Elon Musk now owns the largest stake in Twitter, with an additional 9.2 percent of the Big Tech giant added to his portfolio. The news comes just one week after the SpaceX founder slammed Twitter’s ‘failure to adhere to free speech principles’ which ‘fundamentally undermines democracy,’ he wrote. But that’s not all. Musk ALSO recently hinted he's firmly against one of the Great Reset's biggest goals: Corporate ESG policies. Glenn gives all the details to Musk’s latest moves and explains why an anti-ESG stance from a ‘global warming guy’ like Musk could be significant…
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: All righty. So Elon Musk, he did a couple of things, that I love. He acquired almost 10 percent of Twitter. It makes him the largest stakeholder. Jack only has about 2 percent of the company. Now, so far, I believe this is a silent partnership part. I mean, he -- he can do some things, I guess to gain some seats on the board. And I wish he would, Elon. Please.
STU: And this is -- 9 percent stake, is what he disclosed in a financial disclosure, right? So we don't know how much he has now. It could be more.
GLENN: Yeah. That's what he bought.
STU: This is what he bought so far. But he could have been acquiring it the whole time.
GLENN: Hmm.
STU: He seems to be pretty focus odd Twitter. He seems to be critical sidelines of Twitter. And he seems to be stepping up to the plate. If you happen to be Twitter, you might not want him stepping up to the plate.
GLENN: Oh, please, step up to the plate. Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody, that like Elon Musk is out there actually saying the truth for you? And I say this -- I mean, look, I don't agree with Elon. The guy is a global warming guy. Okay?
Like, not just a global warming guy. A guy who believes it so much, he's building spaceships to get off the planet. Now, I personally believe that it is global warming, plus what he sees coming in technology. Because he believes transhumanism is coming. And he believes that the human species are -- will not exist on earth by 2050. And so he believes that the only chance of the humans actually being like we are now. Not engineered. But being like we are now, the only chance of survival, is on another planet. But, anyway.
STU: But that's the pint though. This is a guy who --
GLENN: Acts on what he believes.
STU: Believes it. And he's living an incredible life. He's like, screw it.
GLENN: And he earned it.
STU: Yeah. Yeah.
GLENN: He made his own money. I mean, he took bailouts -- or, not bailouts. But he took money during TARP, which I didn't like.
STU: Was it TARP? He got a lot of --
GLENN: Cash for Clunkers or something?
STU: There's tons of incentives to buy electric cars built into our --
GLENN: Yeah. (talking over)
STU: Well, yeah. Tesla gets a ton of that money because they're really the only electric car out there.
GLENN: I don't think now.
STU: He's been opposing it now. He's been saying, he doesn't want it.
GLENN: Yeah. Because it comes with strings attached. Now, you have to be a union shop. You have to be creating good union jobs.
STU: And that's not them.
GLENN: No.
STU: It's such a fascinating -- this is one of the reasons why people are fascinated about him. He does not fall into any easy category. And he's been opposing one of the big things -- one of these big Biden bills. I think it was Build Back Better. Was a fortune to build an electric car charging network across the country.
GLENN: Uh-huh.
STU: He's like, we're already doing that. We don't need your money for that. We're already doing that.
GLENN: I don't want him to do that. Because you can't control that.
STU: Yeah. And, you know, we've talked a decent amount about the car industry over the past few months. As people may note. Now past seven months. Ordering my car. And still do not have one.
GLENN: I'm already looking for a gift for your 12-month anniversary.
STU: It's going to be special.
GLENN: It's going to be special.
STU: You have the Tesla chargers, which work on Tesla. Then you have other charger networks that are being built. Like Volkswagen is building a big one across the country. But you see the locations of them. If you buy a car that is not a Tesla but it's an electric car, you want to use a fast charger. Now, you can charge it at your house. But it takes a long time. Multiple days if you're just plugging it into a normal outlet. You can get it done overnight, if you get special industrial stuff installed into your house.
GLENN: Right. But that's what you do. If you want to save money on at the gas pump, you get one of those big expensive super chargers. You know, or, you know, if you can't afford it, and a lot of people can't. Don't worry. Your car will be charged in three days. What? You have some place to go?
STU: I hope not.
(laughter)
But it's true. You can find Tesla chargers, at malls and restaurants. And gas stations.
GLENN: Movie theaters.
STU: Movie theaters. There's place I take the kids to breakfast. They have two Tesla chargers, right in front of it. Rarely filled. But still, they're there.
GLENN: They're there.
STU: A lot of times, they're there, in better parking spots, than the handicap spots.
GLENN: Oh, yeah. They're always in the front, or close to the front.
STU: Which is incredible. But that network is built out relatively widely depending on where you live. You look at the other one, one of them is called Electrify America, which is I think the Volkswagen one, and they're building it up. And they have fast chargers located for the Dallas/Fort Worth area, which is a big city. Huge city. It's only on the -- like on the extended -- right? If you're going from here to Austin, on the way out of Dallas, you can find a charger. Right? But that's it. There's one place there, on the road, you better stop there. Or you're going to have to plug in and wait for three days, at somebody's house. Right? You got to stop right there, if you're not driving a Tesla. If you're driving a Tesla, well, there's 15,000 places to go, and they're building that on their own.
GLENN: You know, I would think people would maybe learn the lesson of a universal plug. How about everybody just makes the same plug. I mean, if I'm running a car company. I would be like, will it work on everybody else's plug?
