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A note from the Story Producer:

Elon’s a pretty polarizing guy, which is why it took us months of research to figure out what we wanted to say about him. We could only put so much into one video, so sadly his memes and Soundcloud are on the cutting room floor.

Let us know your thoughts on the guy — is he a net good, net negative, or neutral?

~Alex

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The Rise and Rule of Elon Musk

The Billionaire Who’s Not Like Others Billionaires Check out https://ground.news/johnnyharris to see how any news story is being framed around the world and across the political spectrum. Use my link to get 40% off unlimited access. Is Elon Musk a net positive or negative for society? We spoke to people he’s worked with and researched his childhood, past business ventures like Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and X (formerly known as Twitter), and what he’s currently working on to answer this question. Special Thanks to: - Rachel Konrad, former Head of Communications at Tesla - Imran Ahmed, CEO of Center for Countering Digital Hate - Everyone we spoke to for this story Check out all my sources for this video here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eSQ3hKr9VpncFP48uukAEwfVd8V9pYp6nE2WVzxBfGI/edit?usp=sharing Check out my new channel with Sam Ellis - Search Party: https://youtube.com/@Search-Party Get access to behind-the-scenes vlogs, my scripts, and extended interviews over at https://www.patreon.com/johnnyharris Do you have an insider tip or unique information on a story? Do you have a suggestion for a story you want us to cover? Submit to the Tip Line: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdpNs1ykIwd7KNkwntN897X_SX9hJ8WiTH_erlLU_bQp2GGLg/viewform?usp=sharing I made a poster about maps - check it out: https://store.dftba.com/products/all-maps-are-wrong-poster Custom Presets & LUTs [what we use]: https://store.dftba.com/products/johnny-iz-luts-and-presets The music for this video, created by our in house composer Tom Fox, is available on our music channel, The Music Room! Follow the link to hear this soundtrack and many more: https://youtu.be/wRXnrorYFuY Watch my videos ad-free on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/johnnyharris -- VIDEO CHAPTERS -- 00:00 Intro 01:34 The Rise 04:29 The X Factor 12:05 Musk’s Playbook 21:23 The Pivot 22:48 Twitter 38:07 Conclusion 41:10 Credits About: Johnny Harris is an Emmy-winning independent journalist and contributor to the New York Times. Based in Washington, DC, Harris reports on interesting trends and stories domestically and around the globe, publishing to his audience of over 5 million on Youtube. Harris produced and hosted the twice Emmy-nominated series Borders for Vox Media. His visual style blends motion graphics with cinematic videography to create content that explains complex issues in relatable ways. - press - NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/opinion/democrats-blue-states-legislation.html NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000007358968/covid-pandemic-us-response.html Vox Borders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLrFyjGZ9NU NPR Planet Money: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1072164745 - where to find me - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnny.harris/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@johnny.harris Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnnyHarrisVox - how i make my videos - Tom Fox makes my music, work with him here: https://tfbeats.com/ I make maps using this AE Plugin: https://aescripts.com/geolayers/?aff=77 All the gear I use: https://www.izharris.com/gear-guide - my courses - Learn a language: https://brighttrip.com/course/language/ Visual storytelling: https://www.brighttrip.com/courses/visual-storytelling

Comments

Eli Gaultney

Great work on this. I'm a pretty big Elon fanboy, thinking his good outweighs his bad by a factor of about 7-8x, but it's super important to be clear there's no such thing as a perfect person. He's a human at the end of the day. I think the conversation about the social media stuff is still playing out, but I 100% agree that Elon has not lived up to his spoken ideals on free speech perfectly. It's worth remembering that X doesn't exist in a bubble though. I wonder how it compares to other platforms on all the metrics we considered here. I think the other story that hasn't broken yet, but will end up being potentially huge, is what xAI turns out to be. Elon's just about done with a super massive data center that will be used for machine learning training, and based on his criticism of the rather hilariously woke current front-runners, I'm mildly optimistic we might get a model that doesn't think it's better to let a nuke go off than say a slur. Can't wait to see the follow-up video in a decade or so :)

@DaveRizz

Yeah, I think I have to agree with Thomas Tucker above... Feels a little scary having one of the richest and most megalomaniacal people on earth mad at you... could be a scary prospect. The whole time I was watching this video, I couldn't stop flipping back and forth between: "Boy, I sure hope Elon watches this video! And takes it to heart!" and in the very next thought, "Oh boy, actually, I sure hope he DOESN'T watch it, for Johnny's sake; and the sake of all byHarris' employees and future projects!" ...because Elon, is obviously a very dangerous person to count as an enemy... and from your very own reporting, he's also very random and unpredictable, esp when trying to tell when he'll stick to his purported "free-speech" ideals, or reverse on them and generate some hypocritical justification for some pretty deplorable behavior towards folks he decides he hates and thinks are "wrong." Also, I love that the visual style and aesthetic of the videos can differ dramatically, depending on the subject and tone of the videos. Love this one's sparse, san-serif-white-on-black look. Makes me feel like there's a certain amount of "just the facts, ma'am" going on... even with a certain amount of interpretation going on too.

Vag

It is really funny and interesting how life unveils certain events. You created this video two days before the assassination attempt on Trump, and Musk's reaction to this event was exactly what you described in the video. Musk does not support free speech; he supports Trump and his agenda. The latest update is that Elon plans to support Trump's campaign by contributing $45 million a month. It seems that he is no longer hiding his intentions. He is trying to buy influence in the White House with this move.

Sazid Rahman

Following the attacks on the students leaving 130+ dead (confirmed so far), the Bangladesh Government have completely shut down it’s internet cutting it off from the world for last 30+ hours. It is anticipated that a massacre of much bigger scale can take place within the next two days. We need attention here in Bangladesh, people are absolutely hopeless here. Please speak for the people of Bangladesh as soon as possible. The dictator Sheikh Hasina won’t stop. They are enacting a sham pretending that they have made peace with protesters. However, the so-called students that supposedly met with the govt representatives for discussion was actually from the student wing of the rulling party itself. The govt has become ruthless and behaving like a tyrant. Save us, Please! #AlleyesonBangladesh #StepDownSheikhHasina #SaveBangladeshiStudents #BangladeshBleeding

Holly

Hello you like minded individuals. You have been a very trusted source of mine for a few years now and the info I've gotten from you has come in handy when my thoughts go out to people. Elon most definitely thrives in chaos and uses distractions to mask the real truth. He has somehow made himself appear as some sort of anti christ. 🤔. I am the one that was told who I was by some voice. I wonder who that could be? I've been trying to fi

Holly

(cont) figure that one out for awhile Mr Harris. So did the Mormans get it right? Or was it the Catholics? I'm going with the Hindus. That makes the most sense to me to go forward but maybe they all had parts of it right. Jesus makes sense to me. It would make sense that someone "at the bottom" who got sick enough she had to find the root cause of what was wrong and found the answer to every medical mystery, how it happens, and the answer to fixing those problems. Healing the world one hertz at a time makes sense to me and someone I very much would finally like to meet (and remember meeting) in person. I'd very much like to meet you too (and your family..you have kids? I love kids). We'd have a lot to talk about. ✌️&❤️