The shitty Google web-space does not give direct links. So I use the URL of the Google web-space.
Here is the
"Sources - Elon Musk thread"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zPeWaaCZHqfq0tnkPwc61A6bGHySdj91[*quote*]
Sources - Elon Musk thread@capitolhunters 11/02/2022
updated 11/19/2022
@capitolhunters@mastodon.social
email: capitol.hunters@gmail.com
0. Summary of contradictions p. 1
1. Documents p. 2
2. Chronological sources on Elon Musk p. 2-11
3. Undated and compilations p. 12
4. Documents from Twitter vs. Elon Musk court fight p. 12
5. Quotes about Elon and Stanford PhD programs p. 13
6. Background information (incl. Thiel) p. 14
7. Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. at Wharton p. 19
8. Visa regulations p. 20
Summary of contradictions
Besides the fact that we have Elon’s blank diploma, Elon says
- that he had degree/s from Penn in 1994 (false), 1995 (false), or 1997 (true)
- that he had to stay in school to get a degree to get an H1-B visa (but he didn’t)
- that one Penn degree was in Physics (false) or Computational Physics (doesn’t exist)
- that he moved to CA for a PhD program at Stanford, but also that he moved to find investors
- that he started a PhD at Stanford (false), then that he deferred (also false), 2 days into the
program (impossible) but before paying tuition (he wouldn’t have paid)
- that the department was Materials Science and Engineering, or Applied Physics, or Physics
(all different) or “Applied Physics and Materials Science” (doesn’t exist)
- that he was going to work with Bill Nix, also that he would work in Physics on “capacitors
and batteries”. Those are different fields; Nix worked on neither in 1995; Nix is in MSE
- that Stanford’s Dean of Graduate Studies wrote him she had reviewed his records and
that he’d been admitted (but she filed a legal statement that no records were found)
- that Stanford would let him finish his undergrad after the PhD, or during it (both unheard of)
1. Documents
Folder: bit.ly/ElonMuskLies (or bit.ly/ElonMuskThread) contains
business filings for Global Link
downloaded court documents from Eberhard vs. Musk
annotated screenshots
this source document
Twitter thread: text, attachments, and pdf of thread
2. Chronological sources
1997
May 16 The Daily Pennsylvanian, graduation issue
Includes a congratulations by the Physics Department for their graduates.
https://dparchives.library.upenn.edu/?a=d&d=tdp19970516-01.2.372.1&srpos=5&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-1997+physics------Pdf version
https://dparchives.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/imageserver.pl?oid=tdp19970516-01&getpdf=trueElon Musk’s diplomas are dated May 19, 1997
2003
Oct 8 Elon Musk interview at Stanford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afZTrfvB2AQ0:22 “I originally came up California to do energy physics at Stanford, actually”
“I got a deferment at Stanford.”
beginnings
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/videos/377/Career-Developmenttranscript
https://ecorner.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2003/10/377.pdfhistory of Zip2
https://ecorner.stanford.edu/videos/history-of-zip2/Transcript
https://ecorner.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2003/10/397.pdfQuotes:
“44:00 There were, basically, only six of us. There were myself, my brother, who I convince to come down from Canada; and a friend of my Mom's. And then three sales people we hired on contingency by putting an ad in a newspaper.”
44:15 “Things were pretty tough in the early going -I didn’t have any money - in fact I had negative money, a huge student debt. I couldn’t afford a place to stay and an office so I rented an office instead” “I got a cheaper office than I could get a place to stay. I just slept on the futon..”
2006
Inquiry Magazine, “summer” edition, p. 30: “Kimbal Musk - Entrepreneur, Restaurateur, Rocketman, Renaissance Man”
Excerpt included in 2007 O’Reilly lawsuit, itself included in 2009 Eberhard lawsuit.
Original journal not found. Possibly a publication of Queen’s University, Canada.
Implies Musk moved to California to obtain venture capital, not to go to Stanford.
Quote “When Queen’s School of Business Professor John Gordon suggested venture capital might be easier to come by in Silicon Valley, Kimbal, then 22, and Elon, 23, moved to Palo Alto..”
2007
Lawsuit against Elon Musk: John O’Reilly vs. Elon Musk (and others)
County of Santa Clara Superior Court Case No. 2007-1-CV-083172
https://portal.scscourt.org/No downloads at this URL, but some material is included in Eberhard v. Musk, San Mateo Superior Court CIV 484400 (2009). Suit alleges theft of the idea for Zip2, fraudulent mis-statement of Elon’s credentials.
Background: On October 6, 1995, Musk alleges he is a Stanford student to secure a meeting with O’Reilly and discuss his business. On Nov 3, 1995 Musk signs the paperwork to incorporate a company with a similar business model. Lawsuit turns on Elon’s false statements to secure the interview, so includes subpoenas of his academic credentials from Penn, copies of actual diplomas, and a deposition of Elon about his degrees. Judgment for Elon AND he wins attorneys fees and extracts $187K from plaintiff.
