I said I might be putting up some segments from the latest Joe Rogan interview with Elon Musk, and this segment, where he talks about the California homeless industrial complex, sounds like he’s been reading BattleSwarm.
I’ve elided some of Musk’s verbal tics (“likes,” “uhs” and repeated words) in the interest of clarity and readability.
Joe Rogan: “And then you guys [California] spent $24 billion on the homeless and it got way worse.”
Elon Musk: “Yes. Like the homeless population doubled or something.”
EM: “People don’t understand the homeless thing because it it sort of prays on people’s empathy.”
EM: “The homeless industrial complex is really, it’s dark, man. [That] network of NGOs should be called the drug zombie farmers.”
EM: “When you meet somebody who’s totally dead inside shuffling along down the street, with a needle dangling out of their leg…”
EM: “Homeless is the wrong word. ‘Homeless’ implies that somebody got a little behind in their mortgage, payments and if they just got a job offer, they’d be back on their feet.”
EM: “You see these videos of people that are just shuffling, they’re on fentanyl. They’re taking a dump in the middle of the street, and they’ve got like open sores and stuff. They’re not like one job offer away from getting back on their feet.”
EM: “This is not a homeless issue. Homeless is, it’s a propaganda word.”
EM: “These sort of charities, [they] get money proportionate to the number of homeless people, or number of drug zombies.” So their incentive structure is to maximize the number of drug zombies, not minimize it.
EM: “That’s why they don’t arrest the drug dealers, because if they arrest the drug dealers, the drug zombies leave.”
JR: “So they’re in coordination with law enforcement on this?”
EM: “Yeah.”
JR: “So how do they how do they have those meetings?”
EM: “They’re all in cahoots. When you find this, it’s such a diabolical scam.”
EM: “San Francisco has got this tax this gross receipts tax. It’s not even on revenue, it’s on all transactions, which is why Stripe and Square and and and a whole bunch of financial companies had to move out of San Francisco…you’re taxed on any money going through the system in San Francisco. So Jack Dorsey pointed this out, and they had to move Square from San Francisco to Oakland, I think. Stripe had to move from San Francisco to South San Francisco, different city.”
EM: “That money goes to the homeless industrial complex. So there’s billions of dollars that go, as you pointed out, billions of dollars every year that go to these non-governmental organizations that are funded by the state. It’s not clear how to turn this off. It’s a self-licking ice cream cone situation.”
EM: “So they get this money, the money is proportionate to the number of homeless people, or number of drug zombies.”
EM: “When you add up all the money that’s flowing, they’re getting close to a million dollars per homeless drug zombie. It’s like $900,000 or something, some crazy amount of money, is going to these organizations. So they want to keep people just barely alive. They need to keep them in the area, so they get the revenue. So that’s why they don’t arrest the drug dealers, because otherwise the drug zombies would leave. But they don’t want [them] to have too much, if they get too much drugs and then they die. So they’re kept in this sort of perpetual zone of being addicted, but just barely alive.”
So the homeless industrial complex is farming homeless drug zombies as a cash crop in San Francisco. Once you understand this, a whole lot of otherwise inexplicable policies start to make sense. The shocking revelation here, that local law enforcement is in on the deal and that’s why they don’t arrest the drug dealers, makes sense, but I’d really like to see supporting evidence for it.
This is the sort of thing Republicans in congress should hold hearings on and get sworn testimony on the records. I’d also like to see DOGE-level forensic audits of the government agencies sending the money, and the NGOs spending it, to find out where all the zombie drug farming money is going…
“Drug busts, which often occur in areas like the Tenderloin, where drug-use is public and conspicuous, are frequently publicized on SFPD social media, accompanied by photos of small plastic bags filled with white substances. In a June press release, San Francisco Police Department Interim Chief Paul Yep commended officers’ recent efforts to go after illegal drug activity “relentlessly.”
That’s what’s shown on social media. But what happens next?
First, the District Attorney has to decide if there’s a strong enough case to file charges.
This doesn’t always happen. In March, a pre-dawn operation that netted 40 arrests resulted in zero charges. On June 25, a medley of local law enforcement agencies arrested 97 people during what SFPD described in a press release as possibly “the largest one-day fugitive-focused enforcement in recent history in San Francisco.”
Most of the 97 arrested were cited and released, according to Andrea Lindsay, co-manager of the public defender’s misdemeanor unit. About 30 were charged with new misdemeanor offenses, like possession of drug paraphernalia, Lindsay added, but most of those charges were dropped by prosecutors in the days following. ”
Anarchy-tyranny is a thing. Laws are only enforced when doing so is useful to the Powers-That-Be. Rule of Law is apparently a bad joke in Californiastan.
“The shocking revelation here, that local law enforcement is in on the deal and that’s why they don’t arrest the drug dealers, makes sense, but I’d really like to see supporting evidence for it.”
You Sweet Summer Child…drug enforcement is just so 20th Century:
“Selective De-Policing: Stanford Law Policy Lab Report Proposes Alternatives to Policing to Increase Public Safety”
I also believe, but don’t have direct evidence, that the HI complex encourages homeless people to go to untouched suburbs to start the cycle of lawlessness, citizen outrage, shelter building, money for low income housing developers and NGOs. I’ve seen it happen.
From this August:
https://missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-war-illegal-drug-markets-looks-like-one-case/
“Drug busts, which often occur in areas like the Tenderloin, where drug-use is public and conspicuous, are frequently publicized on SFPD social media, accompanied by photos of small plastic bags filled with white substances. In a June press release, San Francisco Police Department Interim Chief Paul Yep commended officers’ recent efforts to go after illegal drug activity “relentlessly.”
That’s what’s shown on social media. But what happens next?
First, the District Attorney has to decide if there’s a strong enough case to file charges.
This doesn’t always happen. In March, a pre-dawn operation that netted 40 arrests resulted in zero charges. On June 25, a medley of local law enforcement agencies arrested 97 people during what SFPD described in a press release as possibly “the largest one-day fugitive-focused enforcement in recent history in San Francisco.”
Most of the 97 arrested were cited and released, according to Andrea Lindsay, co-manager of the public defender’s misdemeanor unit. About 30 were charged with new misdemeanor offenses, like possession of drug paraphernalia, Lindsay added, but most of those charges were dropped by prosecutors in the days following. ”
Anarchy-tyranny is a thing. Laws are only enforced when doing so is useful to the Powers-That-Be. Rule of Law is apparently a bad joke in Californiastan.
“AnarchO-tyranny”. Edit twice, post once!
“The shocking revelation here, that local law enforcement is in on the deal and that’s why they don’t arrest the drug dealers, makes sense, but I’d really like to see supporting evidence for it.”
You Sweet Summer Child…drug enforcement is just so 20th Century:
“Selective De-Policing: Stanford Law Policy Lab Report Proposes Alternatives to Policing to Increase Public Safety”
https://law.stanford.edu/press/selective-de-policing-stanford-law-policy-lab-report-proposes-alternatives-to-policing-to-increase-public-safety/
Keeping them just-alive-enough to collect the money is the premise behind the 1978 movie Coma. Life imitates art.
https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/11223-coma
I also believe, but don’t have direct evidence, that the HI complex encourages homeless people to go to untouched suburbs to start the cycle of lawlessness, citizen outrage, shelter building, money for low income housing developers and NGOs. I’ve seen it happen.