National

In part four of How It Happened: Putin’s Invasion, Axios' Dave Lawler digs into polling indications that Russians are rallying around their president even as Western sanctions and global condemnations escalate.

This episode features interviews with a top political opposition leader, the director of the leading independent polling firm in Russia, a prominent sociologist from the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and a journalist on the ground in Moscow. 

Across these interviews, Lawler sets out to learn why horrific allegations against Russia — such as the apparent massacre of civilians in Bucha— are being rejected by some Russians as lies. 

Go deeper: Inside wartime Russia, Putin isn't losing

Credits: This episode of Putin's Invasion was reported by Dave Lawler, Alison Snyder, and Naomi Shavin. Sara Fischer and Emily Peck contributed reporting. It was produced by Naomi Shavin. Alison Snyder is the series editor. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the Editor-in-Chief. Ben O’Brien is the mix engineer. Mixing, sound design, and music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz.

Putin's Invasion Part IV: The View from Russia

Why horrific allegations against Russia have been being rejected by some Russians as lies.

Photo illustration of Vladimir Putin looking over Red Square

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Konstantin Zavrazhin, Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

Russian invasion of Ukraine

How It Happened

Podcasts

Understand how the war in Ukraine started, how it has changed global geopolitics, and how it is impacting Russians and Ukrainians. Listen to the podcast. 

How It Happened: Putin's Invasion

Understand how the war in Ukraine started and how it has changed global geopolitics and more.

Photo illustration of a broken window looking out over Kyiv

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Ceng Shou Yi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In part three of How It Happened: Putin’s Invasion, Axios' Dave Lawler examines the red lines being drawn by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in discussions about possible paths to peace.

This episode features interviews with Zelensky’s chief of staff, a member of Parliament in his party, two close observers of Putin and the Kremlin, and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine with decades of diplomatic experience in the region. 

Across these interviews, Lawler tries to determine the end games for Putin and Zelensky and the likeliest scenarios for how this conflict could end. 

Go deeper: No clear pathway to peace in Ukraine

Credits: This episode of Putin's Invasion was reported by Dave Lawler in collaboration with the Axios newsroom and produced by Naomi Shavin. Barak Ravid contributed reporting. Julia Redpath is executive producer. Alison Snyder is the series editor. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the Editor-in-Chief. Ben O'Brien is the mix engineer. Mixing, sound design, and music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz.

Putin's Invasion Part III: How It Could End

Across a series of interviews, Dave Lawler examines the likeliest ways the conflict could end.

Photo illustration of Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.

Photo Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photos: Ukrainian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu Agency, Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

In part two of How it Happened: Putin's Invasion, Axios' Dave Lawler explains how Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine catalyzed a chain of events that are reshaping our world.  

Lawler is joined by Axios managing editor Margaret Talev to discuss President Biden's decades of political experience with Russia and the sanctions the U.S. and Europe have brought against the country. 

Energy and climate reporter Andrew Freedman explains why it's so hard for the West to cut ties with Russia when it comes to energy, and why the Biden administration chose to do so even if it would send gas prices soaring. 

Subscribe to How It Happened wherever you listen to podcasts.

For more of Dave Lawler's world reporting, subscribe to Axios World.

Credits: This episode of Putin's Invasion was reported by Dave Lawler in collaboration with the Axios newsroom and produced by Naomi Shavin with help from Sabeena Singhani. Julia Redpath is executive producer. Alison Snyder is the series editor. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the Editor-in-Chief. Mixing, sound design, and music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Additional mixing by Jayk Cherry. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz.

Putin's Invasion Part II: The Consequences

Why February 24 was such a major turning point and why pushing back on Russia is so complicated.

Illustration of the earth with a stock line and abstract shapes.

In part one of How it Happened: Putin's Invasion, Axios' Dave Lawler presents reporting and analysis from the Axios newsroom on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lawler shares insights from a career covering global affairs and dozens of interviews with experts and high ranking officials about how Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power and how the autocrat has wielded it.