Physics World interview
https://physicsworld.com/a/once-a-physicist-elon-musk/“Postgraduate work into high-energy-density capacitors”. Note that no-one at Stanford was working on capacitors for energy storage in 1995. Nix’s work became relevant LATER, but it was not seen as relevant in 1995. No papers from Stanford in the 1993-1998 paper mention capacitor development (or batteries either)
2009
Lawsuit: Martin Eberhard vs. Elon Musk, San Mateo County Superior Court, CIV 484400
https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/3cberzj42/superior-court-of-california-county-of-san-mateo/martin-eberhard-v-elon-musk-et-al/May 26, 2009 initial complaint includes some material from O’Reilly v. Musk (2007)
July 16 filing org.sanmateocourt.CIV484400.52.0-1.pdf has more material from the 2007 suit
Quote:” In several national publications, Musk has allegedly misrepresented his affiliation with Stanford University, claiming to have “dropped out” of a Ph.D. program at that university when in fact he was never enrolled at Stanford. “
“Musk has falsely claimed to have a degree in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania that he obtained in 1995, when in fact he has no such degree and the only degree he holds was obtained later than that. Upon information and belief, Musk’s only known undergraduate degree is a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics, obtained from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.”
Items from the 2007 lawsuit, John O’Reilly vs. Elon Musk (and others), Case No. 107-CV-083172
Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara
P. 57 deposition of Norman Gondinho (who invested ca. $50K)
“A. He had got admission into Stanford through a Ph.D.
Q. How do you know that?
A. He told me. He said he had a scholarship and a grant to do this Ph.D. and, on the other side, he wanted to start this company..”
P. 100 deposition of Elon Musk
Q .And as you read the bio for you and the business plan on Page 14, is everything in the bio true and correct?
A. Yeah. Yes.
Q. Okay. So you received a B.S. in Computational Physics from Penn?
A. Yeah.
…
A. Actually, I should be clear about that. So, I obtained the one Graduate degree in Business and Physics but [had] an agreement with the.. University of Pennsylvania. They said that I could have.. I could complete the English and History credit when I was no longer a student at Stanford. So they would delay transmitting the degree until I had done that.”
Note: his statement to Ashlee Vance in 2015 contradicts this - says he would finish the classes AT Stanford.
“I had a History and an English credit that I agreed with Penn that I would do at Stanford,” he said. “Then I put Stanford on deferment. Later, Penn’s requirements changed so that you don’t need the English and History credit. So then they awarded me the degree in ’97 when it was clear I was not going to go to grad school, and their requirement was no longer there.”
P. 103 deposition of Elon Musk taken on Thursday, May 7, 2009
Q. And you got a B.S. in that, in Physics?
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
[Lawyers then dispute over whether Computational Physics existed at Penn (it didn’t)]
P. 104 deposition of Elon Musk
Q. Now, looking at the first two pages of Exhibit 10, are those the only two diplomas you received from the University of Pennsylvania?
A. You know, I didn’t even look at the things coming out. So, I guess these are the diplomas from the University.
Q. Do you think you have additional diplomas from the University of Pennsylvania?
A. No.
Q. Are you aware of either of these documents granting you a Bachelor of Science in Computational Physics?
The Witness: Well actually, it’s in Latin.
…
Q. If you look at the - the diplomas themselves, one says Bachelor of Science in Economics in English. Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And the other just says Bachelor’s of Science in Latin, correct?
A. I don’t know what it says. I’m not good at Latin.
Diplomas themselves are on p. 164-165, both largely in Latin. Each says “approbata ad gradum” (“approved for the degree”) followed by a line of text. That line on one diploma is “Bachelor of Science in Economics”. On the other diploma it is “Baccalavrei Artivm”. The v’s are presumably stylized u’s and this translates as “Bachelor of Arts” with no subject given. People from Penn say that all-Latin and no department is the norm. Date in Roman numerals translates to May 19, 1997
P. 106 deposition of Elon Musk
Q. Did you ever pay any tuition fees at Stanford for any graduate programs?
A. No, because I deferred starting. It was about two days into the quarter that I spoke with [indistinct] who was the Chairman of the Science Department and deferred starting.
P. 125 Global Link business plan
At the head of the Global Link research group is Elon Musk. He has completed a degree in finance and entrepreneurship from the Wharton School, and a B.S. in Computational Physics.
Note - this is false, as Elon had no degree til after the company changed name to Zip2. Also there is no degree in Computational Physics at Penn even today. There is a “Concentration in Computer Techniques”:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191217192622/https://live-sas-physics.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu/undergraduate/physics-astronomy-major#computerP. 142 another version of Elon’s biography in slide deck for investors
“He has completed a degree in finance and entrepreneurship from the Wharton School, and a B.S. in Computational Physics.”
P. 149 Response to Form Interrogatory No. 2.7
Education section includes “University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), 3451 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19104, dates attended 1992-1995, BS degree in Finance and Physics.
P. 169 Subpoena to Stanford University for Elon’s records.
P. 175 letter from Judith Haccou, Director of Graduate Admissions, Stanford University, Dec. 16, 2008
“Based on the information you provided, we are unable to locate a record in our office for Elon Musk”
Notes discrepancy -
Ashlee Vance’s 2015 biography of Musk cites a June 22, 2009 letter from Judith Haccou (see 2009 entry).
“As per special request from my colleagues in the School of Engineering, I have searched Stanford’s admission data base and acknowledge that you applied and were admitted to the graduate program in Material Science Engineering in 1995. Since you did not enroll, Stanford is not able to issue you an official certification document.”
