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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

Elon Musk has no shortage of critics. But earlier this year, one of them stood out.

Phillip Low isn't a journalist; he’s a neuroscientist, inventor and once, a close friend of Musk. That was until he published a scathing post accusing the world’s richest man of manipulation, narcissism and a dangerous obsession with power.

The post exploded online, before vanishing almost entirely.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Paola Totaro, on what sparked Low’s dramatic break with Musk, and why he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is to test the limits of free speech on the platforms Musk and his techbro peers control.

It’s Thursday, May 29.

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DANIEL:

So Paola, you recently sat down to interview Philip Low. Not the former Reserve Bank Governor, but a neuroscientist and tech CEO. Tell me about him and why you wanted to speak to him.

PAOLA:

I think I was insomniac early in January when this whole thing happened and I was doom scrolling and I read this extraordinary essay by this man that I'd never heard of and literally after reading it, I sent a message via Facebook saying, if you ever want to be interviewed by some unknown journalist in London, I'd love to talk to you and months later it happened.

Audio excerpt – Phillip Low:

“As a neuroscientist, I believe that my core responsibility is to produce the data. But as a technologist, I believe that I have a responsibility to follow my work into the world and make sure it is used properly.”

PAOLA:

Low is a bit of a wunderkind. He's now 45. He was mentored by the late great molecular biologist Sir Francis Crick, and he earned his PhD in an area called computational neurobiology and presented a mathematical technique which basically allows the mapping, the easy mapping, of brain waves. His iBrain probe, again to read sleep and brain waves, launched a couple of years ago in four American states. 1.4% of its stock was sold for $85 million. So that valued the company at $6 billion. And if you think back to the same point of raising a venture capital for Facebook, that valuation is 12 times what Facebook is. But the essay was excoriating. It was the most, sort of, skin blistering thing I've ever read of billionaire titan, Elon Musk. And at that point, he was with Trump all the time, chainsaws the rest of it and I just thought, wow, somebody that has actually finally taken this guy on and doesn't seem to be scared of him.

DANIEL:

Tell me about the essay. Tell me about what it was he was saying exactly and what was your immediate reaction to it?

PAOLA:

Look, it was quite long, you know. It was about 1,900 words when I finally, sort of, transferred it onto a word document. And he effectively established his long friendship with Musk, so you knew that it was somebody that wasn't just whistling out of their bottoms, if you like. They'd met in Paris a long time before. They then became friends. They then became business partners and had a long association. At some point, you know, they shared information about the women in their lives, et cetera, et cetera. But the essay itself was a takedown.

Audio excerpt – Phillip Low:

“He was being aggressive with people who had his best interests at heart, not with me, but I noticed him do that with a number of people. And I felt that as a friend, I wouldn't be in his corner if I didn't call him out on it. So I did.”

PAOLA:

Low didn't hold back. I mean, he used words like, you know, that Musk is a narcissist with an obsessive lust for power. He called him a total miserable, self-loathing poser. He accused him of going for the most vulnerable in US society and using his, you know, role with DOGE to attack the very organisations, you know, that were looking at his own businesses. He described him as a man who, in fact, didn't really understand technology, didn't really understand algorithms.

Audio excerpt – Phillip Low:

“Respectfully, I see it as bullshit. And just like when he calls himself a free speech absolutist, when he clearly is boosting certain voices on X, including his own, and shadow banning others, relatively speaking. So I know him too well to understand that this is a charade.”

PAOLA:

I mean, I think all this came from the fact that Low himself's father is a Holocaust survivor. And obviously what I think sparked his fury was the Nazi salute.

Audio excerpt – Hosts:

“Alright so we just showed that…salute. It was quick. I think our viewers are smart.”

PAOLA:

…that Musk then later denied was a Nazi salute.

Audio excerpt – CNN Guest 1:

“This salute trutherism is outrageous.”

Audio excerpt – CNN Guest 2:

“So do it right now on TV.”

Audio excerpt – CNN Guest 1:

“This is the biggest conspiracy theory going on in media. This is crazy.”

