JV
Jonathan V. Last
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Jonathan V. Last

Things Jonathan Says on Podcasts

Editor at The Bulwark who writes the Triad, a daily column on Donald Trump, Republican politics and the news cycle, and answers reader questions in the Triad Mailbag. Appears on The Bulwark's video and audio shows, including The Next Level with Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell and Receipts Live with Catherine Rampell, and joins Bulwark Book Club discussions.

“Elon's going to lose the self-driving race too. The way that Waymo is eating his lunch is because Elon cheaped out on LiDAR and thought that he could do everything with camera only and compute.” — Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark “Elon Musk is going to switch production to the Cybercab. Let me promise you, this is another Musk promise which is going to go nowhere. It is designed from Musk's 13-year-old fanboy perspective and not like how actual vehicle designs work. It's a taxi, but it's a two-seater sports car. No, stop. Go look at the London Black Taxi. That is a solved design.” — Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark “The sales are almost entirely to other Musk companies. So it's become a fleet car for Elon Musk companies and for the federal government when Musk was still in good graces in Trumpland. Honestly, the fact that it continued in production for this long was just Musk's vanity. If this was GM or Ford, they would have killed it after like 24 months.” — Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark

Where to Find Them

Jonathan V. Last hosts and writes The Bulwark , writes https://www.thebulwark.com , hosts The Next Level , hosts The Illegal News with Sarah Longwell , writes Sinocism , writes Off Message , writes Paul Krugman , writes Iran War Dispatches with Tim Mak , writes Unpopular Front , writes The Jim Acosta Show and writes The Message Box . They have also been a guest on The Bulwark Podcast (3 times) , Runaway Country with Alex Wagner (3 times) and What Next | Daily News and Analysis .

Recently: “1133: Secret Podcast: The Day After Deliverance” on The Next Level (November 2026); “Elon Musk Loses $80 Billion as Tesla Pulls the Plug on the Cybertruck” on The Bulwark (November 2026); “BREAKING: Trump Picks Stephen Miller to Replace Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff” on The Bulwark (November 2026); “The Day After Deliverance” on The Bulwark (November 2026); “Sarah Longwell and JVL: LIVE on the Landslide” on The Bulwark Podcast (November 2026); “It Happened!” on The Bulwark (November 2026).

What They Said

“Elon's going to lose the self-driving race too. The way that Waymo is eating his lunch is because Elon cheaped out on LiDAR and thought that he could do everything with camera only and compute.” — Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark

Still on Tesla's troubles after the Cybertruck wind-down, the co-host makes a prediction about autonomous driving. He blames Tesla's camera-only approach and points to Waymo as the winner.

The Bulwark · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →
The Bulwark
Speaker 3

Well, oops. Maybe that was.

Catherine Rampell

…was going to go off-roading and take you on all of these adventures, a new golden age of your midlife crisis. And instead, it just couldn't deliver on the very basic functions of being a car, a vehicle. So I don't know. To me, this feels, it feels like almost two on the nose. Okay. Elon's going to

Jonathan V. Last

lose the self-driving race too, which we don't have to get into right now, but the way that Waymo is eating his lunch because Elon cheaped out on LiDAR and thought that he could do everything with camera only and compute. You hate to see it. I don't. I love it into my veins.

Catherine Rampell

You mentioned, JVL, that Elon's net worth took a hit. Specifically, Elon, the richest man in the world, lost nearly $80 billion in the trading session on Thursday, according to both the Bloomberg and Forbes trackers. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index put Elon Musk's one-day drop at about 80 billion…

Jonathan V. Last

One Tesla. The three has sold well. Yes. Good luck with that long term.

Catherine Rampell

But compared to other American EV makers, definitely blowing everyone else out of the water, although finally facing some more competition. So, yeah. So as

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Elon Musk is going to switch production to the Cybercab. Let me promise you, this is another Musk promise which is going to go nowhere. It is designed from Musk's 13-year-old fanboy perspective and not like how actual vehicle designs work. It's a taxi, but it's a two-seater sports car. No, stop. Go look at the London Black Taxi. That is a solved design.” — Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark

Reacting to Musk saying Tesla will move Cybertruck production capacity to the Cybercab robotaxi. The host argues the product ignores how taxis are actually designed.