Stanford’s program is called “Materials Science and Engineering” :
https://mse.stanford.edu/Judith Haccou would not make that mistake: joined Stanford in 1979, had been there 29 years in 2008
https://news.stanford.edu/report/2020/12/04/judith-haccou-former-director-graduate-admissions-died-69/Twitter repost of selected contents
https://twitter.com/RiskAndChips/status/1072299002568302593Sept 21, 2009 Autoblog - Eberhard and Musk settle out of court
https://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/21/martin-eberhard-and-elon-musk-reach-settlement-in-lawsuit/Court had ruled that all parts of suit could proceed other than that part against Musk calling himself a Tesla founder
2010
DOE provides $465 M in loans, 6 months before the company goes public
April 20 Tesla press release:
https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-gets-loan-approval-us-department-energyFor this topic see also Washington Post, March 16 2017:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/03/16/this-government-loan-program-helped-tesla-at-a-critical-time-trump-wants-to-cut-it/Wharton Magazine profile
https://magazine.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/fall-2010/he-wont-back-down/Says Elon’s degrees are both from 1997. He talks about why he chose to study physics
2012
June Commencement speech at Caltech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxZpaJK74Y4“..if I can advance technology then that’s like magic and that’d be really cool.. I always had kind of a slight existential crisis, so I was trying to figure out, what does it all mean, like what’s the purpose of things, and, um, I came to the conclusion that if - if we can advance the - the knowledge of the world, if we can do things that expand the scope and - and scale of consciousness, then we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened and that’s really the only way forward.” [ - 2:37]
2:37 “So I studied - uh - Physics and Business because I figured in order to do a lot of these things you need to know how the universe works and you need to know how the economy works, um, and you also need to be able to bring a lot of people together to work with you to create something, because it’s very difficult to create something as an individual if it’s a significant technology.”
“I - uh - originally came out to California to - uh - try to figure out how to improve the energy density of - uh - of um -of electric vehicles to try to figure out if there was an advanced capacitor that could serve as an alternative to batteries. And um - that was in 95 and that was also when the internet started to happen”
2013
March 9 SXSW interview by Chris Anderson (editor-in-chief 3D Robotics)
Event description:
https://schedule.sxsw.com/2013/events/event_IAP993338Bio quote: “transitioning to a sustainable energy economy, in which electric vehicles play a pivotal role, has been one of his central interests for almost two decades, stemming from his time as a physics student working on ultracapacitors in Silicon Valley.”
Video of interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeQMWdOMa-A39:44 in video comments on education begin
Musk: A university education is often unnecessary. That’s not to say it’s unnecessary for all people but .. I think you probably learn about as much - or the vast majority of what you’re going to learn there - in the first two years, and most of it is from your classmates. Um - because you can always buy the textbooks and just read them I mean no one is stopping you from doing that.. Now for a lot of companies, they do want to see the completion of the degree, because they’re looking for someone who’s going to persevere and see it through to the end, and that’s actually what.. what’s important to them. So it really depends on what somebody’s goal is. If the goal is to start a company, I would say no point in finishing college. In my case I had to, otherwise I’d get kicked out of the country. So that was important, but..
Interviewer: Although you went on, and got a master’s degree as well, right?
I came out to Silicon Valley to do a PhD at Stanford in Applied Physics and Materials Science, to work on ultracapacitors for use in electric cars. That’s what I was going to do, and then I sort of put that on hold to start a company. But since I already had my undergrad, I could then get an H1-B visa and that sort of thing. The H1-B visa requires a degree. But other than that, if that wasn’t the case, I probably would have stopped education sooner. “
Interviewer: Did you not go to Wharton for..?
Musk: Yeah yeah. I did a dual undergrad in Physics and Business at Wharton.
48:25 Comments on philosophy of Physics
Q: “What’s the best advice you’ve ever got?” A “Well, I think that - uh - physics training is a very good training, where it’s a good framework for reasoning where you’re trained to think about first principles and reason from there, and that means boiling things down to the most fundamental truths, and then connecting those truths in a way to try to understand how reality is - because physics has this problem with trying to figure out things that are totally counterintuitive - and so they had to have a framework for getting there. Like quantum mechanics is incredibly counterintuitive - uh - but it’s true.”
May 16 Forbes article
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/05/16/teslas-elon-musk-is-no-dummy/?sh=7d9f4af13907Quotes
“He started a PhD at Stanford in applied physics and materials science, but dropped out to become an entrepreneur.”
Oct 2 Stanford School of Business, Encore Award ceremonies, honoring Tesla and Elon Musk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBItc_QAUUMElon is interviewed by Steve Jurvetson -
11:23 “Yeah I started out thinking okay, when I do something in the electric vehicle space, and that’s why I originally came to Stanford was to work on advanced storage capabilities and take ultracapacitors. So that was continuing on research that I’d done as an intern in Silicon Valley the summer prior. So, so, that’s why I originally came out in ‘95.
2015
May 19 Ashlee Vance Book is published
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25541028-elon-muskAppendix 1 describes inconsistencies in education. (In first edition, not added later)
https://publicism.info/biography/elon_musk/14.html Archived
https://archive.ph/3NtKP“At first, I, too, felt like there were a lot of oddities surrounding Musk’s academic record, particularly the Stanford days. But, as I dug in, there were solid explanations for all of the inconsistencies and plenty of evidence to undermine the cases of Musk’s detractors.”
“As for his academic records, Musk produced a document for me dated June 22, 2009, that came from Judith Haccou, the director of graduate admissions in the office of the registrar at Stanford University. It read, “As per special request from my colleagues in the School of Engineering, I have searched Stanford’s admission data base and acknowledge that you applied and were admitted to the graduate program in Material Science Engineering [sic] in 1995. Since you did not enroll, Stanford is not able to issue you an official certification document.”
