Elon Musk Grills Robinhood CEO On Clubhouse

The new iOS app draws celebrities and billionaires for in-depth discussions

Sunday, January 31st, 2021 was the first time Elon Musk participated in a dialogue on the newest hipster social platform, Clubhouse. What started out as a rather typical Q&A with the richest man in the world, later turned into a very unique situation, where Elon himself took the reins as an interviewer and asked Robinhood CEO, Vladimir Tenev, the hard stuff.

For the uninitiated, Clubhouse is kind of like Zoom (without the video) meets a radio call-in show, except that it’s currently an invite-only community, where people create “shows” or “clubs” around current topics or really, anything at all. With about 2 million current users and a newly-minted unicorn valuation of $1.4 billion this month (both growing exponentially), the Andreessen Horowitz-backed app (it’s still only available on iOS) is buzzing with the recent attendance of celebrities, artists, athletes, and even a few billionaires.

The interesting thing about Clubhouse is the level of professionalism and candor exhibited by the growing numbers attending many of the forums/shows, as well as the subject matter of the discussions themselves. Peppered with thought leaders, and many with deep industry-level, real-life experience, the discussions I’ve sat in on were well-moderated, thought provoking, and real — a fresh change from the typical social media grist, where everyone is selling the best manufactured…