Kate Conger

Very earnest.

Yeah.

And then over time, I think something kind of clicked for him where he realized this was a really good way to circumvent PR and circumvent the media and kind of speak directly to his fans and followers.

And that it was a really effective way of promoting his businesses and an effective way of growing his fan base, kind of letting people in behind the scenes of what it's like to be, you know, this rocket maker, this car maker.

Yeah.

Yeah, he had a really strong reaction to the COVID pandemic and the way it was handled in California in particular.

You know, we were under really severe lockdown here in the beginning of the pandemic and

one of the many, many things that was forced to close was his factories here.

And he reacted really strongly to that.

And, you know, we say this about Elon all the time.

I think he's sort of a more extreme version of a type that you find a lot in Silicon Valley, but it's sort of a do-your-own-research type.

And there was a lot of people in tech who at that time were just spending all their time on Twitter and, you know, talking about, oh, I just found this research and I think air particles move around this way.

And, you know, just kind of trying to

become overnight experts in how the pandemic was going to work.

And he was certainly one of those people.

You know, he tweeted at one point that COVID could not infect children.

I think he tweeted at another point that the pandemic would be over by April of 2020, you know, and making these very confident and very inaccurate predictions about the way that things were going to go.

But yeah, I mean, it was a really politically radicalizing experience for him, as it was, I think, for a lot of people.

In fact, I think maybe because he has a trans child.

That's right.