Musk also had an explanation for the weird timing on his degrees from Penn. “I had a History and an English credit that I agreed with Penn that I would do at Stanford,” he said. “Then I put Stanford on deferment. Later, Penn’s requirements changed so that you don’t need the English and History credit. So then they awarded me the degree in ’97 when it was clear I was not going to go to grad school, and their requirement was no longer there.”
Penn general education requirements as of 2022:
https://www.college.upenn.edu/gen-ed“Foundational Approaches” is 6 areas, one of which is a language requirement (can meet it with AP credit)
“Sectors of Knowledge” requires courses in 7 areas, including “History and Tradition”
June 5 Esquire article by Ashlee Vance (excerpts from book)
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a35508/elon-musk-college-years-canada-u-penn/Queens: “I went to the least number of classes possible.”
Penn:”video game binges that went on for days”
Penn: “It's difficult to find former students who remember him being there at all.”
October
Interview at Stanford by Peter Jurvetson (with introduction by John Hennessy)
https://ecorner.stanford.edu/contributor/elon-musk/ https://ecorner.stanford.edu/videos/elon-musks-vision-for-the-future-entire-talk/Transcript
https://ecorner.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/10/3620.pdfJohn Hennessy introduction “He was born in South Africa, attended Queen's University in Canada before moving to the US, where he earned his undergraduate degrees in Economics and Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. He arrived at Stanford to pursue his PhD In physics, but left after two days”
11:45 -
Elon “that's not exactly advice. That has been encapsulated into time-warping wisdom. Yeah, exactly like wisdom. I mean there's a lot of things. Listen more to critical feedback. A lot of things I learned in college actually were pretty helpful.
I mean, I think the physics approach to thinking is very good-- like the first principles approach. And you applied that broadly? Yeah, applying the first principles in process of thinking is, I think, a good way to figure out counter-intuitive situations. And I thought that was really a helpful thing to learn. That's good. Feel free to jump in. Because I don't know how it ends for that question. Yeah, what would you do? What would you tell your younger self? It will be alright. You weren't as dorky as you think-- advice like that-- nothing really too actionable. Don't worry about it? Well, just don't be so insecure about everything you're insecure about, would probably be my advice to myself. But let's move on.”
13:37-13:58 “ Yeah, I mean, if you sort of follow what I did initially, was-- to go back to college times-- was working on energy storage technologies for electric vehicles. And that's what I was going to pursue at Stanford, actually, was work on advanced capacitors and batteries to improve the energy density for electric vehicles. And then the internet was kind of happening.”
2016
April 11 Ars Technica article
https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/without-nasa-there-would-be-no-spacex-and-its-brilliant-boat-landing/Describes how NASA’s $1.6 B contract saved SpaceX in Dec. 2008
(Tesla was saved by a DOE loan of nearly $500M that year)
2017
Nov. Rolling Stone article (Neil Strauss) “Elon Musk: the Architect of Tomorrow”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/elon-musk-the-architect-of-tomorrow-120850/https://archive.ph/SJZmt (archived)
Quotes: “Musk is not a businessman or entrepreneur. He's an engineer, inventor and, as he puts it, "technologist." And as a naturally gifted engineer, he's able to find the design inefficiencies, flaws and complete oversights in the tools that power our civilization.”
“I'm naturally good at engineering that's because I inherited it from my father," Musk says. "What's very difficult for others is easy for me.” (Also mentions that Musk’s father killed three people, home intruders)
2018
SXSW interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzlUyrccbos12:56 “yeah I think in order to make the right decisions you have to understand something you need to understand something you add a detailed level - you cannot make a good decision. Um so but I’d like to just probably like the you know where you saw there as a result of an incredible team and that’s Space X”
1:05:17 “I’ve always been super interested in electric vehicles. I was going to do my PhD on an advanced and reduced energy storage [coughs] - was going to do grad studies on advanced energy storage for electric vehicles”
2020
“Reality Check: Tesla, Inc.”, Think Computer Foundation
https://www.plainsite.org/realitycheck/tsla.pdf Article about Tesla Inc., references the 2009 Eberhard v. Musk suit. Contents not independently verified.
Aug 3 2020 Elon Musk Tweets some homework from Penn
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1300104995476574211Nigel Lockyer Re-Tweets (“Phys 351, Spring 1993” Elon’s first year at Penn, year 3 of college)
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Lockyer/status/13001650208783441942022
Feb 15 Forbes article: “Why Elon Musk Dropped out of Stanford after only two days”
https://fortune.com/2022/02/15/why-elon-musk-dropped-out-of-stanford/Archived version:
https://archive.ph/SiRSzMay 4 New York Times “The Myth of the Genius Tech Inventor”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/technology/myth-of-the-genius-tech-inventor.htmlCalls Musk a “great inventor” (in article otherwise about how businesses need teamwork)
June 3 interview with Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeeeEDSekG89:03 “so um [pauses to drink water] so what I was going to be studying - um - at - at Stanford, for grad studies there, I’d be primarily in the materials science group - uh - Bill Nix would have been my professor. He’s the guy I spoke to when I said that [laughs] I’d like to put my studies on hold”
35:12 “for my first company Zip2, I had no money, so I could not invest in Zip 2”
June 14 Bill Nix letter to Elon Musk (posted by Musk on Twitter)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1560720224588120064June 16 Sitebuilder article “The Story of Elon Musk’s First Company”
covers founding of Zip2
https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/origin-stories/elon-muskAug 29 NYT article about subpoenas: Twitter has subpoenaed Thiel’s Founders Fund. Musk is unhappy about turning over group chats
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/technology/musk-twitter-trial-lawyers.html“The company has issued more than 84 subpoenas to uncover discussions that might prove that Mr. Musk soured on the acquisition because the economic downturn decreased his personal wealth.”