The podcast also features Jonathan Swan, Axios national reporter and host of the first season of How It Happened, speaking about his exclusive Axios on HBO interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Putin's Invasion Part I: How We Got Here

Dave Lawler and Jonathan Swan explain how Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky each came to power.

Photo illustration of President Vladimir Putin and tank barriers.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photos: Kremlin Press Office/Handout/Anadolu Agency, Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images

In How it Happened: Putin's Invasion, Axios World editor Dave Lawler curates the best of Axios' reporting and analysis on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, explaining how the conflict played out in slow motion across eight years and then suddenly escalated.

Lawler will share insights from a career covering global affairs and dozens of  interviews with experts and high ranking officials about how Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power and how the autocrat has wielded it. 

The podcast will also feature Jonathan Swan, Axios national reporter and host of the first season of How It Happened, speaking about his exclusive interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Reporters and editors from across the Axios newsroom including Sara Fischer, Emily Peck and Margaret Talev will unpack how this conflict is playing out in the media and on social media and why it's so hard to push back against Putin and Russia. 

The podcast will break down what happened on the ground in the early hours of February 24, 2022 in Ukraine and how this war is changing the world around us in real time. 

Listen now to the trailer and subscribe to hear the new season when it launches on Mar. 5, 2022.

Subscribe to the podcast to receive an alert when the first episode drops.

Credits: Putin's Invasion was reported by Dave Lawler in collaboration with the Axios newsroom and produced by Naomi Shavin. Julia Redpath is executive producer. Alison Snyder is the series editor. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the Editor-in-Chief. Mixing, sound design, and music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Additional mixing by Jayk Cherry. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz.

Introducing How it Happened Season Four: Putin's Invasion

Axios World editor Dave Lawler hosts the new podcast season focused on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

China is becoming the most formidable rival America has faced, and the risk of confrontation with Russia, North Korea or Iran still looms. Authoritarians are rising, the chaotic Afghanistan exit revealed the limits of U.S. power, and the pandemic, climate change and other critical challenges continue to pose grave threats.

World

This episode tells the previously unreported story of how a desperate attempt to stop Israel from annexing part of the occupied West Bank led to the most significant Middle East peace agreement in a generation. 

Dive in: In the finale of our two-part season, Axios Middle East correspondent Barak Ravid tells national political correspondent Jonathan Swan how Trump's failure to make peace between the Israelis and Palestinians led to an unexpected success.

In episode 1, we explored the dramatic collapse of Trump's plan to broker "the deal of the century." Listen here or on your favorite podcast provider.

Note: This episode contains some explicit language. 

Credits: The senior producer is Ariana Gharib Lee. The senior editor is Ted Robbins. Dan Bobkoff is the executive producer. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the editor-in-chief. Our managing editors include Alison Snyder and Margaret Talev. Dave Lawler is the world editor. Sound design and mixing by Jeanne Montalvo and Alex Sugiura. Our series theme music is by Michael Hanf. Fact checking by Jacob Knutson.

Trump's Big Deal, Part II: From Secret Alliance to the Abraham Accords

The chaotic events that led to an unexpected breakthrough between Israel and the UAE.

Israel

In this episode, Axios Middle East correspondent Barak Ravid and national political correspondent Jonathan Swan explore the dramatic collapse of Donald Trump's plan to broker "the deal of the century" between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Dive in: In an exclusive interview, Trump tells Barak that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears much of the blame. He also reveals that their supposed bromance is over, saying of Netanyahu: “F--k him.” 

In part 2, hear how a surprise breakthrough emerged from the wreckage of Trump's peace plan: the Abraham Accords. Listen here or on your favorite podcast provider.

Trump's Big Deal, Part I: May your house be destroyed

Go behind the scenes as Trump's peace plan collapses.