Audio excerpt – CNN Guest 2:

“So do it right now on TV.”

PAOLA:

And so, yeah, he demanded an apology. He described Musk’s slow, sort of, deterioration, you know, the way they fell out as friends. It was quite the read, I'm sure. Well, millions of people have read it since, but it really surprised Low, I think. He really seemed quite shell-shocked still that had gone so viral. I remember that night just thinking, wow, pass the popcorn, this is amazing. Low has since accused Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook of suppressing his posts. At the time he published an abridged version of this essay on LinkedIn and that disappeared straight away. Apparently he had to take legal action to get it put back. But since, you know, there's been, sort of, collection of data by Low's team to show that this essay had been diluted, not shared, you know, algorithms tweaked to, sort of, lower its impact. But in that initial burst, it was huge.

DANIEL:

So Low is alleging the post was removed and the ability to share it was suppressed. So how is he planning to prosecute that argument? How’s he fighting back?

PAOLA:

Well, it’s interesting because, you know, one of the things that Low told me during this interview is that he set aside $250 million US to start testing freedom of speech in various states in the US where consumer law is particularly strong and carries with it criminal penalties. It's interesting that they've chosen a couple of states in the US, particularly California, where the pledge to promise something, even if it is free, even if it's a product that is produced free, and not delivering, carries with it severe sanctions, including prison sentences. And what his team have done - and we don't quite know how, because obviously he's not going to put his gun powder on the table - is that they've collected information to show the way that algorithms have either been changed, tweaked, to stop shares, to remove posts and also, apparently, to dilute followers.

DANIEL:

You mentioned freedom of speech. Does Low basically see this as a test of the various social media platforms' commitment to free speech? Something Meta, Facebook and X talk about a lot.

PAOLA:

Absolutely. I mean, I think that's one of his driving moments or driving forces is that you go and test this. You say you are platforms of freedom of speech. You've removed your teams that were checking posts, as Zuckerberg announced earlier this year.

Audio excerpt – Mark Zuckerberg:

“We’re gonna get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the US.”

PAOLA:

You promised this as your brand. Let's test it. Again, he gets very passionate about, this is a promise, you've made your life on this, your money on this and you're failing to do it.

You can see, if you look at both, particularly Facebook and LinkedIn, he continues to test. So he'll put something up and then clearly the teams are watching what happens and analysing what happens. He's really very, very vocal about Europe, really turning its attention to the regulation of these mega platforms. You know, he spoke a lot about the UK, you know, finding its Churchillian spirit and really taking them on. So, you know, apart from taking on these test cases, I think that he's acting as a sort of public advocate who he says he's fearless and clearly is. I mean, if you've got billions behind you, I guess, you're not fearful of these kinds of arguments.

DANIEL:

After the break - Low makes it personal.

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DANIEL:

Paola, one of the more incendiary parts of Low’s post, is that he goes after Elon Musk's character and credibility. When you met with him, what did he tell you about the man himself?

PAOLA:

Well, there's no doubt that these are two men that were friends. I remember looking at a really interesting video which is still up on YouTube.

Audio excerpt – Host:

“I just want to thank you, Elon and Philip, for joining me here and sharing your thoughts about consciousness and enlightenment and technology.”

PAOLA:

A young scientist interviewing the two when they were very young, Musk and Low.

Audio excerpt – Elon Musk:

“You know, it's just when I was in college, I mean, I try to think, well, what are the things that are most going to affect the future of humanity, and I wanted to be involved in at least some of those things.”

PAOLA:

You know, you could tell they were friends. They were sort of talking about how they were going to change the world, you know, they were bright, brilliant, young minds that were sort of taking on the tech world.

Audio excerpt – Phillip Low:

“I'm an accidental entrepreneur. And before that I was an accidental neuroscientist. And before that, I was a mathematician. And then it wasn't until Stephen Hawking asked me to help him with his ALS that I became really involved in trying to access consciousness in humans.”

