“In the podcast in the Builders series, I talked to Musk, and he said that he was too out front. He felt he was doing way too much showmanship… What he's doing now is spending twice as much money, but more quietly behind the scenes, especially on things like get out the vote, targeted ads, things he did so well in Pennsylvania two years ago.”
Squawk Pod · October 2026
Context
A CNBC host asked what is driving Elon Musk's overnight post about the midterms. Isaacson, a Musk biographer, answers partly by relaying what Musk told him in an interview for his own podcast series. It describes a shift in how Musk spends in politics.
Transcript
…powerful productivity with Lenovo AI PCs, helping users block out distractions, access virtual support anytime, anywhere, and share content seamlessly between devices. Make amazing happen. Learn more at cdw.com/slash Lenovo. You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Andrew Ross Sorkin.
…called The Builders, which features interviews with everybody from Musk himself to Dario Amade and so many others. Great to see you this morning. Let's just start with the tweet of the hour, Walter, which is what do you think is inspiring Elon to speak out about this in the way that he just did?
In the podcast in the Builders series, I talked to Musk, and he said that he was too out front. He felt he was doing way too much showmanship. Last time he got involved in politics, he got a little bit too forward on it. What he's doing now is spending twice as much money, but more quietly behind the scenes, especially on things like get out the vote, targeted ads, things he did so well in Pennsylvania two years ago to help President Trump carry that state. I think that he is deeply, deeply political right now. And he feels especially that in Texas he wants to defeat Tall Rico and he feels that the Republicans come in. He's the type of person who's an all-in person. He doesn't see nuance that well. He doesn't see black and white. He sees this as a crusade he has to get on because he's all in now for the Republicans.
Are you surprised? And I ask because he did walk away from politics, I thought, and was pretty outspoken about how he thought originally it made a mistake. He then talked about that with you, but now appears to be back.
Well, yeah, in the Builders podcast, he said he made a mistake by getting too out front. And yeah, he's mercurial. He changes. He, I mean, on many things, he can be all in or he can change. There was a while when he left the Trump administration when he said he was going to fund independence. He…
Here's a political question. Given his support of Republicans and the amount of money that he's now put towards Republicans, what genuine risk do you think he has created or poses for himself, Starlink, Tesla, et cetera, down the line if, in fact, Democrats do win?
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