Offline with Jon Favreau - Trump and Elon’s Trainwreck Interview & J.D. Vance’s Real Tech Agenda

Episode Date: August 18, 2024

Elon Musk hosted Donald Trump for a two and a half hour ramble on Twitter’s garbage live streaming platform—and if you think SpaceX flubs launches…well, they’ve got nothing on X Spaces. Max si...ts down with Hysteria’s Erin Ryan to recap the most head-smacking parts of the conversation, and ask the question of our generation: if Elon doesn’t call it X, why should we? After that, Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project, joins the show to talk about J.D. Vance’s ties to a small but powerful faction of tech elites in Silicon Valley. Vance’s personal investments in Rumble, the favored social media of racist militias, expose his true tech agenda of enriching his friends and himself at the expense of the rest of us. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 J.D. really plays up that he represents the average person without highlighting the fact that he is actually a multimillionaire. And so for these billionaires to support him, they're kind of putting their money behind somebody that's in their corner and that they can pay to be in their corner, but who's also speaking to a population that would otherwise not find anything in common with those particular leaders because, you know, they are multi-billionaires. And we're talking about the average person who really doesn't care about Silicon Valley. They just want their kids to not see horrible stuff when they're online. Hey, everyone. Max here, filling in for John this week. That was Katie Paul, the director of the Tech Transparency Project. Katie joined me to talk about J.D. Vance's ties to a small but powerful faction of tech elite in Silicon Valley
Starting point is 00:00:56 and how that has turned Vance into someone who might sound tough on tech, but who is actually pursuing a tech agenda that stands to enrich his friends and himself at the expense of the rest of us. But first, I am joined by Aaron Ryan, co-host of Hysteria and a little show we host together, How We Got Here, which airs every Saturday in the feed for the podcast. What a day. Aaron, hello. Hello. So glad to be here. Aaron, this week, a member of the same Silicon Valley cabal that installed Vance on the Republican ticket. That's right. Our pal Elon Musk hosted Donald Trump himself for a two and a half hour interview on Twitter's garbage live streaming platform Spaces. Let's play a clip from the interview so people can get a sense for how absolutely off the rails this thing went for context.
Starting point is 00:01:42 This is Trump and Elon discussing. And this clip is so gross, I'm sorry, a Time Magazine photo of Kamala Harris. But he's getting a free ride. I saw a picture of her on Time Magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live. It was a drawing. And actually, she looked very much like our great first lady, Melania. She didn't look like Camilla, that's right. But of course, she's a beautiful woman, so we'll leave it at that, right? Oh. That was my reaction. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:13 So, Aaron, the audio sounded terrible. The live stream platform fully crashed, delaying the interview by 45 minutes. Were you surprised to see Elon fuck up another high-stakes launch? No. Elon could fuck anything up. I'm convinced that is his true gift as an innovator in fucking things up, interrupting things and coming up with ways to make things worse and more expensive. You know, the first thing that stuck out to me about the interview is how shockingly elderly Trump sounds.
Starting point is 00:02:46 He really did. Like the sound setup isn't doing him any favors. He already does sound very old right now, but it sounded like he was kind of listening through dentures. And I'm not trying to say that like, whatever, go off King if you've got dentures, but he sounds so much older and more addled than he's ever sounded before. And it's kind of shocking because I don't go out of my way to listen to him speak because I value my sanity. I had the same reaction. It actually made me go back and listen to other recent Trump clips because I wasn't sure how much of it is like Trump is clearly mentally turning some kind of
Starting point is 00:03:20 corner or that's how it sounds anyway. And how much of it was the Twitter spaces being fucked up because there is a specific effect the Twitter spaces being fucked up, because there is a specific effect from Twitter spaces that makes it sound like weird and echoey. And that's like that lisp effect is from the technology. I saw someone tweet that it sounded like Trump was on his first day of Invisalign, which I thought was kind of funny. Yeah, it does sound like he's got Invisalign or braces or he's wearing his retainer. Yeah, it does. It was shocking that he sounded old. It was shocking that Elon decided to do this at all. I guess he got attention, but the attention that he got drew attention to just the fact that Twitter, former Twitter, is now basically held together with chewing gum and paperclips.