Israeli-Palestinian peace process

Axios’ Jonathan Swan is back with a sneak preview of How It Happened’s third season, arriving on Monday. Subscribe here.

Why it matters: With exclusive reporting, Swan and Axios’ Barak Ravid go behind the scenes on the gripping, chaotic events that led t0 the Abraham Accords — the deals between Israel and four Arab states that are changing the Middle East.

Trump blasts Netanyahu for disloyalty: "F**k him"

Introducing How it Happened Season Three: Trump's Big Deal

Jonathan Swan and Barak Ravid lift the lid on the Abraham Accords.

In part five of How it Happened: The Next Astronauts, Axios space reporter Miriam Kramer follows the Inspiration4 crew to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to cover their launch and catches up with each of them after their return.

Kramer takes listeners to the press center at the Kennedy Space Center and inside of a pre-launch press conference with the four civilian astronauts the day before launch.  

Kramer reports on the launch from on the ground and analyzes the livestream hosted by SpaceX, including the abrupt termination of real-time access to the crew once they reached orbit. 

She tracks the crew during their three days in orbit, their high-risk descent back through the Earth's atmosphere, and what the safety and success of the mission means for the entire industry going forward.

For more of Miriam Kramer's space reporting, subscribe to Axios Space.

Credits: The Next Astronauts is reported and produced by Miriam Kramer, Amy Pedulla, Naomi Shavin, and Alice Wilder. Dan Bobkoff is Executive Producer. Mixing, sound design, and music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Fact-checking and research by Jacob Knutson. Alison Snyder is a managing editor at Axios and Sara Kehaulani Goo is executive editor. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz. 

The Next Astronauts Part V: The Launch

On the ground in Florida for the Inspiration4 launch and first person accounts of the mission.

Space

Elon Musk

ERICA PANDEY: Hi. I’m Erica Pandey, host of this season of How It Happened. We waited a bit to drop our last episode as we've been watching and reporting on Elon Musk's leadership of Twitter. A few months in, a narrative has started to emerge. 

It's been tumultuous. Both Musk critics and supporters have found plenty of reasons to root against him and to cheer him on. And as we watched Musk's takeover play out, it seemed to mark a clear, unmistakable milestone in his career. Axios tech managing editor Scott Rosenberg has watched Musk's ascent since the 1990s. 

SCOTT ROSENBERG: I think someone like Elon Musk — has had so many victories in his career that he sort of reaches the point of feeling invulnerable, right? Like he can't lose. And this is the logic of every sort of conquering emperor, right? You just keep adding provinces to your empire. Elon Musk makes companies — that's what he does. 

ERICA PANDEY: But every empire reaches a tipping point. It grows so large that it becomes unruly, unrule-able even. It's possible that Musk's takeover of Twitter will be that point for him.

It's not just the chaos his reign brought to Twitter. Tesla's stock is falling, his biotech company Neuralink is reportedly under federal investigation, SpaceX is facing a complaint from former employees filed with the National Labor Relations Board. 

No one can put out multiple fires at once. Musk, a CEO numerous times over, likes to run his companies himself. Right now, each one is facing a unique set of challenges. 

SCOTT ROSENBERG: There's this kind of chaos and indecision that's communicated which actually undercuts the vision of Elon Musk as this superhero who can work miracles. Because instead what we're seeing is a kind of slow motion train wreck a lot of the time. 

ERICA PANDEY: Across this season, we've charted the rise of Elon Musk, business titan and tech mogul. We've examined his tolerance for risk, his impulsive behavior online, and the devoted fanbase he's cultivated as he's conquered industry after industry: from online payments to electric vehicles, to space and biotech.

In this episode: We'll go deeper on Musk's first months at Twitter. He's disrupted Twitter as we knew it, and it remains to be seen if it's for better or for worse, and that depends on who you ask. At the same time, his actions have called into question his leadership at the rest of his companies. 

There's always been a debate about how to view Musk, his achievements, and his behavior. It's never been louder than it is right now.  

