Elon Musk seems to a be favorite guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, owing to his five appearances, with his fifth appearance on the show dropping on the eve of the 2024 US Presidential elections. The tech mogul’s influence on the podcaster isn’t lost, as Rogan stated that Musk provided the most “compelling case for Trump” that motivated him to come out with his endorsement of the President-elect. Apart from the now-concluded elections, the entrepreneur-podcaster duo discussed Musk’s social networking website X (formerly Twitter), and all the features added to the site since his takeover in 2022. However, in a confession to Joe Rogan, Elon Musk opened about how the take-over wasn’t the most profitable move he made.

Despite Musk buying Twitter (now X) for a massive $44 billion, the company saw a 78% drop in value, now worth only $9.8 billion. Even though Musk suffered the loss as a result of the takeover, he did it with a very specific purpose in mind.

On JRE episode 2223, the UFC commentator and Musk talked about how, despite the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, their freedom of speech was in danger in the current political scenario. The reason behind the Tesla CEO buying Twitter (now X) was not for profit but to ensure proper Freedom of Speech, on a platform that is notorious for peddling misinformation – “I mean, the reason I did the Twitter acquisition was like—it’s like, man, if I don’t do this, I think we’re screwed, is the issue.” To this, Rogan bluntly stated that no one except Elon Musk would’ve actually bought the overpriced platform, calling it a ‘crazy move’.

However, the billionaire agreed and said that he could turn it into a profitable business, but iterated on the hardships of running the company with the boycott of advertisers on the platform – “You know, like, long-term, I think we can ultimately make it a win for investors, but boy, this is a hard way to make a living.” Doubling down on Musk’s explanation on the JRE episode, Joe Rogan debunked peoples’ accusation of Musk being a bad businessman – “If you didn’t do it, no one would have. And here’s the hilarious narrative that I keep hearing from idiots: ‘Elon’s a bad businessman; Twitter is worth, you know, 400% less than when he bought it.’ No, it wasn’t worth that in the first place. It wasn’t worth $44 billion.”

For now, it seems like Musk has hopes of turning over major profits using X, with the expansion of the product from being just a social media platform to a streaming app. The X TV app was released in September and is accessible on the Google Play Store, Amazon App Store, and LG’s app store. However, the app has yet to find a home on Apple’s iOS store. But why is it so?

Elon Musk has major issues with the $3.6 trillion-worth company

It all began back in 2015 in an interview with the German publication Handelsblatt, when Elon Musk made the audacious claim that Apple hired Tesla rejects. In fact, he made allegations that Apple is considering the idea of creating an electric car like Tesla. Back in November 2022, he went after Apple by directly calling out the trillion-dollar company in a tweet – “Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?”

His tweet was published at the same time around when his acquisition of Twitter was making headlines. That same month, he accused Apple of being politically biased, disagreed with their censoring methods, and even begged his followers to help fight against them. He followed up with another tweet: “Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.”

So, it looks like the billionaire is not a big fan of the Silicon Valley company or its current head. However, seeing that Apple has a major hold on the tech market, it would be interesting to see if Musk continues to keep X TV away from the iOS Store or if he will finally succumb to the pressures of the investors and set the difference aside to keep X floating.

What do you think of Elon Musk’s confession to Joe Rogan about incurring a loss of $34 billion? Will he able to compete with Apple with X TV in the present scenario? Let us know in the comments below.