Starting point is 00:04:03 And honestly, it would sound better if they'd done it over like CB radio. And it was foreseeable that it was going to sound bad because they have done this before. They did this with Ron DeSantis' quote-unquote campaign launches on Twitter spaces. It was a disaster. It's actually like the platform might be kind of cursed where you go on Twitter spaces and then like your political futures absolutely like dissolve. It was also Trump recorded it without a microphone. I don't know if you saw the photo of him recording it, but he was just literally hunched over a table talking into his phone. And it's like, guys, this campaign has tens of millions of dollars. You can't get a
Starting point is 00:04:37 fucking Yeti. What are we doing? I mean, it seems like that it feels like Elon fired whoever was responsible for making that not sound like crap. This was a, yes, I agree. This is one of the many business decisions he's made at Twitter specifically that feel like his megalomania where he has to walk into the room and like he's the expert and he's the authority. And there's so many stories have come out about in the year since he bought Twitter or 20 years. I don't know how long it's been. What's time? What is time? Where he will walk into a really important room of like the trust and safety team or the engineering team.
Starting point is 00:05:12 And because of his insecurity, but also the fact that he is personally actually not that good at technology, even though that was his image for so long is that he was the like genius engineer. Turns out he's bad at that. He's not an engineer. He's not an engineer. He's a salesman. He has an undergrad degree in history and physics. That is true. That was awarded after he supposedly graduated.
Starting point is 00:05:32 He is not an engineer. He cosplays as one. Yes. Right. And that's part of why he walks in this room and fires all the engineers because he has to cosplay as the engineer. And as soon as they start saying, like, oh, you're breaking this platform, he's like, you're all fired. And we just see that happen publicly now.
Starting point is 00:05:49 What has always been or what is often been happening behind the scenes at some of the tech companies he works at. When the guardrails of these like executive teams that he usually has around him to protect him aren't there. And he turns it into his like personal aggrandizement vehicle. Did you have any favorite moments from? Favorite, like what is enjoyment? I think that anytime anybody asks Donald Trump to talk about any woman, it creates a moment that helps drive home
Starting point is 00:06:19 how out like bonkers his views are on women, any woman. If he likes the woman, if he doesn't like the woman, it all sounds just completely strange. And so I think that the clip of him talking about Kamala looking like a beautiful actress. Because it's kind of important for us to know that that's who he is. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:41 And also the point about him saying it looks like Melania. First of all, it doesn't look like Melania. What a weird thing to say. I don't think he remembers how Yeah. Yeah. He just knows. And also the point about him saying it looks like Melania. First of all, it doesn't look like Melania. What a weird thing to say. I don't think he remembers how Melania looks because she never, she's never on the campaign trail. She showed up at the convention to be like, hello, and then leave. That was a cardboard cutout. That was not her. It was like the scene in Home Alone where the Michael Jordan is being wheeled in front of the window. It was Melania. She didn't move. Her hand was in the air. Home Alone where the like Michael Jordan is being wheeled in front of the window. It was Melania. She didn't move.
Starting point is 00:07:07 Her hand was in the air. On a little hand truck. Yes, exactly. And there was like the squeaking of wheels weirdly as she crossed the frame. It seemed – it was just so strange. viral, weird moment has kind of taken off. I think any moment that allows Democrats, progressives to remind voters that Trump is fucking weird is good. Now, it's not my favorite moment, but I think it's a very instructive moment.