From Axios, this is How it Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter. Part Five: Cracks in the Empire

ERICA PANDEY: Musk stepped into the role of Twitter CEO with a Must-Do list. He said he wanted to change how Twitter handled content moderation. He said he wanted to change how the platform makes money and he made a bet on subscriptions. And he wanted to add new features to Twitter to dramatically expand the platform's role in our lives. 

That was a long list to walk in the door with, it has only become longer, because Musk introduced new problems to Twitter himself. 

From the jump, there were Twitter users, political figures and fellow Silicon Valley titans applauded Musk's fearlessness in laying off staff and his relaxed boundaries on free speech, including letting people previously banned for hate speech back onto Twitter. 

We reached out to Musk and his companies for comment and they did not respond. 

As Musk settled into his new job in November, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings gave an interview at the New York Times DealBook conference. In that interview, he called Musk: 

REED HASTINGS ARCHIVAL: ... The bravest, most creative person on the planet. I mean, you know, what he's done in multiple areas is phenomenal. Um, you know, his style is different than like, I'm trying to be like a really steady, respectable leader. You know, he doesn't care.

ERICA PANDEY: But many of us at Axios who have been covering Musk were shocked by some of the things he did in the immediate aftermath of his takeover. Especially because the chaos wasn't playing well with some important audiences.

SARA FISCHER: Elon Musk started to really get in trouble with advertisers. 

ERICA PANDEY: Sara Fischer, media reporter for Axios. Musk himself said in November that fleeing advertisers caused a quote "massive drop in revenue." 

SARA FISCHER: He started to tweet misinformation. Advertisers were becoming frustrated because their points of contact at the company were getting fired or resigning. So to watch him decimate Twitter's ad business is shocking to me because somebody who wants to really move fast and break things knows you need some money to do it.

SCOTT ROSENBERG: So far, pretty much everything that Elon Musk has done at Twitter has been an improv act, 

SCOTT ROSENBERG: ... And if he continues with that, I think he will only cause more chaos and sort of destruction of value at the company. And as an observer of social media and of Elon Musk, I don't think he has yet really taken Twitter seriously as a company or as a platform for human communication.

ERICA PANDEY: For Rosenberg, there was an early tell that Musk wasn't going to recalibrate his use of Twitter, which is often irreverent and can even be irresponsible for a figure of his stature, with a following of his size. A conspiracy theory about an attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul Pelosi that had been circulating on the far-right made its way to Musk. And he shared it.

SCOTT ROSENBERG: So on the weekend right after Musk took over Twitter, he just casually sent out this tweet about Paul Pelosi in a way that was so colossally irresponsible, it would've been irresponsible for him to do this as not as the owner of Twitter, right? Just as somebody with a huge following, it would be a bad thing to do.

But he did this within 48 hours of assuming the role as owner and effective CEO of Twitter. 

And I think everyone, not only at Twitter, but the world at that moment sort of backed up a second and thought, Wait, is this, is this what we're gonna be dealing with now that Elon Musk owns Twitter? Two months later, the answer is absolutely yes. 

SPEAKER ON YAHOO FINANCE: The fact that Musk tweeted a totally unfounded tweet about Paul Pelosi last week and then deleted it ... I don't know if that bodes well. 

ERICA PANDEY: Meanwhile, Musk also decimated Twitter's workforce. 

SPEAKER ON BLOOMBERG TV: Chaos at Twitter continues. They may have fired too many workers, may have fired the wrong ones. Maybe fired them too soon.

SPEAKER ON BLOOMBERG TV: A bit of a reversal here. Twitter is bringing back dozens who were fired….

ERICA PANDEY: On Nov. 16, Musk sent a note in the middle of the night telling all employees there would be a new work culture and that could opt-in or opt-out and lose their jobs. My Axios colleague Zach Basu is reading the letter. 

Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. 

Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense. 