Aug 31 Stanford Daily article: Musk has subpoenaed Stanford
https://stanforddaily.com/2022/08/31/elon-musk-subpoenas-stanford-in-legal-battle-with-twitter“Musk’s legal team requested documents related to all “conversations, conferences, discussions, interviews, meetings, negotiations and agreements” between Twitter and Stanford affiliates over the proposed acquisition.”
April 29 Wall Street Journal - “The Shadow Crew
Musk urged to buy Twitter by Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Steve Jurvetson
https://archive.ph/j0DX53 of those spent childhood years in apartheid South Africa
Nov 6 WaPo on who is advising Musk now
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/06/elon-musk-inner-circle/Jason Calcanis (investor / podcaster), Jared Birchall (manges Elon’s personal finances), Alex Spiro (Elon’s lawyer), David Sacks
3. Undated and Compilations
Video compilation of Elon’s statements about physics over the years (no dates)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSkJTkhLYxAWorld Government Forum
0:00 Q about “advice to young people globally who want to be like Elon Musk. What’s you’readvice to them?
A “I think .. advice..I mean, if you want to make progress on things.um the-the best analytical framework for understanding the future is physics. I recommend studying the ah - the thinking process around physics. Like, not just the, not the equations - I mean the equations certainly they’re helpful - but the way of thinking in physics is - the best framework for understanding things that are counterintuitive”.
1:57 “I think physics in general is a good background for thinking. You know I just generally recommend people take physics courses because physics has the best tools for critical thinking”.
2:10 “how do you manage to dive so deeply into so many engineering challenges” “Well, I studied physics and I strongly recommend studying physics as a good grounding in to understand the nature of reality. I mean physics is at fundamentally just understanding how does the universe really work”
Compilation of sources from Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7#with-his-brother-kimbal-elon-musk-launched-zip2-a-cluster-of-silicon-valley-investors-helped-to-fund-the-company-which-provided-city-travel-guides-to-newspapers-like-the-new-york-times-and-chicago-tribune-104. Documents from Twitter vs. Elon Musk court fight.
April 2022 Agreement to join board
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522095651/d342257dex101.htmAug. 2022 subpoena of Stanford
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://stanforddaily.com/2022/08/31/elon-musk-subpoenas-stanford-in-legal-battle-with-twitterTexts released Sep. 2022 as part of the Twitter v. Elon Musk lawsuit
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23108357/redacted-version-of-exhibits-a-j-to-letter-to-the-honorable-kathaleen-st-j-mccormick-from-edward-b.pdfAxios timeline of Twitter purchase saga, with links to documents:
https://www.axios.com/2022/05/17/elon-musk-twitter-timeline5. Quotes about Elon and Stanford PhD programs
Reilly lawsuit (2007, about 1995) - Materials Science
NYT 2006 - “Physics”, dropped out. UG “theoretical physics”
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/business/yourmoney/a-bold-plan-to-go-where-men-have-gone-before.htmlMercury News (2008) - “applied physics”, dropped out. UG “physics”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/10/17/elon-musks-vision-to-change-the-course-of-humanity/Elon interview in Physics World 2007 - says he was “offered a place to do.. research into high energy-density capacitors”
https://physicsworld.com/a/once-a-physicist-elon-musk/Forbes (2013) - “applied physics and materials science” “dropped out to become an entrepreneur”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/05/16/teslas-elon-musk-is-no-dummy/https://archive.ph/TAUoz (archived site)
Ashlee Vance book (2015) “material science”
Bloomberg (2022) - - “physics” (also mentions Stanford subpoena)
https://archive.ph/BVnXMAlso mentions Bill Nix letter, but Nix is in Material Science and Engineering
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-31/stanford-sucked-into-dropout-musk-s-legal-fight-with-twitterForbes 2022– “Physics” (and mentions dropping out)
https://archive.ph/SiRSz6. Background information
Elon Musk
Elon Queen’s University photos
https://www.queensu.ca/alumnireview/articles/2013-02-01/elon-muskReddit repost: QC jacket is for “queen’s commerce”
https://www.reddit.com/r/elonmusk/comments/84ttm8/elon_musk_at_queens_university_in_kingston/NYT Oct 11, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/style/elon-musk-social-calendar.htmlThiel’s influence on Elon Musk
WaPo Nov 13, 2022 (Gerrit De Vynck)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/13/dan-odowd-challenges-tesla-musk/Musk’s current push to release self-driving Teslas before they are ready, and Dan O’Dowd’s crusade against it.
See also LA Times quote of Max Chafkin “Musk thinks Peter is a sociopath, and Peter thinks Musk is a fraud and a braggart.”
