Musk in the Media’s Crosshairs

(00:00.49)

Yeah, Elon Musk is in the crosshairs of the media. And as soon as I saw that, as soon as I saw the Fox News is of the world, as soon as I saw the MSNBC, the CNN, when it was a collective, let’s go after Elon Musk, I knew something was off. Something was amiss. And the story that got everybody’s attention was the first one was in regards to Ukraine and Starlink. And I guess it was a miss.

interpretation by Walter Isaacson. Again, full disclosure, I’m a big fan of Walter Isaacson’s books, I guess just came out on Elon Musk. And basically talking about how he shut down Starlink, shut down Starlink and wouldn’t allow Ukraine to have an attack on Crimea. Basically one of that they have their Russia has their major Black Sea port that was there. And this was earlier on

in the conflict. And as it turns out, again, the media was wrong. I don’t think they were wrong. I think they just didn’t care. I think they were just lying to people and trying to get people all revved up against Musk. And the thing was, and what actually happened was, is that the Ukrainian government asked Elon Musk to turn on Starlink over Crimea, because again, it was ordered because of sanctions to be shut down.

for Russia, and obviously Crimea was part of Russian territory. They asked them to turn it on, basically going against these sanctions so they could attack this port. And again, Elon Musk taking a step back saying, and again, I see it too, earlier on in the conflict. Imagine having that type of power and you’re saying, okay, I’m going to turn this on. They conduct an attack and then all of a sudden Russia.

comes back with some sort of tactical nuke. And you got to have that on your conscience throughout your life. I don’t care whether you agree with Musk or not, but you can understand his point. And he’s not a bad person for going in that direction. I get it completely. But he did an interview, and they were talking about the weaponization of government and the misuse of prosecutorial discretion.

(02:24.102)

And they basically asking Elon and you know, why the administration, the Biden administration is after me. He says, I said, I don’t think the whole administration has it out for me, but I think there’s probably aspects of the administration or aspects of interest aligned with President Biden, who probably do not wish good things for me. And again, he’s talking about SpaceX. They’re still waiting for approval from the FAA. They got another planned starship.

that they want to send up into there and they’re not able to do that. And again, he talked about China as well. And this was also part of Walter Isaac’s book. And again, I saw this being covered today on Fox and Friends. And again, being honest, oftentimes they have a very, how shall I put it, vapid, shallow view and how the world works.

And again, they were talking points in regards to what Musk had said about his relationship was to China and the fact that he put it out there. He said, I think I’ve done enough business there that I think I understand these people and how they think. And he came under fire from, it was, what was it? One of the Joseph Wu, who was the Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Musk had made the comment.

talking about how China felt that Taiwan was an integral part of China. And, you know, Joseph Wu from Taiwan came back at that and going after, you know, X and you know, whether or not they’re going to allow them to turn X on in China, and it’s, it’s being censored. Again, people don’t, you got to expand your mind to some degree when it comes to understanding certain cultures and cultural differences. I mean, this is a

a country, if you will, it’s been around for thousands of years. And they their way of thinking, if actually studied, it really hasn’t changed much. And it’s important you want to be able to understand who your adversary is, your opponent is in this case, would must love to turn X on in China.

(04:45.694)

he probably would, but he knows that if he’s going to do that, he’s going to have to go by that country’s rules. And yeah, they may have to censor some things. We’ve had that in regards to Hollywood and what Hollywood does to get in to that market. Again, again, you might disagree with that. You might agree with that. But let’s understand something. We cannot just decouple.

from China. It’s just not possible. That’s like dropping a cinder block into a bathtub filled with water and what it would do to the overall global economy and the type of repercussions that would happen. So again, you’re going to have to try to work towards some happy medium in the same way. And I love people pointing out China and human rights abuses. Yeah.

And we want to change the way that they’re doing things there. I get it. I understand it. But we all knew about what takes place in Saudi Arabia, what’s taking place with them. But we’ve had no trouble doing business with that country. Take a look at all of our, the buddies that we have, all of these African dictators that are now getting thrown out of office and stealing all our country’s resources and sending them over to some Swiss bank somewhere.

We’ve had some nefarious fellows as allies over the years. Now this is a country that we’re tied to as far as the economy is concerned. Have we de-risked to some degree? Absolutely. And I think that overall is a good thing. But I’m sorry, you’re not gonna change my mind thinking that if we continue to do business with this country, try to open up more doors to doing business.

the better off our relationship is going to be. The last thing in the world we wanna have is some sort of armed conflict. And I think one of the best ways of avoiding armed conflict is to make sure that boat-size the table can be successful in a relationship and do well. I’m sorry, but I’ve always been a big believer in the fact that the rising tide will lift all boats. Years ago, we had all sorts of alarmists out there. Wow.

(07:10.646)

Oh, China’s economy might exceed the United States by this period of time. And I’m going to say to myself, well, you see the size of their, their population. Um, you see the size of their population and they’re growing, but you take a look at their per capita GDP, which is not even close to ours. And I’m saying to myself, uh, wouldn’t it be a good thing if they had a population that became wealthier and wealthier and wealthier and quick me if I’m wrong. I mean.

Listen, if you own a store, okay, if you own a store, wouldn’t you like people with means to come in the store that can buy the stuff that you’re selling there? It’s not bad. Creating wealth around the globe is a good thing. Again, do we have a lot we have to deal with in regards to their history? Are they very different than we are? Are they a command and control economy? Yes, but they always have been. And quite frankly, that’s not gonna change.

I highly doubt that’s gonna change. They’ve got a history that’s much, much longer than ours. The thing where I think many people are getting wrong is the fact that their culture and the way that they do things is going to be acceptable and attractive to nations all over the globe. And I don’t think that that’s the case. And when people see China trying to do business around the globe, I think that’s all it is for them. It’s not like they’re trying to take these countries over ideologically, they don’t do that.

That’s a Soviet Union by any stretch of the imagination. And they’ve never done that throughout their history. It’s funny. And if you actually read about this stuff, they never thought that they had to. Because for a very long period of time, that was the most advanced economy, wealthiest country on the planet. And the countries that surrounded China, they felt that, I mean, they were very, they’re very aloof.

I mean, they believe that, okay, it was what was everything under the sun was their emperor was in charge, every basic under heaven, excuse me. And that, and you pay tribute to them. And societies would end up emulating some of the things that they were doing. Um, do I think that’s going to be the case? Do I think that’s attractive to the globe right now? No command and control. No, I think it’s going to turn most people off. Nor do I think people want to emulate that. But, um, if business is going to. You know, do.

(09:35.99)

decent business, China are gonna continue to do it. But then you’re seeing, you know, some of the business practices of China, their command to control stuff with their Belt and Road Initiative, they haven’t worked out. You got countries that are pulling out of this. Italy is pulling out. They’re like, no, we don’t feel like doing business like this anymore, which is fine. Which might force their hand to start changing things. Sometimes it’s better people, again, you can win wars and do another.

sun zoo bit, you know, you can win wars with without having to fire a shot. And why does it have to be a war? Why can’t it be just competition? What is competition breed? I don’t know. Excellence watchdog on wallstreet.com.