Elon Musk says he's not 'the biggest fan' of Warren Buffett

• Elon Musk returned to Joe Rogan's podcast in an episode released Thursday.
• The pair didn't smoke marijuana this time, but they did discuss Tesla, Mars, and the ethics of ultra-wealth.
• Musk said there's a difference in those who make their money by building things, and those who allocate capital, like Warren Buffett.

Elon Musk isn't the biggest fan of Warren Buffett.

The tech billionaire said as much in an interview with comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan published Thursday, where the pair discussed the coronavirus pandemic, Musk's planned Neuralink brain interface, Tesla, and more.

The Oracle of Omaha came up in a discussion about Musk's pledge to sell most of his assets, including many of his California mansions.

"Do you feel like people define you by the fact that you're, you're wealthy and that they define you in a pejorative way?" Rogan asked.

Musk responded that in recent years, "billionaire has become a pejorative, it's like 'that's a bad thing.'"

That's when he brought up Buffett.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense in most cases, if you've basically organized a company," he said. "How does this wealth arise? If you organize people in a better way to produce products and services that are better than existed before, and you have some ownership in that company, then that essentially gives you the right to allocate more capital."

"There's a conflation of consumption and capital allocation," Musk continued. "So when you take Warren Buffett for example — and to be totally frank I'm not his biggest fan — he does a lot of capital allocation. He reads a lot of annual reports of companies, all the account, and it's pretty boring honestly. What he's trying to figure out is 'does Coke or Pepsi deserve more capital.'"

Both Buffett and Musk are on Bloomberg's billionaires index, with Buffett ranking fifth in the world and Musk at 22nd.

Last April, around the time Musk and Tesla were sparring with federal securities regulators over tweets sent by Musk, Buffett said Musk had some "room for improvement" when it came to communication.

"He's a remarkable guy. I just don't see the necessity to communicate," Buffett said at the time.

Musk went on in the podcast to say there's an "an over-allocation of talent in finance and law" in the United States.

"Basically, too many smart people go into finance and law," he said. "This is both a compliment and a criticism. We should have, I think, fewer people doing law, fewer people are doing finance, and more people making stuff."

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