The Global Story: What Elon Musk did next

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1:08Hey there, I'm Asma Khalid. And I'm Tristan Redman. And we're here with a bonus episode for you from the Global Story Podcast. The world order is shifting. Old alliances are fraying and new ones are emerging. Some of this turbulence can be traced to decisions made in the United States. But the U.S. isn't just a cause of the upheaval. Its politics are also a symptom of it. Every day we focus on one story, looking at how America and the world shape each other. So we hope you enjoy this episode. And to find more of our show, just search for The Global Story, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. So I'm going to ask if it's possible to have Elon get up first and talk about Doge, because it seems to be of great interest to everyone.

1:54That's President Trump speaking at the very first cabinet meeting of his second term, back in February of 2025. So, Elon, if you could get up and explain where you are, how you're doing, and how much we're cutting. And it's an honor to have you. He's been a tremendously successful guy. I remember this meeting quite well, because I was actually there, in the room, as a journalist. These were the days when I used to cover the White House for NPR. Thank you, Elon. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, I actually just call myself a couple of tech support here because this is actually, as crazy as it sounds, that that is almost a literal dispersion of the work that the Doge team is doing.

2:36At the time, you probably recall that Musk was designated a special government employee leading this Trump initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge. And Musk had grand plans to slash government spending, promising to reduce the federal deficit. We do need to move quickly if we're to achieve a trillion dollar deficit reduction in financial year 2026. It requires saving$4 billion per day every day from now through the end of September. But we can do it and we will do it. And sure, it was odd to hear from someone at a cabinet meeting who was technically not an official member of the cabinet.

3:15But that wasn't what really struck me about this moment. Now, what struck me was the respect and deference that Musk commanded in that room. It's hard to remember now, but at the time, there was chatter in Washington about who was really running the show. And then, somewhat unceremoniously, Elon Musk was gone. I expect to remain a friend and an advisor. And certainly, if there's anything the president wants me to do, I'm at the president's service. In May of last year, Musk left Doge, and though he's since remained an extremely high-profile figure, he's been laying somewhat low until the last few weeks, when his lawsuit against his former colleague, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, landed him back in the headlines.

4:02But just because we didn't see him doesn't mean he went away. In fact, in the years since his departure from the White House, while the public's attention was elsewhere, the world's richest man was quietly shoring up his control of space and the world's internet. From the BBC, I'm Asma Khaled in Washington, D.C. And today on The Global Story, even though he's no longer in the heart of power in Washington, is Elon Musk now more powerful than ever?

4:41Well, Asma, this is the tech trial of the century for us here on The Tech Beat. That's Lily Jamali, the BBC's North America technology correspondent. She's been in Oakland, California, covering this landmark trial between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. And in order to get access to the courtroom, you either need to have had a media pass, which we do, Or you got to get in line around five in the morning and just hope that you get a seat. Lily, in our episode today, we want to take the long view on what exactly Elon Musk has been up to since he left the White House about a year ago.

5:18And I don't think that we can have this conversation in this moment about Elon Musk without mentioning that he is currently suing the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman. That trial of those two tech titans is underway as we tape. And I know you have been in the courtroom in California covering it all. So let me just start there. What is this lawsuit actually about? Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman actually started OpenAI together with some others back in 2015. And it was a nonprofit. That was the vision for it. It was supposed to develop AI technology safely. And Musk gave a lot of the money for it starting.

6:00Is that right? That's exactly right. He ended up donating somewhere on the order of$38 million. And, you know, the idea behind this was to develop AI safely and to develop it for the benefit of humanity, a very lofty goal, but one that Musk thought was really important to have in sort of the founding rubric for the company. So now he says that Altman and Greg Brockman, who's the president of OpenAI, breached this nonprofit deal that they have, this nonprofit contract, and ended up enriching themselves along the way. So at a certain point, they decided to become a for-profit. It's a lot easier to collect money from investors that way.