PAOLA:

It's fairly obvious that over a period of time, there was business clashes as well, clearly sort of rivalry at some point. And then if you look at the NeuroVigil, Low's website, you see that Musk is still an advisor, but it's clear that he has no sort of financial interests, no advisory interest, et cetera, et cetera. So there was a big sort of behind the scenes breakup of a business friendship as well, I suspect.

DANIEL:

Did he speak to you at all about Musk's involvement in politics? And how did he view his growing influence with things like DOGE and his closeness with Donald Trump?

PAOLA:

Well, it's interesting because by the time we spoke, you know, Musk has… he's not quite on the stage with these chainsaws and sort of breast-beating as he was. And I think one of the things that Low was unable to kind of quell was his true joy at the fact that, you know, Tesla and stock are going down. He talked about great worries about these platforms, you know, Meta as well, influence in Europe and sort of bolstering right-wing governments.

Audio excerpt – Reuters:

“In December waded into Germany's election campaign, calling the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, the country's savior.”

Audio excerpt – Elon Musk:

“It’s okay, it’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”

PAOLA:

You know, he clearly has a great fear that these platforms are being harnessed in a way to open the door to, kind of, discourse that occurred as we saw pre-World War II, and which resulted in the horrors that we thought we'd never see again. So I think he's very motivated by history too, I think.

DANIEL:

Has Low paid any cost for speaking out?

PAOLA:

Well, I asked him about that. The first thing I asked, you know, how are you? Because, you know, he'd spent months in battle with this man and he said, well, I'm not actually, you know, I am not in El Salvador yet, and laughed. But then when I asked later about how he felt, he does, he now employs security. And he says he's had death threats, many not credible, but some credible enough for him to need to hire armed security while he's in America. So he didn't dwell on it, he says he's fearless, he says he's not going to be cowed. But I think probably life has changed a little bit.

DANIEL:

And finally, Paola, what's Phillip's end goal here when it comes to his activism and the money that he's putting forward? What kind of world does he want to see?

PAOLA:

You know, for some reason I'd stumbled on an ad, an old Apple ad, that had flashes of sort of Martin Luther King, great people of history, and this kind of sense that Silicon Valley at the time was for diverse people, people that thought differently.

Audio excerpt – Apple advertisement:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square hole.”

PAOLA:

You know, what's happened, I asked him. You know, why is it that these technocrats are now shutting down free speech and they're beside people like Trump? And he was remarkably optimistic. He said, look, actually, we still believe that. Most of us do. We still think that freedom of speech is important. We still think that we're in the world of ideas. And I think that's his, sort of, ultimate aim is to kind of bring back the spotlight to science and the things that are being attacked in America, and bring them back to where they belong. You know, intellectual discussions, civil discourse, I think they're things that matter to him and, I suppose, a lot of us.

DANIEL:

Paola, thank you so much for your time.

PAOLA:

Absolute pleasure.

DANIEL:

You can read Paola’s full reporting in this week’s edition of The Saturday Paper.
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DANIEL:

Also in the news…

Opposition leader Sussan Ley has announced her new shadow cabinet.

The new economic team will be led by deputy leader Ted O’Brien as shadow Treasurer. Former shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has been appointed shadow Defence Minister.

Meanwhile, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who defected from the Nationals to the Liberal Party, has been relegated into the outer ministry as shadow defence industry minister.

And,

Environment Minister Murray Watt says he plans to approve Woodside Energy’s proposal to extend the life of one of the world’s biggest liquified natural gas projects from 2030 to 2070.

Watt says the sign-off for the north west shelf gas processing plant comes with “strict” air-pollution conditions and Woodside now has 10 days to respond.

Opponents of the extension warn local pollution will damage a globally significant collection of ancient rock art across what’s known as the Murujuga cultural landscape and release billions of tonnes of future greenhouse gases.

For more on this story, you can listen to Monday's episode of 7am, titled The carbon bomb awaiting Australia's new environment minister.

This has been today’s episode of 7am. Thanks for listening.

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