Forbes, Sep 8 2020 (Hayley Cuccinello)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2020/09/08/elon-musk-has-promised-to-give-at-least-half-his-fortune-to-charity-heres-how-much-hes-donated-so-far/?sh=11ae62183c8cMusk charitable donations (less than 1% of total wealth)
Musk family
Maternal grandfather Joshua Haldeman
Keating, J and S. Haldeman: “Joshua N Haldeman, DC: the Canadian Years, 1926-1950”. J Can Chirop Assoc 39 (3), 172-186, 1995.
https://silview.media/2022/04/12/elon-musk-is-the-grandson-of-a-jewish-canadian-leader-of-the-technocracy-movement-openly-backed-by-masons-and-the-rockefellers/Father Errol Musk
Aug 2022 interview in The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/01/elon-musk-father-interview-not-proud-errol-familyTesla Founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Eberhard-and-Marc-TarpenningEberhard: BS Computer Science 1982, MS Electrical Engineering 1984, UIUC
Professional credentials: “electrical engineer at Wyse Technology, vice president of electronics at Belfort Memory International, and chief engineer at Network Computing Devices”
Tarpenning: BS Computer Science 1985, UC Berkeley
Professional credentials: Textron, Seagate, Bechtel, VP of Engineering at Packet Design
1997: co-founded e-Book company NuvoMedia, sold for $187 M
2003: co-founded Tesla Motors, multiple investors, largest Elon Musk at $30 M
Peter Thiel
Childhood - interview with Reid Hoffman, transcribed.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/he-product-images/docs/Podcase_transcript_A.pdf?elqTrackId=f086091397a74b1d82f8a23d4ebb0fba&elqaid=124&elqat=2Archived at:
https://archive.ph/ldgnIMentions schools in Johannesburg, SA and Swakopmund (now Namibia, then South West Africa, under the control of South Africa. His father oversaw a uranium mine)
Stanford Politics (Andrew Granato), 2017
https://stanfordpolitics.org/2017/11/27/peter-thiel-cover-story/Thiel’s network of over 300 Stanford Review alums mentored and hired to his companies
“The Education of a Libertarian”, Cato Unbound, April 13 2009
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
“I started a student newspaper to challenge the prevailing campus orthodoxies; we scored some limited victories, most notably in undoing speech codes instituted by the university.”
Same essay urges escape from organized government to cyberspace (i.e. cryptocurrency, "a new world currency free of government control"), to outer space, and by seasteading ("setting the oceans"). Seems to oppose women voting. Thiel later had to apologize
Forbes (Matt Drange), June 21, 2016, “Peter Thiel’s War on Gawker - a Timeline”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2016/06/21/peter-thiels-war-on-gawker-a-timeline/?sh=49b9e8e651c5Gawker outed Thiel Dec. 19 2007, 2009 “I think they should be described as terrorists”, 2012 Gawker post Hulk Hogan sex tape,
The Nation (Chris Lehmann) “The Reactionary Prophet of Silicon Valley”
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/curtis-yarvin/Profile of neo-fascist Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) who influences Thiel and others in his circle
Calls writings “familiar tropes of white victimhood”. Calls slavery “a natural human relationship”
‘Yarvin rhapsodizes on colonial rule in Southern Africa, and suggests that black people had it better under apartheid. “If you ask me to condemn [mass murderer] Anders Breivik, but adore Nelson Mandela, perhaps you have a mother you’d like to fuck,” Yarvin writes’
Influence on Thilel’s protegees: “GOP Senate hopefuls Blake Masters in Arizona and J.D. Vance in Ohio have both favorably cited a key plank of his plan for post-democratic overhaul—the strongman plan to “retire all government employees,”
Mother Jones (Josh Harkinson), Mar 10 2017
“Meet Silicon Valley’s Secretive Alt-Right Followers”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/silicon-valley-tech-alt-right-racism-misogyny/NY Magazine (Max Chafkin, book excerpts) “Peter Thiel’s Origin Story”, Sept. 20 2021
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/peter-thiel-silicon-valley-contrarian-max-chafkin.htmlQuotes:
“reflexive contrarianism, the unearned confidence, the impossibly favorable outcome”
“His book Zero to One “developed the idiosyncrasies that had been present in the college-age Thiel into a full-blown ideology. The book argues, among other things, that founders are godlike, that monarchies are more efficient than democracies, and that cults are a better organizational model than management consultancies. More than anything, it celebrates rule-breaking. Thiel bragged that of PayPal’s six founders, four had built bombs in high school.”
““He viewed liberals through a lens as people who were not nice to him,” said a classmate. “The way people treated him at Stanford had a huge impact. That’s still with him.”
“some who know Thiel speculate, convincingly, that his mid-’90s homophobia was an expression of self-hatred.” (Both Thiel and his friend Keith Rabois were virulently anti-gay at Stanford; both since came out as gay)
Thiel had been managing “a pool of capital he’d raised from friends and family as a hedge fund”, invested in a coder’s project that became PayPal - boasted that it would cause “the erosion of the nation-state”
(his father was a chemical engineer, no sign of wealth in the family)
“Musk thinks Peter is a sociopath, and Peter thinks Musk is a fraud and a braggart.”
“Thiel had laid a trap, installing most of his deputies — including Levchin and the author of the Review’s “Rape Issue” [David Sacks] — in the executive ranks. Musk didn’t realize he was surrounded by a team that was more loyal to Thiel than to him. Later that year, Musk left town for a two-week trip. While he was in the air, a group of Thiel-aligned conspirators confronted the company’s major backer, Moritz, at his office on Sand Hill Road. They demanded their patron be put in charge.”