The Bulwark · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →
The Bulwark
Jonathan V. Last

…It didn't make any automotive sense. It was almost literally like cutting off your nose to spite your face because they were such terrible vehicles. Anyway, and this then also, as somebody notes in the chat, coming on behalf of Elon Musk Loses, how much money did he lose over the last 48 hours?

Catherine Rampell

Well, we're going to get Tesla and SpaceX. We're going to get to that. Which is also

Jonathan V. Last

great. And he says he's switching to the cyber cab. That's what he's going to switch production to. And let me promise you, this is another Musk promise, which is going to go nowhere. The cyber cab is a ludicrous product which will not work, which cannot work, and which is designed again from Musk's 13-year-old fanboy perspective and not like how actual vehicle designs work. It's the idea is like, oh, it's a taxi, but it's a two-seater sports car. No, stop. This is not like, yeah, people have solved this design. Go look at the London Black Taxi. Like that is a solved design. Look at the cab design that they use in Japan, which is like a boxy thing, which can seat five people and a lot of luggage. Those are solved designs. Elon Musk is like, oh, I know. How to do it better than anyone else. No, you don't asshole. Look at your cyber truck.

Catherine Rampell

Yeah, again, this I feel like is very representative of the Trump era. And maybe I'm just like trying to force this framework on it, but I really think it's true. Like you said, this is a product that was designed to be sold to people who wanted to give other people the finger, that that was more…

Jonathan V. Last

It's a fleet car. This is, you know, in car head worlds, like the you're, I don't think you're a gearhead. I am not. Don't make me unmade. But like the worst thing you can say about a car is like, yeah, that's a fleet car. That's what Hertz and Avis and Enterprise buy, and they just rent them out…

Catherine Rampell

showed up at a Hertz dealer and they gave you a Cybertruck, I think you wouldn't even get that way.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“The sales are almost entirely to other Musk companies. So it's become a fleet car for Elon Musk companies and for the federal government when Musk was still in good graces in Trumpland. Honestly, the fact that it continued in production for this long was just Musk's vanity. If this was GM or Ford, they would have killed it after like 24 months.” — Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark

Tesla had just announced it will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas factory. The co-host explains why the truck failed commercially, pointing to build quality, collapsing used values and who actually bought it.

The Bulwark · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →
The Bulwark
Jonathan V. Last

…The actual build quality on the thing is legendarily terrible. Yeah, there were 11 recalls, 11 recalls. Not even the recall, just like things like panel gaps, right? If you ever went up to one in a parking lot and looked at it, like the gaps in the panels are like this big. And like the wheels were

Catherine Rampell

literally falling off in, I think the last recall.

Jonathan V. Last

Terribly, terribly sold. And to the point where over the last year, if you look at them on the used market, the values of the cyber truck and used market are in the toilet. And the sales are almost entirely to other Musk companies. So it's become a fleet car for Elon Musk companies and for the federal government when Musk was still in good graces in Trumpland. So there was nothing there for this thing. And this boondoggle has been finally put out of its misery. Honestly, the fact that it continued in production for this long was just Musk's vanity. If this was like GM or Ford, they would have killed it after like 24 months. They would have been like, nope, this didn't work. Sorry. And it's nice. I mean, it is a weird thing that this was a vehicle that people bought in order to give the finger to other people. That was the only reason to own one of these things. It didn't make any financial sense. It didn't make any vehicular sense. It didn't make any automotive sense. It was almost literally like cutting off your nose to spite your face because they were such terrible vehicles. Anyway, and this then also, as somebody notes in…

Catherine Rampell

Well, we're going to get Tesla and SpaceX. We're going to get to that. Which is also

Jonathan V. Last

great. And he says he's switching to the cyber cab. That's what he's going to switch production to. And let me promise you, this is another Musk promise, which is going to go nowhere. The cyber cab is a ludicrous product which will not work, which cannot work, and which is designed again from…

Catherine Rampell

Yeah, again, this I feel like is very representative of the Trump era. And maybe I'm just like trying to force this framework on it, but I really think it's true. Like you said, this is a product that was designed to be sold to people who wanted to give other people the finger, that that was more…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In

Geopolitics & World Affairs Money & Markets Policy US Politics