Starting point is 00:07:37 I think it's a good moment. There was a lot of just, Elon sounded like such a simp. I was really embarrassed for him. And so I think anything that makes Elon look bad, which is the overall review, and anything that reminds voters that Trump is not a normal person also made it better, I guess. Yeah, I kept having a thought along these same lines, which is that I was noticing anew how anytime basically anybody else interviews Trump, any like Fox News person or Tucker Carlson, they are working really hard to steer Trump around the
Starting point is 00:08:14 landmines that they know he is so eager to jump onto. And they're steering him around like election lies or they're steering him around like the racism or the misogyny because they are just like want to present the false, more palatable version of him. And Elon doesn't know how to do that. He's just like not smart enough to know how to like engineer the interview in Trump's favor. And I think you're right. He's also just more focused on sucking up to him and like being in his good graces, which is something he does too as an interviewee. You ever watch interviews with Elon Musk? He actually can make for, in a weird way, a great interview subject because he is so eager and insecure in front of whoever's interviewing them that he will just volunteer stuff that nobody else would. Okay, I have a favorite clip, the Putin thing, which is just
Starting point is 00:09:03 like Trump would have said this anyway i'm sure he said this before but it was just i don't know it was a beautiful trump moment i thought let's play that clip i said to vladimir putin i said don't do it you can't do it vladimir you do it it's going to be a bad day you cannot do it and i told him things that what i do. And he said, no way. And I said, way. Don't do it, Vladimir. I said, way. Come on.
Starting point is 00:09:34 That's fun. That's a fun moment that absolutely never happened. Also, I would love it if we only referred to him the way that Trump did as Vladimir. Yeah, I'm sure that happened. That definitely happened. The timeline doesn't even match up. It doesn't even make sense timing-wise they would have had that conversation. You know, I think that this is another example. I think this is a kind of wild theory. I think that Donald Trump often confuses movies with things that happened to him. Oh, interesting. Or things that he has seen that really happened.
Starting point is 00:10:05 So I remember when he was the president, I mean, we all kind of try to forget. I heard something about that. Yeah. When he was the president, he told a story one time about people being smuggled across the border with duct tape on their mouths and stuff. And everyone was like, what? And it turns out it was like a scene from Sicario. Oh, that's right.
Starting point is 00:10:22 Right. From the shitty sequel to Sicario. Right, Sicario 2. The first one is so good. It's great. The second one is – It's my boy, Denis Villeneuve. It's great.
Starting point is 00:10:30 It's fantastic. But the – and the other one that this reminded me of was him talking about the helicopter crash almost that didn't happen. You know, like he's recently been saying he was on a helicopter that almost went down. The New York Times was like, this never happened. And Donald Trump is like, I'm going to sue you guys. The New York Times talked to like a bunch of people who were like, no, this like something kind of like this sort of happened. But it sort of reminds me of the scene in Almost Famous
Starting point is 00:10:59 when the plane is going down and people start yelling things. I think that he just like confuses reality. And I think you're right in that specific case. I would like to believe it was the helicopter crash from the beginning of the thing. Okay. In which he is the thing. Yeah. In Donald Trump's mind. That's true. Anyway, I'm sorry, please continue. I can't imagine him running across the tundra, though. That doesn't make any sense. He would take a golf cart. We see a golf cart just kind of buzzing toward this, like, Arctic outpost. Across the glacier.
Starting point is 00:11:32 That's right. Oh, my gosh. I think that there is probably some sort of movie that he saw where there's, like, an argument and someone is like, way. No, in Wayne's World. Oh, really? That he saw where there's like an argument and someone is like, way. No, in Wayne's World. Oh, really? That no way way is literally pulled verbatim from Wayne's World. And I think you're right.
Starting point is 00:11:52 Party on. Yes, you're absolutely right. He thinks that this is, you know what he thinks it is? He thinks it's a scene from Wayne's World too where he's trying to get the tickets or the permitting for Wayne stock. And they wouldn't give it to him. And they said no way and he said way. That's right. I remember that. So the Elon Musk, Donald Trump interview, I was really left, my big question at the
Starting point is 00:12:11 end of this was like, who is this for? What was this supposed to accomplish? What was the demographic that was being reached out to? What was the thing that Elon Musk and Donald Trump thought they were getting from this? Do you feel like you have any sense for that? I have a theory, Max. Okay, theory, Max. I have a theory. I think that this interview was not about audience at all, although both of them love attention. So I think that maybe their conscious mind might say like, this will be good for the campaign, you know, but I think subconsciously,
Starting point is 00:12:39 they're both driven by other things. Elon Musk has, his entire career has been him basically living off the teat of government contracts. Sure. So much of his wealth is due to contracts granted to SpaceX and kickbacks to Tesla, some of which were- Huge subsidies. Yeah. So many taxpayer subsidies. Elon is getting something out of this, and that is access to a person that he believes will give him access to more money. And Donald Trump gives people money that he likes. And I think that Trump, from this interview, gets access to somebody with a lot of money. So Trump thinks he's going to be able to access whatever, you know, wealth vein that Elon has access to. It's a big wealth vein.
