How Elon Musk Divided a SpaceX Employee From a Close Friend

I’m doing something a little different with the newsletter today: delving into some reporting left over in my notebook that shows how Elon Musk — and the strong feelings that working for him can engender — can come between even the closest of friends.

Last month, my colleagues and I published a story about Steve Davis, a longtime Musk lieutenant who has worked for the billionaire for more than two decades, at three different companies, and is now one of the most powerful people leading his cost-cutting effort in Washington.

When Davis moved to Washington as a SpaceX employee more than 15 years ago, he developed a busy extracurricular life, running a popular frozen yogurt shop and bar; organizing kickball and competitive karaoke teams; and hosting game nights and Shabbat dinners. Much of that he did side by side with a close friend and roommate named Stephen Richer. (Here they are performing together in a flash mob for Davis’s Mr. Yogato yogurt shop. Richer is the tall redhead.)

Friends called the two inseparable. Richer sang the praises of SpaceX and the Boring Company, the Musk-founded tunneling startup that Davis would go on to lead.

And a few years later, after Richer had gone back to law school in Chicago and then moved to Arizona, Davis backed his buddy when, of all things, Richer — a Republican — ran for and won the 2020 election for Maricopa County recorder, which oversees voting in the state’s largest county.

If you’ve been reading the On Politics newsletter for awhile, you may already guess where this is going.