Joe Rogan’s (2018) podcast with Elon Musk may very well be the most infamous — and high-visibility — interview of an automotive executive ever conducted. Alas, the event received so much attention for the wrong reasons.
The news media focused heavily — and often exclusively — on Musk smoking marijuana. In a way that made sense, because during that time period the head of Tesla had become increasingly erratic in his behavior. However, the trouble with the media’s focus on Musk agreeing to take a hit of Rogan’s weed was that the substance of the interview was a lot more interesting — and important. What was particularly odd was that the toke occurred toward the end of a podcast which lasted an epic two-and-a-half hours.
Auto media coverage ranged from critical to silly
Automotive News’ summary of the interview was that it “touched on everything from flame throwers and artificial intelligence to the end of the universe.” However, reporter Dana Hull (2018) only drew two quotes from the podcast. Musk was quoted as saying that he is “not a regular smoker of weed” and that it is “quite hard to run companies. Especially car companies.” The rest of the article focused on Tesla’s travails and quoted analysts who called for leadership changes.
Tesla head Elon Musk appeared on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast No. 1169 (click here to view).
In contrast, Jalopnik was fairly unusual among the automotive media in explicitly refusing to wag a finger at Musk for smoking weed in public. Writer Jason Torchinsky (2018) made light of it by holding a caption-writing contest for a photo of Musk having a toke. My favorite caption: “Like, what if the whole windscreen was a touch screen? You could, like, touch other cars while you drive” (Curbwatching, 2018).
All good clean fun, but Jalopnik entirely ignored the rest of the interview. This raises a philosophical question: If Musk participated in an interview but no one bothered to listen to it, did he make a sound?
Musk: AI needs faster regulatory response than autos
One-dimensional people who are only interested in Musk’s views on the auto industry may have lost patience with his extended discussion about topics such as artificial intelligence. He made the provocative argument that advances in artificial intelligence are accelerating so quickly that eventually humans “will represent a very small percentage of intelligence” — to the point that we lose control over it.
For example, a robot may soon be able to move “so fast that you can’t see it without a strobe light,” Musk said, adding, “You probably shouldn’t kick a robot because their memories are really good.”
Musk said artificial intelligence advances could potentially lead to a dystopian future.
For many years Musk said he tried to convince people — including President Obama, Congress and governors — to regulate artificial intelligence but “nobody listened.” He suggested establishing a government committee that researched the issue with the goal of creating policy recommendations.
Musk used automobiles as an example of how the traditional pace that government starts to regulate an industry would be too slow in responding to the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence:
“The auto industry successfully fought any regulations on seat belts even though the numbers were extremely obvious. If you had a seat belt on you were far less likely to die or be certainly injured. The industry fought this for years successfully. Eventually, after many, many people died, regulators insisted upon seatbelts. This timeframe is not relevant to AI — it can’t take 10 years from the point with which it is dangerous. It’s too late.”
Musk shed light on Tesla’s mistakes — and quirkiness
Criticizing the auto industry’s opposition to regulation is hardly typical of its top leadership. However, Musk didn’t just point fingers at others. He acknowledged that Tesla came “very close” to folding in 2008. Musk also noted that it was a “super dumb strategy” for Tesla’s first car, a two-seat roadster, to be based on a Lotus. It turned out that this resulted in false economies because only 7 percent of the parts were ultimately carried over. Even the Lotus’ air conditioner couldn’t be used because it was designed around the characteristics of a gasoline rather than an electric power plant.
In the interview Musk displayed how his passion for engineering isn’t just focused on solving serious problems such as climate change. For example, he noted that Tesla’s Model X can dance to the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Why?
Click on the above image to watch three Tesla Xs dance to the Trans Siberian Orchestra.
“How many things can you buy that you really love? That really give you joy?” asked Musk. “It’s so rare; it’s so rare — I wish there were more things. That’s what we’re trying to do — to make things that somebody loves.”
I imagine that more than one jaded automotive executive may find Musk’s attitude quaint. And perhaps Tesla’s difficulty in turning a profit may be partly grounded in fewer financial controls in product development than at an established automaker. Yet Musk deserves attention for bringing a fresh perspective to an industry that has suffered from an overly narrow conception of what constitutes great automotive design.
Industry groupthink led to Musk becoming an icon
Some have quite rightly criticized the cult-like following that has developed around Tesla. However, what isn’t typically acknowledged is that the outsized support Musk has been able to generate is a direct response to industry groupthink. A key example of that is how Musk has been the only major auto industry figure who has displayed consistently strong leadership on climate change.
“We are really playing a dangerous game with the atmosphere and the oceans,” Musk told Rogan. “We are taking vast amounts of carbon deep underground and putting this in the atmosphere. This is crazy — we should not do this. We should accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. The bizarre thing is that we’re going to run out of oil long term. . . . We know that’s the end point, so why run this crazy experiment?”
Musk emphasized the dangers of climate change during the Tesla Model 3’s introduction. The automotive press didn’t notice (go here for further discussion).
Musk suggested that the planet could potentially absorb more carbon but that “the momentum to sustainable energy is too slow.” Even if “you could snap your fingers” and make all newly built cars and trucks electric, it would still take a considerable number of years to replace the world’s total vehicle fleet, Musk noted.
This is why Musk emphasized the importance of quickly scaling up the production of electric vehicles. He sees Tesla’s entry-level Model 3 as an important step in that direction.
Musk: EV subsidies offset costs of oil-burning products
To those who ask why the cost of electric cars should be subsidized by government, Musk argued that “right now there is an inherent subsidy in any oil-burning device.” The cost to society of climate change “isn’t paid for now.” Instead, those costs are being externalized onto future generations.
