ‘Hey, I think this’ — you can tell me, we can talk about it over [off camera], you can tell your friends, but why share it widely?”
Elon clock watchers, we get a 3-Mississippi warm-up here, though trust me — that’s nothing with what’s to come.
Elon: “I mean, um, this is freedom of speech and I’m allowed to say what I…”
David Faber: “You absolutely are. But I’m trying to understand why you do. … People today saying, ‘he’s an anti-Semite.’ I don’t think you are.”
Elon: “No, I’m definitely not. I’m like a pro-Semite. If anything.”
I’ll bet “he doesn’t see color,” either.
Elon tries to push on, feebly:
Elon: “We don’t want to make this a George Soros interview.”
It’s almost like Elon here is answering on a subconscious level the very line of questioning David Faber is on. Why make tweets if you don’t want to be grilled on national TV and asked to prove you’re not an anti-Semite? That pesky media, amIright?
So here we finally come to it, readers. At 2:28, alert the folks at Guinness:
David Faber: “Do your tweets hurt the company? Are there Tesla owners who say I don’t agree with his political position, and I know it because he shares so much of it. Or are there advertisers on Twitter that Linda Yaccarino will come and say, you got to stop man or, you know, I can’t get these ads because of some of the things you tweet.”
Elon: [Stares off-right, middle distance]
An unprecedented 14-Mississippi. Fourteen seconds!
Elon: “You know, I’m reminded of, uh….”
This is followed by a 4.5-Mississippi — enough to impress any other day in these parts.
Elon: “There's a scene in The Princess Bride. Great movie.”
David Faber: “Great movie.”
Elon: “Um, where he confronts the person who killed his father. And he says…”
Five-Mississippi here.
Elon: “Offer me money. Offer me power. I don’t care.”
At the end there he put his own little spin on it that we’ll charitably call a performance.
Here’s Mandy Patinkin, of course, giving a genuine performance in the very scene Elon has mangled the meaning of in his mind:
We’ll just note this scene ends with a passionate Inigo saying he “wants his father back, you son of a bitch.” I suspect that last bit at least rings a little true for Elon.
The two next discuss Elon’s knowledge of PSYOPs and white supremacy. Again, from Hunter’s reporting here at DailyKos:
Here is how it unfolded. Bellingcat researcher Aric Toler posted a long thread highlighting the murderer's social media posts. They are abhorrent, and seemingly obsessively so. A long list of admiring posts featuring Nazi supporters and Nazi dress up, interspersed with extremely disturbing far-right rants against Jews, women, trans Americans and others. None of that is anything Musk and the online far right—much less Texas Republican lawmakers—give a shit about, of course. More uncomfortable was that the terrorist was a fan of several of the same far-right and hate accounts that Elon Musk himself keeps promoting.
After that, Elon chimed in to tweet his suspicions the reporters made the entire story up. At 3:35 he explains all this to David Faber:
Elon: “Oh, in that particular case, uh, there was, uh, a….”
Four-Mississippi. — yawn.
Elon: “Somehow… That... that-that’s… Not-not that the-the-the... obviously people were killed. The.. it was… I think it was incorrectly ascribed to a white supremacist action. And the evidence for that was some obscure Russian website that no one’s ever heard of that had no followers. And the, like, the company that found this, Bellingcat — do you know what Bellingcat is? [leans in] PSYOPs!”
Elon adds an oversized “who knows” expression and shrug here.
David Faber: “I couldn’t really follow exactly what it was you were trying to express there, so that’s in part why I was curious…”
Elon: “I’m saying I thought ascribing it to white supremacy is bullshit. And the information for that came from an obscure Russian website and was somehow magically found by Bellingcat, which is a company that does PSYOPs.”
And this is a debate Elon really want to get into on Twitter? The platform he’s driven advertisers away from with his tweets to such a degree he brought in NBCU’s ad sales chief to try and lure them back?
Elon: “Yes. Because we should not be ascribing things to white supremacy if it’s false.”
Priorities, people.
Tax Musk. Fund NASA. Get a different result.
Okay, I’m through. See you in the comments.