6:43And boy, is it expensive to develop AI technology. And so in doing that, what Musk is saying is that the for-profit entity kind of superseded at a certain point the nonprofit that they had created together, the nonprofit that he had donated all this money to. That's his argument. On the other side, you have OpenAI and Altman and Brockman saying that this is really just sour grapes on Musk's part, that he is upset that he left OpenAI when he did in 2018. about four years later, they launched ChatGPT, which was this massive overnight success. It's worth noting here that Musk is actually working on his own AI startup, XAI, which is a competitor to OpenAI.

7:29And so that's another part of the company's argument is that he's just trying to kind of derail one of the top players while he's trying to get his own thing off the ground. And so what exactly does Elon Musk want? What is his end goal here? A couple of things. For one thing, he wants$150 billion. That money would not go to Elon Musk himself. It would go towards OpenAI's nonprofit entity. He wants Sam Altman out of the company as CEO. And he also is really pushing for an unwinding of all of these for-profit entities that have become a really key part of the company's ability to fund itself. So those are the three main things he's pushing for.

8:15I saw that Musk took the stand the other day. He was wearing a suit and tie, which, Lily, I will just say is a wardrobe choice that stood out to me. Elon Musk was a man I remember seeing as a White House correspondent in this casual attire in a cabinet meeting with a baseball cap on his head. So that stood out to me. Yeah, I mean, definitely the fact that he's in a suit and tie is a statement. He has to endear himself to this judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who ultimately decides the fate of this case. There is a jury that's been impaneled of nine Northern California citizens, but they are in an advisory role.

8:53They will issue a verdict, but it is considered an advisory verdict that the judge will take into consideration. If she has a problem with it, she can overrule the jury's decision. Yeah, she will ultimately make the call. And, you know, there were a lot of memorable moments. But I mean, just to start before Musk even took the stand, the judge pretty much dressed Musk down and said, listen, you've got to stop posting on social media about this case. You're just making this complicated for all of us. Because going into the trial, Musk had been posting to his social media platform X about the case, disparaging Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, calling Sam Altman scam Altman and trying to make his case in the court of public opinion, so to speak.

9:46And she said, we just don't need those distractions outside of the courtroom. And she actually turned to Sam Altman at one point and said, would you also agree to stop posting about this case? What's Sam Altman posting about it? Because, well, Musk was saying, I'm just doing this because OpenAI is posting about this and it's me trying to defend myself. So you kind of had this little bit of a playground situation with these two boys who are a little trigger happy with the social media and the judge saying, this has got us up. Both of them agreed to do so. And that was how we started the case. And Lily, you've been there in the courtroom.

10:22What's it been like? It is a packed courtroom. It's a media circus. You see high profile people, not just the parties to the case, but Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood super agent who is working with Musk's team, was sitting right in front of me. Interesting. On the second day of Musk's testimony. And it's really interesting that kind of hearing Musk articulate himself. I haven't actually been in a room with him in probably 10 years. And his public image has really changed during that time. Um, back then, I think he was truly revered as a technologist and somebody who really just had a much less polarizing public image than, than he does today.

11:02And seeing him there having to answer questions, you know, in a trial that he and himself initiated, but he had to answer some questions that I think were pretty uncomfortable. I think, you know, also really important is hearing details about his AI venture, XAI, which is now part of SpaceX, which developed that controversial AI chatbot, Brock, that's made a lot of negative headlines over the last few months for different reasons. He admitted on the stand under prodding from OpenAI's lead lawyer that he has used OpenAI's models to basically train his product. And I think that was an uncomfortable admission for him to make.

11:43So we're getting a little bit of a look under the hood at how he's doing his own startup, which is not a nonprofit, which is not known for safety guard rails. And so that is, I think, you know, being painted as pretty hypocritical by OpenAI's lawyers. In addition to journalists or just curious onlookers coming by, folks who work in tech? There are. I think there are people that want to pitch Elon Musk their startup. He was leaving the stand and actually walking out the courtroom. I think it was on Thursday. There's also downstairs outside of the courthouse. There are these protesters who are doing performative art, impersonating Elon Musk and Sam Altman, putting up these very protesting both of them.

