A study by Microsoft found that the average human attention span has decreased by 25% from 12 seconds in 2000. to 8.25 seconds in 2015
In this environment, it’s amazing that comedian Joe Rogan’s long-form podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, is the cultural touchstone it has become.
2657 episodes recorded over 15 years
Average length of streak 2 hours 39 minutes 06 seconds
1230 people were surveyed (89% men, 11% women)
Most watched episode: Elon Musk’s first appearance
While getting an audience to listen to an interview for three hours seems to go against the trend of shorter attention spans, The Joe Rogan Experience is the most popular podcast in the space.
Last week on Rogan’s show for the fifth time since 2018. Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared.
Musk had his first viral moment during his debut on the show when he puffed (but didn’t inhale) on a marijuana cigarette. His last interview on the show, which aired on Oct. 31, garnered more than 7.3 million views in less than a week.
While Rogan has been criticized for not backing down when his guests tell blatant lies, his interview style definitely gets interviewees to open up and say things they might not on other platforms.
Last week, Musk answered a question that has been on the minds of the general public: Why does the Tesla Cybertruck look the way it does?
Joe Rogan’s casual interview style allows his guests to opine on the most remote topics, and his interview with Musk followed the same pattern.
After 30 minutes, the conversation turns to the homemade Titan deep-sea submarine that exploded in 2023. and all five people on board were killed.
Related: Tesla sued over problem that killed several people
“It wasn’t a good design, obviously a terrible design,” Musk said of the ship. “They made it out of carbon fiber, which doesn’t make any sense because you have to be dense to land. You’re only making it out of steel anyway. If you make it out of just a big cast of steel… you’ll be safe and nothing will happen.”
Herein lies the brilliance of the podcast, as this digression sparked a conversation about the design of some of Tesla’s vehicles.
Musk briefly discussed the futuristic Art Deco design concept for the autonomous bus, which the company previously teased with artwork.
“I think we want the future to look like the future,” Musk says of his robotic bus.
Tesla teased Elon Musk’s vision of the future and is inspired by Art Deco.Tesla” loading=”eager” height=”640″ width=”960″ class=”yf-1gfnohs loader”/>
Tesla teased Elon Musk’s vision of the future and is inspired by Art Deco.Tesla
After discussing Musk’s robotic bus, Rogan asks a pointed question about the Cybertruck.
“I mean, it’s like the whole deal with Cybertruck, right? It wasn’t meant to be,” Rogan says.
“No, I just wanted to have something that looked really different,” Musk replies bluntly.
Musk goes on to show that when Tesla developed the Cybertruck, it was developing a car for the road that would solve the durability issues encountered by the Titan submarine at sea.
“For the Cybertruck, form really does meet function because, as you demonstrated with your armor-piercing arrow, if you shot that arrow at a regular truck … you would have found your arrow in the wall,” Musk said, referring to a viral clip of Rogan trying to fire an arrow through a vehicle to test its durability.
No matter how many arrows Cybertruck withstands, the angular aesthetics of the car are not pleasing to the eye of the average user.
Despite much hype when it was launched in 2023. at the end of the year, Cybertruck sales have been steadily declining over the past two years.
Related: Elon Musk shoots down a rival facing a big problem
Tesla sold about 5,400 Cybertrucks in the third quarter, down 62.6% year over year, according to Cox Automotive. Tesla typically lags behind its ICE rival Ford in terms of EV sales, but even the Ford F-150 Lightning EV pickup truck sold 10,000 units during the same period.
But Musk says the angular shape of the vehicle is necessary because of the rigid stainless steel panels that are strong enough to stop arrows.
“So because it’s made of super-hot stainless steel, you can’t just stamp plates,” Musk added. “You can’t just put [it] in a die press because it breaks the press…That’s why…it’s so flat….because bulletproof steel.
So, designing a vehicle with a feature that could only be marketed to doomsday planners preparing for the apocalypse forced a more aesthetically pleasing vehicle for the masses.
As Musk said earlier in the podcast, “form follows function.”
Related: Joe Rogan Net Worth: Earnings and Investments of Top Internet Broadcasters
Joe Rogan clearly likes Elon Musk; the pair have good chemistry on the show, and Musk has made at least five guest appearances.
So Rogan used kid gloves to tell Musk how ugly Cybertruck is to the average Joe (a listener of Rogan’s podcast).
“Are you married to this form now? Like, is there anything you can do to change that?” Rogan said.
But Musk wasn’t having it. The distinctive angular shape of the Cybertruck will remain.
“I just wanted to make something that looked unique, and the Cybertruck looks unique and has unique functionality,” Musk said. “The Cybertruck is alien technology, okay. Because it shouldn’t be so big and so fast; it is like an elephant that runs like a cheetah.”
It’s a fitting reference, as the Cybertruck can weigh up to 7,000 pounds and boast more acceleration than a Porsche 911.
Related: Why Elon Musk Could Leave Tesla, and Why It Might Actually Happen
This story was originally reported by TheStreet in 2025. on November 5, where she first appeared in the Personalities section. Add TheStreet as a preferred source by clicking here.