If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:

Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance. 

Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.

SARA FISCHER: That whole resignation wave of people who didn't respond yes to Elon Musk's hardcore was pretty significant. And you know, there's pictures going viral of beds and Twitter, and that's riled up regulators in San Francisco who wanna make sure that corporate housing is being used for the right stuff. 

Most of their big lawyers and the folks that are responsible for keeping Twitter out of trouble with regulatory compliance, etc., are all out.  

ERICA PANDEY: There was product chaos when a new process to verify users on the platform went awry. 

SPEAKER ON NBC NEWS: Wall Street is watching pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly today. Its stock plummeted last week after someone impersonated the company on Twitter. Said it would make Insulin ... free. 

ERICA PANDEY: It was hard to keep up with all of the headlines coming  out of Twitter. Cable networks and news outlets covered the minute to minute drama.

SPEAKER ON YAHOO FINANCE: Elon Musk is making more waves after his Twitter takeover tweeting that Apple is threatening to withhold Twitter from its app store.

SPEAKER ON CNN: Late last night, Twitter's owner and chief Twit Elon Musk said that Trump who has been banned since inciting an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 is now back on the platform. 

SPEAKER ON CNN: Musk tweeted at 6:44 last night with two popcorn emojis. He alerted his 119 million followers to a long thread called the Twitter files posted by CK journalist Matt Taibbi. Taibbi said that it was the first installment in a series quote based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter. Musk promised that more is coming today. 

ERICA PANDEY: There was one news cycle where I felt Musk was really flexing his power over the platform and articulating a very specific vision of free speech: one that seemed to actually exclude journalists.

In December, the Twitter accounts of several prominent journalists who cover Musk were suddenly suspended. First, Musk banned the account ElonJet, which tracks the location of his private plane. Musk said this account threatened his privacy and safety and violated Twitter's guidelines. But then, journalists reporting on ElonJet getting banned lost their own accounts. And then, at least one journalist reporting on other journalists getting banned also got banned.

To Musk's fans, banning journalists from Twitter felt like a fresh interpretation of Twitter's free speech rules. The suspensions were viewed as justified to those who didn't trust the mainstream media. 

But to others, it looked like a zero-tolerance regime, with new rules meant to serve the new CEO above anyone else. 

SPEAKER ON ABC NEWS: Breaking news overnight, Twitter suspended multiple journalists from prominent outlets including the Washington Post, the NYT, and CNN, Elon Musk claimed a violation of policy. 

ERICA PANDEY: The suspended journalists tried to press him on why they were banned, in a Twitter Spaces conversation and he offered one defense, then quickly dropped off the call. 

TWITTER SPACES AUDIO: Oh, I think, I think Elon has, uh, has left.

ERICA PANDEY: The day after the Spaces with the banned journalists, Musk tweeted this: 

@elonmusk: So inspiring to see the newfound love of freedom of speech by the press 🥰

ERICA PANDEY: This kind of open trolling of the mainstream media seemed to many on the right as payback to what they saw as quote-unquote "liberal shadow-banning" — they felt social media algorithms had been stacked against them, de-amplifying their posts to favor liberal perspectives. Taken together his individual actions and decisions raised a question: was all this chaos a means to an end?

DAN PRIMACK: I do believe that when new owners come into a company, they often view there as being value in shaking things up, particularly if it's become a stale and kind of complacent company.

ERICA PANDEY: Dan Primack, business editor at Axios. 

DAN PRIMACK: There was a group of people who viewed Twitter as something that needed to be burned down to be rebuilt, not just tinkered with not just. Playing around the edges, but really had the, some creative destruction here. 

And Musk, I think, to a certain part, was part of that group. And if that's your belief, then when there is destruction, whether that be in terms of employees or even certain technologies or even reputations, what so many people kind of flinch at and say, "Oh my God, what's happening there?" These people look and say, "Yeah, that's what we have to do."