Starting point is 00:13:28 Donald Trump needs money. He spends it stupidly. Right. You mean not just the campaign? Yeah. You mean like Trump personally? Trump campaign, Trump personally. I think that there is—
Starting point is 00:13:39 All the legal bills. All the legal— The bankruptcy stuff. Exactly. There is a—he needs money. And I feel like his wealth, his journey through wealth has been sort of like that scene in the beginning of ducktales when the ducktales during the credits when they're running across a bridge and the bridge is collapsing right after them yeah i feel like he's always he's there's one bankruptcy that
Starting point is 00:13:59 he's paying for with the next shell game company that's later going to go bankrupt itself exactly and this is his planned next little – To kick it down the – To kick a can down the road. And he wants to just hopefully – by the time anything catches up with him – he's like 80, right? He only has so many more years for it to catch up with him. The kids are going to be stuck with all these bills.
Starting point is 00:14:22 He doesn't like his kids. I'm not sad about it. He likes Ivanka, and I think he likes Baron because Baron is tall. But I think Melania is doing her—for all of her faults, I think Melania attempts to be as good a mother as she can to Baron. And I think part of that is keeping Baron away from his dad as much as possible. I think that theory makes a lot of sense. The timeline really lines up for it
Starting point is 00:14:49 because Elon really jumped onto the Trump campaign when it was right before Biden dropped out. So it was when it looked like Trump was like going to sail to victory. So it's kind of like
Starting point is 00:14:58 you might as well get on the winning campaign and then claim credit for it. And that was when he made this promise, which he immediately walked back, that he was going to give $45 million a month, which, of course, because it's Elon Musk and everything he says is a lie, like, didn't do it, didn't actually follow through on it, but dangling that.
Starting point is 00:15:15 It's like Trump giving to charity. Right, right. Like, oh, hey, I'll be donating all the proceeds of this to blah, blah, blah, blah, and then it never actually happens. Right, and then it never materializes. Yeah, but they both do this. They both cash in on the headline, they cash in on the blah, and then it never actually happens. Right, and then it never materializes. Yeah, but they both do this. They both cash in on the headline, they cash in on the announcement, and then they never follow through. I think you're right, and I think they're both doing
Starting point is 00:15:32 this with an expectation of a payout from the other one that they're never going to get, which is very funny. Yeah. Which we love. It is kind of a snake eating its own tail, in a way. But that's the only thing that makes sense to me. My only other theory, and I like yours more and I think they both are complementary, is that this was signaling for other tech executives. Because there was kind of a moment like a month ago when it wasn't really clear where the bulk of the money in Silicon Valley was going to go. And a few really big names in Silicon Valley, and we're going to talk about this in the second half of the show, broke really big for Trump, like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz,
Starting point is 00:16:13 like really big money guys. And I think that they're maybe still trying to like chase the rest of the Silicon Valley money, even though it's mostly going to Kamala. And there was one line in particular from the interview that jumped out to me when they talked about union busting that felt to me like it was trying to signal to tech executives I think we have a clip for that well you you're the greatest cutter I mean I look at what you do you walk in you want to quit I won't mention the name of the company but they go on strike and you say that's okay you're all gone.
Starting point is 00:16:45 So, okay. Oh, my God. Wait a second. This is my favorite moment because they are now, they could be investigated for like union, but that's illegal, man. The UAW said they were filing an unfair labor practices charge because the act of encouraging union busting is itself a form of union busting. That is fucking hilarious. I know.