STU: Even outside of Tesla, there's two different options. You look at the places. Some of these charging stations have to have three different kinds of, quote, unquote, pumps to be able to hook up to the three different kinds --
GLENN: That is so stupid.
STU: Eventually, I think it will unify behind something. But Tesla wants it to be theirs.
GLENN: Fine. Fine. If you're Volkswagen, make it like Tesla. You'll double the value. You'll double the value. Anyway, another thing that he tweeted this weekend -- let me see if I can find the exact verbiage.
The more I study it -- I don't have it right in front of me. Hang on. I think he said, the more I study it -- here it is. I'm increasingly convinced that corporate ESG is the devil incarnate. Now, that's saying something.
STU: That's not Glenn Beck saying that.
GLENN: No. That's coming from a guy, who believes in global warming.
STU: Builds an electric car company. Builds a spaceship company. Okay? A spaceship company.
GLENN: Right. He believes it's the devil incarnate. That's remarkable. Anybody -- Elon Musk saying this, will change the direction. Because Elon Musk -- there's a lot of people who, you know, don't listen to me. Or don't like me. Or whatever.
STU: That's definitely true.
GLENN: Okay.
STU: Confirmed. Fact-check, true.
GLENN: But Elon Musk is --
(laughter)
Okay. We got it. But Elon Musk has such a wide reach, universally.
STU: Yeah. I get this from people all the time. When we have events and stuff. People are walking around. When we have the museum here. And we're talking to people, who have been listening to the show for a long time. And to convert it to this particular topic, it's, I've had to listen to -- through -- get the lie, 25 segments of Glenn blathering on about ESG scores. And never heard it from anybody else. And then all of a sudden, everyone is talking about it. And that is, I think the case here. You're seeing it with Elon Musk. If you read any financial publication. They're talking about all the time now.
GLENN: Every. All the time.
STU: People tried to say it's a conspiracy theory. Obviously, it's not. It's something that is building in a big way. It's already taken over Wall Street. You know, the concept is somewhat understandable, right? Like, if you could -- if they gave you an option, to invest in things that promoted the free market. Individual rights. I would be for that.
GLENN: I would love it. It's like, I don't like these algorithms, that sort my news. Okay? I'm not against them. I would like to control it.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: I would like less of this, more of this. Give me a dashboard, so I can control it and be find the setting for me. You know what I mean? So I don't have a problem with that. And if you wanted to do ESG, then could you do, you know, one on the Constitution, one on --
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: -- values. One on -- you know, not having your son sell out to communist countries? I mean, I'm just saying.
STU: It's not as catchy as ESG.
GLENN: It's not. But Burisma would be out. You know, bank of China would be out.
STU: Right.
GLENN: The city of Moscow. You know, if you wanted to have ESG. Because this is the dumbest part of their argument. This is only done for people. A lot of people want to invest that way. Yeah. I know a lot of people that would like to not throw their money behind places like Disney. But are you showing me all the ones. All the companies, that are so woke, and are spending tons of money?
Verizon. Giving money to Planned Parenthood. I would like just a fund called B for babies. You know, hey, these are all the companies, that are not investing in killing babies. That would be great. And you can pick whatever you wanted. That's not what this is.
STU: Right. A menu of options is something that I --
GLENN: It's great.
STU: It is a free market thing. However, the way they're instituting the ESG, is not necessarily stopping at a menu. They're implementing it in a way, that they can't get capital, if they don't hit the requirements of this menu. So it's controlling the way the companies do business. And that is the problem. You know, and how you can look at what happened over the past couple of months, and think that what we need to do is invest less, in fossil fuels, is beyond me. We absolutely should be investing more -- even -- even Elon Musk, who is, again, a -- not just a global warming believer, but is completely insane in this belief.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: I mean, he is farther to the global warming alarmist side, than almost anyone I know, in the entire public life. He is literally that far. He's done certainly more to not just step up and tweet about it. Not just hashtag. He's built multiple companies to address this. He's risked his entire fortune to do this, to stop global warming. And he's saying things like, hey, we need to really ramp up our oil and gas drilling here in the United States.
GLENN: Correct. It only helps his company.
STU: Right.
GLENN: But it doesn't in the end.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: By the way, the new budget from Biden. Eleven different tax increases. On the oil and gas industry. Which the deduction which they're getting rid of the deduction for intangible drilling costs, which allows independent producers to immediately deduct business expenses, related to drilling. Such as labor, site preparation, repairs, and service work. 2014, by Wood McKenzie Consulting, repealing the deduction of those, would result in a 407 billion-dollar reduction in investment. Roughly 25 percent of the capital used by producers, to continue investing in new projects. Okay? But -- but only 25 percent. That's one of the taxes that he's putting on oil and gas. Plus, your ESG. Back in just a second. I don't know if you saw, but it looks like Russia is going on a gold standard. Russia is saying, you can only buy their -- their oil now and gas in rubles. Nobody really wanted to do that. So what did Putin do? He said, you know, 5,000 rubles is worth 1 gram of gold. And you send him, the gold. He'll give you the rubles. Then you can buy the oil. And send the rubles back to him. He's just -- he's putting a gold standard together. Not going to be good for those who don't have a gold standard. Because we are not even thinking about it. And the world will reset. Please, things are going to be so radically different soon. And you're going to be in a situation, to where you're going to have to make choices, that you're not going to want to have to make.