12:31Yeah, because frankly, they're not both beloved. If I can be so bold, they are both tech billionaires who are in control of this incredibly important technology. to varying degrees. And that does not sit well with a lot of people. In fact, during jury selection, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers was pretty blunt about that. She said something to the effect of, I know that in Elon Musk's case in particular, he is not well liked. And I don't, you know, the judge said that out loud. The judge said something to that effect that like acknowledging people don't like Elon Musk. And she said that it was okay for them not to like him as long as they could vow to be fair to him and the other parties in the case.

13:22Okay. Lily, when I heard that Elon Musk was going to go to court in this lawsuit with OpenAI, I was actually in Europe and there was a story circulating there that caught my attention. And that is that in late April, Musk was actually summoned to appear before prosecutors in France, but he did not show up. Did you recall this too? I just want to get clarity on what that was all about. It doesn't have anything to do with this case, but it is a sign of the times, right? So in Paris, authorities have been looking at how X's algorithm has been used to interfere in French politics. This is a probe that began early last year.

14:00And that investigation has now grown to include Grok, which, you know, you might remember earlier this year that Grok was being used by people to create these non-consensual sexual images of women and girls. And so now Grok is being probed in a number of jurisdictions. And yet Musk has really dug in his heels saying this Paris probe in particular is part of a political attack. This was a voluntary summons. He didn't show, but you have other investigations happening in the UK and in Europe. But it's also about political speech. Grok has been caught giving people, you know, just really unreal responses.

14:42Holocaust denial, right? Yeah, there's Holocaust denial. There is this Mecca Hitler incident from last year. And all of this is a product of the parameters that are being set by XAI. So it's not an accident. And so that's why... In addition to those probes happening in Europe, there are several dozen attorneys general here in the United States. These are U.S. states that are taking action against XAI after Grok was involved in generating all these sexualized deepfakes. Elon Musk's response has consistently been that authorities are looking for any excuse that they can for censorship. So, Lily, while the legal drama is certainly making headlines, perhaps the bigger story, the one that is albeit not being talked about as much, is Elon Musk's satellite internet company, Starlink.

15:40And I think it's fair to say that a lot of people here in the United States might not feel like they have actually been exposed directly to Starlink beyond, say, Wi-Fi services on a flight. So can you, at the outset, just explain what exactly Starlink is? So as you said, it's a satellite internet company. It is a division of SpaceX, which is Musk's rocket company. And I would argue that Starlink might be the most important part of Elon Musk's empire, even though it doesn't get the coverage that various other parts like Tesla and SpaceX itself get. Over the last couple of years, Musk has launched thousands of satellites into what's known as low Earth orbit.

16:24There's something like 10 ,000 of them up there right now. And that's basically the majority of satellites that are orbiting in that area at the moment. So he's the clear industry leader when it comes to satellites in low Earth orbit. He is the clear industry leader, exactly. And you can sometimes even spot them at night. They look kind of like a string of stars that are tethered together, shooting across the sky. That's Starlink. For the users of Starlink, they get these units, this kind of square device that comes. It's a flat antenna. And you can get internet from anywhere using it. Starlink has been gaining traction providing internet on airlines.

17:12It's also in places that are sort of considered underserved markets. So here in the U.S., that would be rural areas. It's sometimes one of those early services that are provided to people who have just been through a natural disaster where the traditional infrastructure around them has just been destroyed. And so it's out there, but maybe not everybody has heard of it. Right now, it is the largest satellite Internet provider in the world with more than 10 million active users. 10 million active? across 150 countries. 150 countries. Wow. I mean, Lily, that's what I find so fascinating about Starlink.

17:49I mean, while it may not be incredibly popular yet in the United States or Europe, it has become, it seems, so central to how so many people around the world do access the internet. You're not wrong about that, Asma. Starlink has been used in war zones. And I think that's a pretty important point to dwell on for a moment. It's actually that use in war zones that I think has generated the most international headlines around Starlink. So this sort of started towards the beginning of the war in Ukraine, not long after Russia invaded. Musk, back in 2023, refused to allow Ukraine to use Starlink for a surprise attack that they were wanting to launch against Russian forces in Crimea.