Starting point is 00:17:03 Yes. They're committing crimes for their tiny audience of people who it's going to have no effect. The one outcome of this is going to be that they're going to face a charge
Starting point is 00:17:11 from the National Labor Relations Board, which we love to see. Okay, so there is a way, Aaron, in which Elon Musk, like you could look at Elon Musk's support for Donald Trump as kind of surprising in a certain light because broadly Silicon Valley and tech executives like lean and have always leaned
Starting point is 00:17:30 democratic. Elon Musk personally has been liberal for most of his life in the sense that he has supported left-leaning politicians. He was a big Obama guy. So I feel like I kind of like lose sight of the way that like it's actually in some ways kind of surprising. You spend a lot of time trying to understand this guy for your excellent video on him for your YouTube series, This Fucking Guy. So like what happened to him, do you think? That's a great question. I think there's a multitude of factors. I think that it's something that happens to people who have too much power for too long and don't have enough people around them telling them no. That is just a normal human, you know,
Starting point is 00:18:10 it's a normal thing that happens. It happens to famous people too. But I think, honestly, you know, the New York Times reported and there've been other reports in reputable news sources that Elon uses a lot of drugs and his brain is now smooth like a birthday balloon. And that's why this interview sounded like two very smooth balloons being rubbed together by two of the smoothest brains in America right now. It really is a great reason, kids, because I am past my years of having any fun whatsoever kids don't do too many drugs moderation moderation yeah it's a good point it is really true that there is this effect
Starting point is 00:18:53 when you whatever it is and ketamine or even alcohol where if you consume too much of it it does yes it's the it's the inflated balloon effect to see mdma like cocaine don't do cocaine it makes you annoying um it makes you annoying and and people Don't do cocaine. It makes you annoying. It makes you annoying and people don't want to hang out with you and all you care about is cocaine. But I honestly think that it's a combination of having too much money, too much power, not enough people checking him. And I also think that like Trump, Elon is sort of outrunning people catching on to his bullshit because there is a lot about him
Starting point is 00:19:31 that's kind of bullshit, like stuff that he has kind of spread as his own legend. His mythology, his Iron Man. Yeah, that has turned out to not be true. Like the fact that he, you know, his college degree is kind of, it was awarded to him under kind of strange circumstances.
Starting point is 00:19:46 Really? I didn't know that. He received a, his story that he told people is he got into a PhD program at Stanford and he dropped out after a day. But he hadn't even graduated from college at the time that he said that he got into the. Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. It was, watch the video.
Starting point is 00:20:02 There's a whole segment on that. But he's sort of outrunning people fact-checking the claims that he's making. And on a more recent level, it's things like, oh, autonomous cars, fully autonomous. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. He's said that for years. For years and years and years.
Starting point is 00:20:19 Which is stock price manipulation. Exactly. He is a real example of how tech stocks can be a pump and dump scheme. All you need is somebody loud enough with a big enough platform to promise something that doesn't even need to come. He's been promising rockets, people being able to ride on SpaceX rockets. Yeah, ray rate for years. Those rockets are exploding, so I wouldn't get on them myself. They are exploding. And companies like Boeing that are also, you know, contracted to the government making rockets don't just get the money without it working first.
Starting point is 00:20:54 SpaceX is the only company that gets to just, like, do their experiments on, like, the government's dime, on taxpayers' dime. And I think that he is, you know, Tesla is no longer a loan factor in the electric vehicle market. And there are others that are coming out that are better, that are more attractive, that more people want to buy, that are more affordable. And so a lot of- His market share is shrinking. His market share is shrinking and there's no end in sight unless somehow he's able to corner the market in China and India, which is like, there is, the electric infrastructure does not exist in India to support a giant, like,
Starting point is 00:21:31 it's not going to help him. China has been one of the biggest problems for him because they now have this, I mean, for a long time, that was where Tesla made a ton of its money was in China. And he's like, they were very successful at getting in there early and dominating the market. But now China, as they will do, as they do all the time, they are like developing their own domestic industry. And they are using government policy to push out the foreigners and to like make space for their own industry, which is so successful. And it's super cheap. It's super cheap. The electric cars in China.