Thiel then suggests that all of PayPal’s cash be given to Thiel Capital
David Sacks
Recent pro-Russia postings
Article in The American Conservative, Sep 26 2022
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/should-america-go-all-in-on-ukraine/It makes no sense for the U.S. to play for all the chips over a Donbas region that no American president has ever before claimed is a vital interest. Risking World War III with a desperate nuclear-armed opponent, with no vital security interests at stake, without having exhausted every diplomatic option, is not good pot control.
Oct 3 Musk Tweets about a negotiated settlement in Ukraine
On Oct 4, 2022 Sacks defends Musk in Newsweek article. “The Neocons and the Woke Left are Joining Hands and Leading Us to Woke War III” (partly defending Elon Musk’s Oct. 3 Tweets)
https://www.newsweek.com/neocons-woke-left-are-joining-hands-leading-us-woke-war-iii-opinion-1748947We've seen this before: "Woke mobs" on Twitter routinely demonize and defame their political opponents, impugn the motives of anyone who questions their goals or tactics, and squelch dissent even in their own ranks by declaring the debate on certain topics over.
What makes the "I stand with Ukraine" version of the Twitter mob unique is that it brings together two forces that used to be sworn enemies of one another—the woke Left and the neoconservative Right. It turns out they share many of the same loathsome ideological and personality traits, and have a similar "slash and burn" approach to political engagement. It's a new political marriage.
Interview Oct. 17 “David Sacks: Cancellation Tactics Can Lead to ‘Woke War III’”
From the Ron Paul Liberty Report (posted on Peter Thiel’s Rumble)
https://rumble.com/v1ofk2p-david-sacks-cancelation-tactics-can-lead-to-woke-war-iii.htmlRight now we are on an escalatory path and the destination ahead is ‘Woke War III’
Oct. 17 Musk Tweets replying to Sack’s old Oct 4 Tweet about his Newsweek article “Exceptionally well-said”. Maybe prompted by new interview posted that day.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1581986552246603776Interview, Unherd, Nov 1 2022 David Sacks: Is Ukraine Turning into Woke War III?
https://unherd.com/thepost/david-sacks-on-ukraine-from-culture-war-to-nuclear-war/Articles about Sacks
LA Times (Sam Dean) “Meet David Sacks, Gavin Newsom’s loudest critic in Silicon Valley”
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-09-05/meet-david-sacks-gavin-newsoms-loudest-critic-in-silicon-valleyDiscusses Sacks’ funding of a movement to recall Gavin Newsom
The New Republic (Jacob Silverman), Oct 18 2022, “The Quiet Political Rise of David Sacks, Silicon Valley’s Prophet of Urban Doom”
https://newrepublic.com/article/168125/david-sacks-elon-musk-peter-thielSacks formerly PayPal’s COO, installed by Thiel
Sacks has co-founded the media site Callin “which has attracted a swathe of very online journalists from the left, right, and murkier ideological corners,”
Seems to be part of the faux-left, part of join manipulation of far-left and far-right. Silverman says of Sacks’ crowd: “These dissident leftists are joined by a growing number of tech and finance elites with reactionary politics.”
“Domestically, the vision is more muddled, a series of angry poses, a politics of pique, much of it playing out on Twitter, Callin, YouTube, Rumble, Substack, and other online media, especially among people who may have once counted themselves on the left but now can’t countenance the sight of homeless encampments.” Mentions The Young Turks and Jacobin
“Despite Sacks’s ties to the online post-left and his efforts to speak for San Francisco’s disenchanted Democrats, his record of campaign finance donations tells the story of a die-hard Republican.”
Donates $1M to JD Vance
Steve Jurvetson
Jurvetson - PayPal guy called out for sexual misconduct at work
https://archive.ph/EloEvJurvetson was Tesla board member since 2006, even through sexual harassment scandal
7. Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. at Wharton
Trump Sr.’s time at Wharton
Boston Globe 2015
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/08/28/donald-trump-was-bombastic-even-wharton-business-school/3FO0j1uS5X6S8156yH3YhL/story.html(archived version of site)
https://archive.ph/RxlNePhiladelphia Magazine 2019
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/09/14/donald-trump-at-wharton-university-of-pennsylvania/Daily Pennsylvanian
https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/02/trump-classmates-wharton-academics$100K donation given in late 1996, just as Donald Trump Jr started
1997 Daily Pennsylvanian
https://dparchives.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/imageserver.pl?oid=tdp19970128-01&getpdf=true2016 Daily Pennsylvanian (confirms that Jr. started 1996)
https://www.thedp.com/article/2016/11/trumps-history-of-donating-to-pennThe Giving Trump
https://www.thegivingtrump.com/donald-trump-donated-100000-to-penn-club-of-new-york/Donald Trump Jr at Wharton
LA Times article
Trump Sr. oasting about academic success
Claims that Donald Trump was first in his class
1973 New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/28/archives/a-builder-looks-backand-moves-forward-builder-looks-back-but-moves.htmlTrump mentions Wharton, frequently: count of 52 times between 2015-2018
Daily Pennsylvanian, 2018
https://www.thedp.com/article/2018/01/trump-penn-wharton-data-education-times-ivy-league-business-finance-philadelphia-campaign8. Visa requirements
EB-1
https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-first-preference-eb-1H1-B
https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupationsEB-5
https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/eb-5-immigrant-investor-programhttps://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-fifth-preference-eb-5/about-the-eb-5-visa-classificationStudent visa overstays
Vaughan, J. “Foreign Students and National Security: Student Visa Overstays”.
