I was discussing Elon Musk with a friend.

I know saying someone who is worth half a trillion is probably not dumb is not exactly a hot take, but people still think Elon lucked out and is an idiot.

Yes, the whole discussion started because someone wrote a thread saying exactly that.

The meta game of Elon is using Twitter and his influence to win an election and then influence policy. What he spent on Twitter does not matter in the long run. He is worth half a trillion now. He literally won a US election. He got Vivek out based on Twitter outrage. Trump needs him because he saw Elon’s power. He probably hates how much influence Elon has but is playing it carefully.

Xai came after Twitter. Both Xai and Twitter valuation combined is much more than what he paid for Twitter. Has revenue declined? Yes. Initially most advertisers left. But he cut operating expenses by a lot too. Everyone was like Twitter would shut down soon. No one can run Twitter with so few people. All the left-leaning people said good byes. What happened? Everyone is still on Twitter all day. It is the only platform that still matters.

Elon is literally running the US.

Elon is literally running polls on Twitter to make HR decisions for DOGE (the team deciding how US spends money). He controls HR (hiring and firing of federal workers), and he controls spend (money is power).

And so of course Twitter does not matter. It is irrelevant now.

When you are worth half a trillion, have built multiple decacorns, you play other games. While people are thinking you are a loser, an idiot, only reached where you are because of your father’s emerald mine, you are literally deciding the fate of countries.

It is okay to not like Elon as a person. He has way too many character flaws. But people doubting he is a capable person is what bothers me. Most people are not capable of AND thinking. Someone has to be a loser, an idiot, because he is not a good person according to them.

While someone can be someone you do not like but they might have accomplished more than most people ever will.

True alpha comes from knowing this simple thing: AND, not OR.

Forget Twitter or Xai. Take the combined valuation of Elon’s companies, pre and post election.

He took a bet. Went all in. Kamala winning would have probably ruined him.

Do the same for the valuation of all the companies of all his network. See who all helped him in his takeover of Twitter and what access they have got in this new administration.

Now let us move to Beerbiceps.

Okay, before we move to Beerbiceps, let’s start with Warikoo. Another person every intellectual loves to hate. People joke about buying YouTube Premium just to not see his ads.

But what do you do when you run a courses business and have figured out that your courses LTV is far higher than the CAC through YouTube Ads? You just run more ads. People hate it? Yes. But hate does not let you earn a few million dollars every year. You play the meta game of running ads.

You can hate his content. You can say he gives generic advice. Why pay for his content? But people do. And that is what matters.

Same for Kanye. Earlier you had Adidas for distribution. You created sneakers. Adidas marketing dollars were behind your products. Every time anyone saw an Adidas store and went inside they would see your shoes.

Now forget competing with Adidas and Nike, global giants, you are competing with every D2C brand.

How do you get audience to your store? Sell your products? You dial up the craziness. Announce you are running for president. Make up enemies. Do beef marketing (read up on Basecamp’s beef marketing).

As I wrote in an earlier post, distribution is all that matters. Every incremental tweet is free. Every controversy is free marketing. Being relevant is what matters. And he has perfected the game. He is happily posting sales figures of his online store after hate tweeting all day.

People are quote tweeting, dunking on him. Does it matter? No. Adidas deal is gone. He is on his own. His tweets will sell more sneakers. He is playing the meta game.

I was talking to someone and he was saying that so many influential people go to Beerbiceps’ podcasts. It is a way to reach the masses.

At this point his “maut ke baarein mei soche ho” is not too different from Rogan’s “Jamie pull up the video of the bear doing backflips.”

Will he pull a Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai? No. The masses won’t care anyway.

The masses want entertainment. The masses by dunking on him give him more reach.

The more meme-able the content, the more it spreads.

CPM on YouTube does not depend on whether it is a hater or a fan watching his content. Beerbiceps earns the same amount either way.

The more niche the content, the higher the intellectualism (not even sure if it is a real word), the lower the TAM.

I am sure he knows what he is doing. From a trainer who used to DM Tanmay, to becoming friends with him to running a podcast to running an influencer agency, he is not dumb to not know what people think about him.

But the audience wants the awkward face expressions. The “kabhi Aapko Mann kiya hai ki kisiko Pelo” questions. So he gives it.

Naval says if you are so smart why are you not rich and successful.

I ask the same question when I have this urge to automatically assume someone is an idiot because I can’t figure out their meta game.

By the way, do you know even Naval is playing his own meta game?

I remember hearing an exec at Twitter telling this story about how Naval used to tweet very differently before figuring out the meta of being a Buddhist monk on Twitter.

And yes, I went back a decade or so and read all his old tweets. The right time to understand a person is before them figuring out the meta game.

10 years back Naval did not tweet pithy one-liners. Had this sureness about him. He was also confused. He used to tweet at other people. Joke. Be a normal human. But then path dependence happened and he has been tweeting like a Buddhist monk ever since. Read my old post on path dependence.

Chamath went to Stanford business school. Told the world his game plan. And he just executed his plan to make generational wealth and got his seat at the big boys table.

Elon did it at a scale no one has ever been able to do before.

These people are not idiots. They are far more rich than successful than you and me ever will.