When you speak to folks, including investors, in Twitter or in Elon Musk's version of Twitter, they always go back to: "He ran SpaceX and Tesla like this to some extent."

ERICA PANDEY: Sure, his successes at Tesla and SpaceX can cast Musk's management of Twitter in a new light, but the chaos at Twitter is arguably overshadowing those very same successes. 

DAN PRIMACK: Until April, Elon Musk was best known for SpaceX and for Tesla, and for every now and then being a little bit eccentric or, or being a bit of a troll on Twitter, but I think even the trollish on Twitter was, was very much overshadowed by what he had done at Tesla and SpaceX. I think that's way, way down on the resume. 

I think right now, if you ask people, "What does Elon Musk do?" Twitter would be in the first sentence, if not the first word, of what most people would respond, and it hasn't gone great. Even Musk, you know, keeps talking about how the company is in tough financial shape. He's gone from wunderkind to kind of a little bit of a laughing stock when it comes to Twitter.

ERICA PANDEY: That perception could be because this is all playing out on a split screen: On one side are headlines about Musk's decisions regarding Twitter, and on the other are his tweets that continue to often come across as crass or out of touch. 

TOM NICHOLS: He seems not to understand that running a company is not the same thing as being the most visible and obnoxious executive in a company.

ERICA PANDEY: Tom Nichols is an author and academic focusing on international affairs and political leadership. He wrote a book on the death of expertise, examining figures who came into power because they rebuked conventional wisdom.

TOM NICHOLS: I think Twitter was perhaps his biggest mistake because this was the one place he was going to have complete control and be in charge instead of being a kind of wealthy regent who tasks things out to experts. In this case. He said, "OK, I'm gonna get my hands right into it. I'm gonna plunge my hands into this problem." And he's completely screwed it up because he really has no idea what he's doing.

ERICA PANDEY: Musk's disruption is celebrated by some, but in the eyes of Nichols and others, Musk has been flailing. And from their perspective that appearance is taking a toll on perhaps his most valuable entity: the Elon Musk brand. 

SCOTT ROSENBERG: I think Musk's brand has always been this kind of superhero world-changing tech CEO who was going to convert the auto industry to electric vehicles and bring humanity to Mars and save human civilization. And he's tried to tie his acquisition of Twitter to that by talking about how he is going to preserve the public square and make it safe for free speech and the future of human consciousness.

But what people are seeing as his brand, at least since he's been running Twitter, has become much more chaotic, much more partisan, much more tied to almost like a robber-baron CEO who comes in and fires three-quarters of the company and says, "You have to sleep in the office now. And the only way we will survive is if you are hardcore with me."

ERICA PANDEY: Musk is giving so much time and energy to Twitter — and that has consequences.

TOM NICHOLS: It will become tiring and exhausting and it's already hurting his other business. 

ERICA PANDEY: That's where we're going. How the drama at Twitter is impacting his other companies — and whether he can sustain an empire that has become this large. 

========================================================================

ERICA PANDEY: We're back. When Musk took over Twitter, it became another province in his already massive empire. 

SCOTT ROSENBERG: Musk's Empire now is huge, right? Its heart is Tesla, but he also owns SpaceX, which has become a hugely important company. He owns Neuralink, which is trying to embed chips in the human body. He owns the Boring Company, which is digging tunnels under cities.

ERICA PANDEY: Musk runs his empire in a unique way. He tends to share resources between his companies, spreading his leadership as CEO across all of them, for example. But this means that shocks in one part of his empire reverberate throughout the others — each of which faces its own challenges. Let's start with Tesla. 

JOANN MULLER: Tesla is facing some pretty serious problems. If it were any other car maker, I think the CEO would be intensely focused on trying to correct the course and, and it would be all hands on deck. 

ERICA PANDEY: Joann Muller, Axios transportation reporter. She's watched as Tesla's stock has plummeted. It is down roughly 46% in the last six months. And the company missed its deliveries goal for 2022. 