Starting point is 00:21:58 They're selling those in Europe now. Yeah. Because they're so cheap. Right. And so I think that he is, he's a hype man who is like constantly trying to outrun people catching onto his bullshit. And yeah, that's, that's basically what he's doing now. And the more bullshit that he has to outrun, the crazier he has to be to try to outrun it. And I think that latching himself onto a person who has aligned himself with a,
Starting point is 00:22:23 with an agenda that promises a dictatorship is probably a last-ditch effort. A dictatorship of tax cuts. Yes. Well, you know, Project 2025, if Trump becomes elected and ends up doing what Heritage Foundation wants him to do, it would be a dictatorship. But, you know, he's just trying to outrun all of this, all of his bullshit. And it's so big now that
Starting point is 00:22:46 the last thing he can do is like latch on to the craziest guy in america speaking of elon musk bullshit not his biggest bullshit but one that has bothered me personally for a year now we've all had to play along with this charade that this social platform we used to know is twitter is now called x this drives me crazy x also, also known as Twitter. During this interview, what did Elon, the person who imposed that dumbass name change, call the very platform on which he was speaking in that moment? He didn't call it X. He called it Twitter. Aaron, can you think of a single reason we should ever refer to it as X ever again? Oh, because that's its preferred name. Of course, Elon Musk is going to refer to somebody by their dead name.
Starting point is 00:23:26 That's something that he does famously. Wow. Yeah, he dead names his own daughter. So, of course, he's going to dead name his company. But she's been posting. Yeah. I think on Thread, not on Twitter, which is good for her. But she has been speaking out, which is great.
Starting point is 00:23:39 She needs to come on offline. She rules. I would love that. She does rule. She rules. But she needs to come on offline. I think she I would love that. She does rule. She rules. But she needs to come on offline. I think she would be a great guest. She would be.
Starting point is 00:23:48 Yes. If you're listening, please, please come on. All right. Thanks, Erin. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And we're back. If you've been following J.D. Vance, Trump's vice presidential candidate,
Starting point is 00:24:14 you might have noticed a weird contradiction in his relationship to Silicon Valley. On the one hand, Vance is fiercely critical of big tech. He's called for breaking up tech giants like Google. He's proposed rolling back something called Section 230 that shields social media platforms from liability for user content. It basically allows the platforms to function. He's even praised, repeatedly, Biden's Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, who is the avenging angel of tech regulation and the patron saint of this show. But at the same time, Vance has deep ties to Silicon Valley. He spent time there himself as a tech investor and a protege of the prominent right-wing venture capitalist Peter Thiel. And he owes his place on the Republican ticket
Starting point is 00:24:51 to support from tech titans like Thiel and Elon Musk, who put him there. So what's going on? Joining me to resolve this mystery is Katie Paul, the director of the Tech Transparency Project, a tech industry watchdog whose research I have cited many times. Katie, welcome to Offline. Thanks so much for having me. Okay, Katie, so last year, the Tech Transparency Project put out a report that, to me,
Starting point is 00:25:13 shed so much light on what's going on here. It centered on a video streaming service called Rumble. Let's start there. Tell us what Rumble is and how it fits into the tech and media ecosystem. So Rumble is a kind of YouTube type video service that sees itself as the antithesis to cancel culture. It's a place where we see a lot of right wing voices go, particularly when they've been kicked off of bigger platforms like YouTube. So Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, figures that have been kicked off of YouTube for violating the company's policies, find a home on somewhere like Rumble where they can engage in the same type of activity and also have a more sympathetic audience. And I generally think of these kind of right-wing social platforms like Truth Social as not very successful, but Rumble is actually doing relatively
Starting point is 00:26:03 well, right? Rumble is one of the more successful right-wing platforms or alternative media platforms. It's valued higher than many of the others. We've seen these types of platforms rise and fall, platforms like Getter or Parler. But Rumble has a little more longevity longevity and we're continuing to see interest in that platform particularly from users who are trying to stay away from what they consider woke or cancel culture they can find a lot more of the voices they like on rumble where there aren't the same types of moderation that you see on larger platforms and i I remember when I was trying to live stream, I think it was this most recent Republican presidential primary. Basically, the only place to watch it online was on Rumble, which kind of speaks to their position in the kind of
Starting point is 00:26:56 right wing media sphere that they're pretty influential. Well, not just that they're influential, but I, you know, highlighting the fact that they, by getting all of the attention from politicians, it puts them in a different sphere, I think, than some of the other alternative platforms that don't get touted by high-profile political figures. So tell us how J.D. Vance got involved with Rumble. So J.D. Vance and his private venture capital firm were investors in Rumble. Vance actually said he's one of the first outside investors in Rumble. And several years ago, right before his Senate run his firm, Naria Capital, is still listed as an investor as of May's, the May SEC filings for Rumble. So this is, you know, not anything new. We know that members of Congress, politicians have investments in different companies. But what's different about Vance is kind of the way he's positioned himself as a senator on big tech issues and how he's figured out a way to try to shield rumble from some of the reforms that he's promoted.