Center for Immigration Studies, 2019
https://cis.org/Vaughan/Foreign-Students-and-National-Security-Student-Visa-OverstaysNote: not a peer-reviewed study, also CIS is a political advocacy group. However, the percentage of overstays listed here is consistent with government sources.
DHS “Fiscal Year 2020 Entry/Exit Overstay Report”
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2021-12/CBP%20-%20FY%202020%20Entry%20Exit%20Overstay%20Report_0.pdfPayPal Mafia
Stats
23 Total
8 Econ / Business 4 Stanford, 1 Penn, 1 UCT 1 Hamilton, 1 UC Riverside
6 Hum. / Soc. Science 4 Stanford, 1 Ind. Univ. of PA 1 Penn
9 CS / Eng. 7 CS UIUC, 1 CS Carnegie-Mellon, 1 Eng. Johns Hopkins
1. Peter Thiel, founder
a. Philosophy, Law (Stanford). Invested with money from “friends and family”
b. German, spent much of childhood in S. Africa (now Namibia)
2. Max Levchin, founder and chief technology officer at PayPal
a. Computer Science, UIUC
b. Ukrainian
3. Elon Musk, co-founder of Zip2, founder of X.com which eventually merged
a. Economics (Wharton School, Penn), awarded 2 years after he left
b. South African
4. David O. Sacks, former PayPal COO who later founded Geni.com and Yammer
a. Economics (Stanford), Law (UChicago)
b. South African (emigrated at age 5)
5. Scott Banister, early advisor and board member at PayPal
a. CS (UIUC) - may not have finished. Rand Paul supporter
6. Roelof Botha, former PayPal CFO, later at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital
a. Economics and Stats (U. Cape Town), MBA (Stanford)
b. South African
7. Steve Chen, former PayPal engineer who co-founded YouTube.
a. CS (UIUC)
b. Taiwanesse (emigrated at 7)
8. Reid Hoffman, former executive vice president, later founded LinkedIn
a. Symbolic Systems & Cognitive Science (Stanford), Philosophy MS (Oxford)
9. Ken Howery, former PayPal CFO who became a partner at Founders Fund
a. Economics (Stanford). Edited the Stanford Review.
10. Chad Hurley, former PayPal web designer who co-founded YouTube
a. Fine Art (Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania)
11. Eric M. Jackson, who wrote the book The PayPal Wars
a. Economics (Stanford). Board of Directors of Stanford Review
12. Jawed Karim, former PayPal engineer who co-founded YouTube
a. CS (UIUC), MS CS (Stanford)
b. Bangladeshi and German
13. Jared Kopf, former PayPal (executive assistant to Peter Thiel)
a. Interaction Design, English (Stanford)
14. Dave McClure, former PayPal marketing director, a super angel investor
a. Engineering (Johns Hopkins)
15. Andrew McCormack, co-founder of Valar Ventures
a. Political Science (Penn)
16. Luke Nosek, PayPal co-founder, Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel and Ken Howery
a. CS (UIUC)
b. Polish
17. Keith Rabois, former executive at PayPal
a. Political Science (Stanford), Law (Harvard). Stanford Review contributor
18. Jack Selby, co-founded Clarium Capital with Peter Thiel
a. Economics (Hamilton College)
19. Premal Shah, former product manager at PayPal, founding president of Kiva.org
a. Economics? (Stanford)
b. India
20. Russel Simmons, former PayPal engineer who co-founded Yelp Inc.
a. CS (UIUC)
21. Jeremy Stoppelman
a. CS (UIUC)
22. Yishan Wong, former engineering manager at PayPal
a. CS ? (Carnegie-Mellon)
23. Dan Chan, pre-IPO PayPal employee
a. Business and Finance, UC Riverside
2012
June Commencement speech at Caltech
“..if I can advance technology then that’s like magic and that’d be really cool.. I always had kind of a slight existential crisis, so I was trying to figure out, what does it all mean, like what’s the purpose of things, and, um, I came to the conclusion that if - if we can advance the - the knowledge of the world, if we can do things that expand the scope and - and scale of consciousness, then we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened and that’s really the only way forward.” [0:00]
2013
SXSW interview
Q: “What’s the best advice you’ve ever got?” Elon: “Well, I think that - uh - physics training is a very good training, where it’s a good framework for reasoning where you’re trained to think about first principles and reason from there, and that means boiling things down to the most fundamental truths, and then connecting those truths in a way to try to understand how reality is - because physics has this problem with trying to figure out things that are totally counterintuitive - and so they had to have a framework for getting there. Like quantum mechanics is incredibly counterintuitive - uh - but it’s true.” [48:25]
2015
Interview at Stanford
Elon “that's not exactly advice. That has been encapsulated into time-warping wisdom. Yeah, exactly like wisdom. I mean there's a lot of things. Listen more to critical feedback. A lot of things I learned in college actually were pretty helpful.
I mean, I think the physics approach to thinking is very good-- like the first principles approach. And you applied that broadly? Yeah, applying the first principles in process of thinking is, I think, a good way to figure out counter-intuitive situations. And I thought that was really a helpful thing to learn. That's good. Feel free to jump in. Because I don't know how it ends for that question. Yeah, what would you do? What would you tell your younger self? It will be alright. You weren't as dorky as you think-- advice like that-- nothing really too actionable. Don't worry about it? Well, just don't be so insecure about everything you're insecure about, would probably be my advice to myself. But let's move on.”
[*/quote*]