This basic argument stands in striking contrast to industry leaders such as Keith Crain (2018), who in a recent Automotive News column lamented that the government was gunning for your performance cars (see my response here). Crain comes off like an out-of-touch auto executive from the 1960s who couldn’t understand why the public was switching to imported cars such as the Volkswagen Beetle.
Will Tesla’s Model 3 become the electric equivalent of the Volkswagen Beetle?
Tesla’s status similar to Volkswagen’s during 1960s
Indeed, Tesla is similar to VW during the 1960s, when it challenged core elements of Detroit groupthink (go here for further discussion). One might also compare Musk to George Romney, the head of American Motors in the late-50s and early-60s, who was a charismatic champion of compact cars and a critic of Detroit’s standard increasingly large cars, which he called the “Dinosaur in the Driveway” (Hyde, 2009; p. 186).
At least until Musk’s recent series of self-inflicted wounds, the public appears to have given Tesla the benefit of the doubt when it hasn’t lived up to Musk’s promises. That may be because he is often viewed as a modern-day David who has taken on an industry Goliath.
Musk’s iconic status may also be a product of his out-of-the-box leadership style. What other American automotive executive would take the risk of participating in such a lengthy and unorthodox interview? And if they did, would they possess the intellectual bandwidth to say interesting things for two-and-a-half hours? That may not impress the public relations department at General Motors, but what about a “wired” younger generation which expects more engagement from industry leaders?
Yes, but Musk still damaged himself . . . right?
Almost all of the media reports on Musk’s interview included in their headline something about marijuana smoking. (Interestingly, Musk was also offered — and accepted — whiskey early in the interview but that did not generate much media attention.) I suppose it is possible that Musk’s toke will turn out to be a net plus with that portion of the public which doesn’t see pot smoking as a bad thing.
Rogan invited Musk to join him in drinking whiskey and smoking marijuana.
As a case in point, Torchinsky (2018) insisted that “we’re not judging the actual smoking of marijuana here. I don’t think any of us on staff care if he smokes weed any more than we care that he sometimes drinks booze. We’re not scandalized. It’s fine. It should be decriminalized because current laws pointlessly send scores of people, predominantly people of color, to jail and prison for no good reason (Scott, 2018). I don’t think this reflects poorly on Musk (though other stuff lately does (Ballaban, 2018)).”
A Washington Post article also tried to walk the line between not being judgmental about weed and seeing a potential public relations problem for Musk. Law professor Carl Tobias was quoted as saying that “Musk’s lighting up was not normally an issue because ‘people do that all the time.’ But Musk’s marijuana incident appears to follow a pattern of questionable behavior, Tobias said, and is further evidence of bad judgment. ‘It’s troubling. It may be especially troubling for board members or shareholders,’ he said. ‘We do expect our CEOs of major companies to behave differently than ordinary people'” (Shaban, 2018).
Are auto execs cut less slack than in the old days?
Viewing Musk’s behavior through the lens of automotive history can be useful. For example, Henry Ford II was known for erratic social behavior. David Halberstam (1986) described him as a “buffoonish, almost crude playboy.” Perhaps Ford was cut more slack because back in the 1960s and 70s the news media intruded less into the personal lives of public figures — and had less technological ability to rapidly spread a story far and wide.
Despite the whiskey and weed, Musk was thoughtful, articulate and gracious throughout the interview.
Another difference between Musk and Ford is arguably that during 2018 Tesla had been on shaky ground whereas the Ford Motor Company performed fairly well during its CEO’s partying years. Indeed, Washington Post columnist Charles Lane (2018) suggested that Musk’s “self-inflicted damage” to his image is a much smaller problem than Tesla’s questionable ability to turn a profit.
It may very well be true that “the team, the skill set that have been phenomenal to create Tesla are not the ones we need for the next stage,” according to analyst Philippe Houchois (Hull, 2018). Just as Henry J. Kaiser failed in the automobile business partly because he didn’t listen to his operations-savvy partner Joe Frazer, Musk could fail by not diversifying his management team — and giving it real power.
Musk didn’t see himself as a normal ‘business guy’
One of the most revealing moments in the interview was when Musk stated that many people did not understand him. “They think I’m a business guy or something like that.” He sees himself as a hard-core engineer with a focus on “structural, mechanical, electrical, software, user interface, aerospace engineering.” Musk said he spends 80 percent of his time on engineering and manufacturing. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for the operational aspects of building an automobile company.
Did Rogan surprise Musk with the whisky and weed or did they have an understanding going into the interview?
Particularly back in 2018, one could reasonably argue that Tesla’s management structure and culture needed to change if it was to survive a veritable Spanish armada of EVs coming from legacy automakers. However, one could also argue that it would be a mistake for Tesla to become so risk averse that its management avoids engagement in nontraditional media such as Rogan’s podcast. A start-up has no hope of succeeding if it doesn’t innovate — including with in its public relations.
Without the toke, who would have paid any attention?
In light of his run of bad press in 2018, Musk would have done well to have declined Rogan’s offer of whiskey and weed. That’s not because this resulted in an embarrassing interview — quite the opposite. Musk was thoughtful, articulate and gracious. Without pundit finger wagging about substance use, this podcast could have resulted in a positive “marketing buzz” for both Musk and Tesla (Wikipedia, 2018).
Then again, without the sensationalism of Musk doing something “self-destructive,” perhaps this interview would have been completely ignored by the automotive media. Why should the industry worry about climate change when it merely gives rogue bureaucrats free rein to ban our performance cars. Right, Keith Crain?
NOTES:
This is an updated version of a story originally posted September 9, 2018.
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