Tesla alone accounts for about 10% of all retail investors' portfolios. That's according to a Vanda Research report. At one point,  the stock’s downturn had erased nearly $78 billion of individual investors' wealth. 

This isn't hedge funds or index funds. This is mostly average people who are investing their money by themselves. Muller says the stock's fall is a reflection of a few things. 

JOANN MULLER: Tesla is seeing some pretty significant weakening demand in China, which has been, you know, one of their biggest markets. On top of all of that, you have all the COVID shutdowns that have affected production. So that in itself is a giant headache. 

The other thing is that Tesla is also having issues ramping up production in Germany and in their new plant in Austin, Texas, and they're trying to put in some really new high tech manufacturing processes and they're having trouble getting it right and, and this, too, is a major headache for any automaker, and they've had some logistics snafus that have delayed the delivery of vehicles.

So you have macro issues, you have Tesla issues, and then you have the Twitter chaos and the leadership vacuum that I think people are fearing. 

ERICA PANDEY: And then, of course, there's this other thing: By the end of 2022, Musk sold off roughly $23 billion worth of Tesla stock, possibly using his profits from that to fund the Twitter acquisition. But flooding the market with that much Tesla stock at once has driven down its price. As you might imagine, some of Tesla's investors have concerns about how things are going. 

In 2018, one shareholder sued Musk over his financial compensation package from Tesla. There were specific concerns that he was over-paying himself, but it opened the floodgates for other kinds of criticism. Recently, a Tesla investor filed a separate complaint, alleging that Musk has done irreparable damage to the company's reputation. Musk is also facing an additional lawsuit related to his 2018 tweet that he had secured funding to take Tesla private. As of this recording, that suit's trial has just begun. 

In November, Musk appeared in court in Delaware for the compensation lawsuit where he denied having a role in putting together his compensation package, which is potentially worth more than $55 billion. 

Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part V: Cracks in the Empire

Listen to the latest episode of  Axios' How it Happened podcast

Trina Craven/Axios Design. Photo: Patrick Pleul/POOL/AFP via Getty

How it happened

Social Media

Finish Line

Axios Finish Line

In the fifth season of How it Happened Elon Musk vs. Twitter hosted by Axios business reporter Erica Pandey, our reporters cover the collision between Elon Musk and Twitter through conversations with Twitter insiders and members of Musk’s inner circle.

Why it matters: Twitter and Musk are two powerful forces that rose to prominence and reshaped our world. Now the world’s richest man could own the global public square and reshape social media or something like that.

Listen and subscribe to Axios' How It Happened podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

Introducing How it Happened Season Five: Elon Musk vs. Twitter

Episode 1 of How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter

Episode 2 of How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter

Episode 3 of How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter

Episode 4 of How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter

The details: The series is a collaborative effort across the newsroom, hosted by tech reporter Erica Pandey, and will spotlight new reporting from familiar Axios voices like Jonathan Swan, Dan Primack, and Sara Fischer. Listeners will also hear from voices close to Elon Musk and insiders at Twitter.

Musk's friends warned him against buying Twitter

Twitter's global agenda, with or without Musk

How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter

The podcast is hosted by Axios' tech reporter Erica Pandey. Listeners will hear voices close to Elon Musk and insiders at Twitter.

Image: Trina Craven/Axios Design. Photo: Patrick Pleul/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

How it Happened: The Next Astronauts

Follow the first all-civilian space crew as they prepare for their historic mission.

Illustration of a globe with a rocket ship in front of it

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

Introducing a new show from Axios, How It Happened: Trump's Last Stand.  

In How It Happened: Trump's Last Stand, national political reporter Jonathan Swan reveals the inside story of Donald Trump’s last few months in office. 

How It Happened: Trump's Last Stand

Hear the trailer for a new series from Axios, hosted by Jonathan Swan.

All How It Happened episodes