18:34The quick context there is that Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine back in 2014. They now claim it as their territory. Musk reportedly refused to allow the Ukrainians access because he was concerned that Russia would respond by using a nuclear weapon. And then more recently, Musk denied Russian forces access to Starling after Ukraine's defense minister asked him to block them from using it. So now he's sort of on the other side, Right. So at times over the course of the war, he has restricted Starlink's use, you're saying, both to Ukraine and to Russia. That is our understanding. It's also happening in other parts of the world.

19:17So earlier this year, Musk decided to make Starlink available to Venezuelans for a time after the U.S. captured Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president. That was announced just after Musk had dinner with U.S. President Donald Trump. So there we see, you know, the potential influence of politics at play. He's also made it available in Iran after a prolonged Internet blackout by the regime there. But people use Starlink in Iran at their own risk. They can be in prison for using it or for even helping distribute it. So bottom line here is that Starlink is providing this vital service. But one man, this private citizen who, you know, sometimes makes questionable choices to a lot of people, is the one who gets to decide who gets access to the internet and who doesn't.

20:04I understand, Lily, that critics of Musk will question the concentration of power, say that Musk has, and the ability to turn on and turn off access. I'd also imagine, though, that Musk sees himself as someone who is also providing this altruistic service to people in times of need. I mean, you mentioned Iran. Iran has had an Internet blackout now for more than two months. And I know it's been extraordinarily difficult for Iranians to connect with people in the outside world. I mean, you could argue that that we here at the BBC rely on people who are at times are connecting via Starlink to be able to tell us what's going on inside the country over the last couple of months.

20:47That's right. And I think, you know, it's interesting that you bring this up because during the Musk versus Altman trial that I've been covering, you kind of get this sense from Musk that, and I don't think this is new. I've, again, been following him for a number of years now, but you get this sense from him that he thinks of himself as one of the good guys. And the judge at one point said to, I believe it was Musk's lawyer, because they were having this argument about whether the notion of human extinction brought about by AI, whether that could be part of the trial. Were they going to let Musk talk about that?

21:22And, you know, she at one point said, you know, let's not assume that everybody wants Elon Musk controlling this kind of powerful technology. He might think he is a good steward, but a lot of people who watch him don't agree with that was the point that she was making. I think that that argument about AI and human extinction and who gets to control this important technology is equally applicable to Starlink and the power to control human connectivity to the internet around the world.

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25:30Lily, earlier this year, Musk asked the U.S. government for permission to launch one million satellites into space. And on the surface, I thought, OK, it seems like he wants to expand access even further, right, to allow people to connect to the Internet. But the one thing that was very confusing to me about this announcement is that I read these satellites are envisioned in some ways to allow Starlink to create data centers in space. Can you explain that? That's right. Musk is launching new satellites into low Earth orbit all the time. It helps that he owns a rocket company, SpaceX, as he's doing this.

26:13But what he wants to do seemingly is to create this footprint. He already has a fairly sizable one, but to expand that footprint to grow to a million satellites as part of a plan to build these data centers in space. We learned about this plan from an announcement that Musk made back in March. The plan is to have SpaceX put these data centers into orbit around the world. They would use power from the sun. And, you know, Musk is kind of trying to sidestep one of the main constraints to developing AI and to having people use it here on Earth, and that is power, access to enough electricity. These are really energy-intensive processes.

26:56So Musk has talked about how space has the advantage that it's always sunny. Okay. But is it tested? Like, do we know that a data center in space could actually work? We don't know that. There are a lot of things that could go wrong. We don't know if these data centers in space are cost-effective. It could be incredibly expensive. So it's worth noting that this is all happening as SpaceX is preparing to IPO soon to publicly list with a valuation of more than a trillion dollars, possibly as much as two trillion. So that could be really important to helping him pay for this very ambitious idea. And then the other thing is that data centers need a lot of maintenance.