Tesla CEO Elon Musk may be the ‘entrepreneur of our generation': Reid Hoffman
Yahoo Finance Live's Brian Sozzi discusses Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman's take on Tesla CEO Elon Musk after acquiring Twitter.
Video Transcript
JULIE HYMAN: It is time for Brian Sozzi's take, and Sozz, you talked to Reid Hoffman, who apparently is a big fan of Elon Musk.
BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, I talked to him in the flesh. He came to the Yahoo headquarters here in New York City. It was great to see him in person. But I asked him what he thought about Musk's plan to overhaul Twitter. Of course, Hoffman is a longtime friend of Musk, going back to the PayPal days. Take a listen.
REID HOFFMAN: Well, Elon could arguably be the entrepreneur of our generation, right? I mean, amazing, and amazing across multiple fronts-- space flights, neurological things, electric cars. I mean, just wow. Well, I think I would help Elon with anything he asked me for help with.
BRIAN SOZZI: And the response at the end was I asked him, well, are-- they have spoken about the deal. Now, Reid didn't want to go into too-- all the details of that, but he was responding that he would help Elon if Elon asked him. I believe Reid is an-- or was an early investor in SpaceX. Now, the idea that he did like here for Musk is identity management or just try to better validate who you are on Twitter. I guess, that would pertain to getting rid of bots on the service. But again, he seems to like what Musk may or may not do with this platform.
And of course, "New York Times" over the weekend coming out with big-- with a pitch deck that Musk has been showing reportedly to bankers. He wants to quintuple users by 2028. That's a big goal.
BRAD SMITH: Right, 931 million users is what he can-- he believes that he can get to. I mean, that's significant changes, though, that would also need to be implemented to the user experience for Twitter to attain some of those numbers, too.
BRIAN SOZZI: Right, and here's my take on this one. And I think you and I disagree on this one. Believe in Elon. And of course, well, believe in me and the both of you as well. But look, it is-- he's going back to his roots in software. It was Hoffman, Musk, Affirm's CEO Max Levchin, and several other people that-- of course, Peter Thiel-- they were known as the PayPal Mafia or, as Reid likes to call it, the PayPal network. They launched PayPal. They developed PayPal. They know software, so why can't Musk, who has since gone on to launch rockets and electric cars, go back to his roots and change his company?
JULIE HYMAN: Maybe.
BRIAN SOZZI: Maybe.
JULIE HYMAN: I'm not-- I'm just not convinced. I'm not a blind faith kind of person, let's just say that.
BRAD SMITH: In the world where the new electric vehicle is essentially just a computer on wheels, perhaps he never left the software space as well.
BRIAN SOZZI: So it sounds like, once again, you may be on my side.
BRAD SMITH: Well, again, ask me in five minutes. I don't know.
JULIE HYMAN: We don't have to take sides. We can--
BRIAN SOZZI: I want sides.
JULIE HYMAN: I know. I know you do.
