Rudy Giuliani ‘mob scene’ turned Elon Musk off seeking advice, new book says | Books
Elon Musk backed away from a plan to recruit Rudy Giuliani as a political fixer to assist him flip PayPal right into a financial institution in 2001 after he and an affiliate discovered the then New York mayor “surrounded by goonish confidantes” in an workplace that felt “like a mob scene”.
“This guy occupies a different planet,” Musk, who would grow to be the world’s richest man, stated of Giuliani, then approaching the height of his fame.
Giuliani left workplace at the end of 2001 after main New York by means of the 9/11 assaults, then ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, a marketing campaign which quickly collapsed.
He turned an legal professional and ally to Donald Trump however missed out on a cupboard appointment when Trump gained the presidency in 2016.
Trump’s first impeachment was fueled by Giuliani’s work in Ukraine, seeking political grime on opponents. Now 79, Giuliani has pleaded not responsible to 13 prison fees of racketeering and conspiracy, concerning his work to advance Trump’s try and overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
The irony of the previous mayor and New York US legal professional being indicted on fees usually used in opposition to figures in organised crime has been broadly remarked. As a prosecutor, Giuliani made his identify chasing down mafia kingpins.
The newest image of Giuliani as gangster is included in Elon Musk, a new biography of the 52-year-old Tesla, SpaceX and X (previously Twitter) proprietor and someday world’s richest man, by Walter Isaacson, whose different topics embody Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs.
Isaacson’s book was broadly excerpted within the US media earlier than publication on Tuesday.
The transient assembly between Musk and Giuliani took place, Isaacson writes, as Musk sought to show PayPal, the web funds firm he co-founded, into “a social network that would disrupt the whole banking industry” – a imaginative and prescient he now harbours for Twitter, which he purchased in October 2022 and renamed as X this yr.
“We have to decide whether we are going to aim big,” Musk informed those that labored for him, Isaacson writes, including that some “believed Musk’s framing was flawed”.
Describing stymied makes an attempt to rebrand PayPal, Isaacson writes: “Focus groups showed that the name X.com … conjured up visions of a seedy site you would not talk about in polite company. But Musk was unwavering and remains so to this day.”
Such discussions, Isaacson experiences, led Musk and an investor, Michael Moritz, to go to New York, “to see if they may recruit Rudy Giuliani, who was simply ending his tenure as mayor, to be a political fixer and information them by means of the coverage intricacies of being a financial institution.
“But as quickly as they walked into his workplace, they knew it will not work.
“It was like strolling right into a mob scene,” Moritz says. Giuliani “was surrounded by goonish confidantes. He didn’t have any idea whatsoever about Silicon Valley, but he and his henchmen were eager to line their pockets.”
“They asked for 10% of the company, and that was the end of the meeting. ‘This guy occupies a different planet,’ Musk told Moritz.”
Giuliani succeeded in lining his pockets after leaving metropolis corridor, making millions as a lawyer and advisor and giving paid speeches around the globe.
That image has additionally modified. Faced with spiraling authorized prices arising from his work for Trump and different instances together with a $10m lawsuit from a former affiliate who alleges sexual assault, attorneys for Giuliani have stated he’s struggling to pay his payments. In New York, his luxurious condo was put up on the market.