Musk Failed to Navigate Washington

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00:00And Freddie, you predicted this fallout last week when Musk stepped down from his government

00:06role. You said this world was one which Elon just could not conquer. Why do you think that this is?

00:16I think Washington is a very different place. And it's something that businessmen, Donald Trump

00:24found this in his first term. Businessmen, CEOs think that you can go in, kind of tell people

00:29what to do, make difficult decisions, and it all happens very easily. But of course, it's much

00:34more complicated than that, because the federal government is a huge sclerotic beast, and it's

00:40massively in debt. And so therefore, Musk coming in, in charge of trying to bring down the deficit,

00:47bring down the national debt, he struggled, because he just doesn't understand, didn't

00:53understand the level of corruption often in politics, and the level of horse trading that

01:01goes on, and the sheer backstabbing and viper's nest is Washington. Trump has adapted to Washington

01:09to some extent. His team did not like Elon Musk. Trump, I think, has always wanted to get on with

01:16Elon Musk, admired him, another great successful businessman, the richest man in the world, and so on.

01:21But Trump's team, his cabinet, his close advisors, they quickly found that they couldn't really work

01:28with Musk. He didn't get Washington, he was alien to them, and they were alien to him.