Starting point is 00:28:12 You mentioned his time with Nuria Capital, this venture capital firm, which I guess is his venture capital firm, right? Yes. Okay. Can you give us some context on kind of his time on Silicon Valley, who he was with, what he was doing? And, you know, you mentioned how recent it was, but it's worth keeping in mind. We're talking about like 2021. So this is kind of yesterday.
Starting point is 00:28:33 Yeah, 2021, though not that long ago in the big span of things. These days, it's a lifetime. That's true. So Naria Capital is a venture capital firm that J.D. That's true. has been a major financial supporter of J.D. Vance's political career and remains a major supporter of his political career. He's also quite close to Elon Musk, and so this is kind of a cohort of far-right figures that have very deep pockets who are putting their finger on the scale in particular political spheres in a way that can benefit
Starting point is 00:29:26 their companies and the types of reforms that they are up against. So how big was this investment in Rumble? Do we have a sense for that? So Vance's, at least from what his public disclosures are as a candidate in terms of his personal investment, is that it was between $100,000 and $300,000. That disclosure remained the same year on year from 2021 to 2022, even though there was a higher valuation of Rumble. So it's unclear exactly, you know, why that stake value hadn't changed. If they were just kind of copy and pasting, it's hard to know. But that investment is just one piece of his broader portfolio.
Starting point is 00:30:10 But it is a platform that even if you go to Naria's website today, it remains part of the investment firm's portfolio. It's one of the prominently listed companies in their portfolio still as of right now. It's kind of funny that as best we can tell in like Silicon Valley venture capital terms, this is a pretty puny little investment. But for relative for like J.D. Vance and his life and relative to Rumble and its finances, it seems like it's a big investment. Is that the right way to read it, do you think? I mean, certainly that's one way to read it. And we don't know what other investments that there may be through family or other firms. This is something
Starting point is 00:30:50 that hopefully we could get more information as political candidates, you know, sometimes disclose their investments and their financial stakes and things, particularly for a presidential and vice presidential campaign. So that has yet to be determined. But certainly, you know, for a platform like this, it's significant. And we see the platform's valuation growing, especially after it was taken public. Something that you highlighted in the report that I thought was really interesting was the apparent change in the kind of editorial valence of Rumble right after this investment. Can you walk us through that? Yeah. So Rumble in terms of, you know, the way that the platform operates and its moderation, as I mentioned, it's kind of seen as the antithesis to woke and cancel culture.
Starting point is 00:31:40 And one of Vance's big tech claims that he made as a senator was that he wanted to reform Section 230. And this is a really important piece of legislation that governs a lot of what you see on platforms today and why you can see so many horrible things. And these platforms don't have really any accountability for that. Everything from terrorism to drug trafficking to, you know, political violence. One of the things that Vance had proposed was that large online platforms, big tech companies like Facebook and YouTube should be subject to 230 reform and therefore held responsible for some of the content on their platform. But this wasn't because he was concerned about the issues like drug trafficking. It was because instead he was more interested in issues
Starting point is 00:32:36 like conservative censorship. For anyone who's watched some of the congressional hearings, you see them sometimes get derailed with complaints from people like Jim Jordan that conservative voices are being censored, when in reality, what's often happening is voices like Alex Jones or Andrew Tate are violating these platform policies by saying extremely false or potentially violent or misogynistic things, and therefore they are getting moderated. Rumble, on the other hand, was seen as one of the small platforms that needs to be shielded still from 230, at least according to Vance's policy suggestions.
Starting point is 00:33:15 So while he's trying to get points on one side and saying that the big tech companies like Google and Facebook should have to deal with 230 reform, we should protect the smaller companies like Rumble and Getter and Truth Social so that they have an opportunity to grow. I mean, he was kind of making an antitrust argument while subverting an antitrust argument in one hand, but it also financially benefits him because he's essentially saying that the platform that he has a stake in should be able to still engage in this free-for-all of content that we see in some of the darker corners of the
Starting point is 00:33:50 internet. And that's certainly, you know, what we continue to see on the platform when we see people like Alex Jones, despite the lawsuits, despite what he's done to Sandy Hook families, being able to find a home on platforms like Rumble and individuals like Nick Fuentes. And so these people that are deplatformed because of their potentially harmful voices and the home that they find on Rumble, this is something that Vance's proposals are trying to protect in addition to protecting his own investment. Now, it's important to note that while he, you know, Rumble is seen as one of these alternative platforms, it is still a multi-billion dollar valued platform that has gone public,
Starting point is 00:34:32 just like some of the other big tech platforms we're very familiar with. So it's unclear why, you know, this would be seen differently than some other platforms. But even companies like X would fall under the smaller platforms that Vance was talking about. And we see right now what kind of, you know, anti-cancel culture, anti-woke culture the leadership of these companies has and what it ends up doing to the content on the platform. Anybody that's been on X for the past two years has seen, from the Twitter days to the X days has seen a significant change
Starting point is 00:35:07 in the way that that platform has moderated or failed to moderate content. Yeah. Something that I think is so telling about all of this is the timeline. When I first started reading this report and reading about like, oh, everything Vance is proposing
Starting point is 00:35:21 would be helpful for his investment in Rumble, I kind of assumed that the way the timeline would work is that like, okay, years ago he made this investment and it's been just kind of like sitting whatever in his Vanguard account all this time. And then much later he ran for Senate and he started developing this tech platform. But they're actually happening at the exact same time. Something that I hadn't realized is that Peter Thiel first funds J.D. Vance's Ohio Senate run with this historic $10 million investment two months before J.D. Vance's Ohio Senate run with this historic $10 million investment two months before J.D. Vance invests in Rumble. And then he announces shortly after that,
Starting point is 00:35:51 and this is right when he is articulating this tech agenda that what do you know would really help Rumble and other right-wing sites and help Twitter. It's very diplomatic of you to call it X. I personally, I still think of it as Twitter. While really hurting the other tech companies like Facebook and Google and these really big ones. Something I thought was really interesting in your report, there was something Rumble said basically that their business was incumbent on maintaining Section 230 protections because of the content they had on their site. Oh, well, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:36:22 And to be frank, that's not just something with regard to Rumble. That's a pretty standard measure for any tech company is that they're completely reliant on 230, which is why you see historic levels of lobbying investment that really rival big oil and big tobacco when it comes to pushing against any effort by lawmakers to address these issues. And it's increasingly a threat for Section 230 to be modified in some way or reformed because you have bipartisan support in one of the most politically divided periods of modern history. There's bipartisan support for big tech reform, for Section 230 reform. And that really cuts into what Rumble has relied on, which is platforming these potentially harmful voices, you know, the Alex Joneses of the world. And Vance didn't just invest in Rumble. His firm also invested in Locker Dome, which later changed its name, but that was the primary advertising platform for Rumble. So he's also investing in the advertising technology that's
Starting point is 00:37:32 used for Rumble. Obviously, with YouTube, we have Google Ads, which most people may not realize, most of the ads you see anywhere on the internet are owned by, you know, parent company. It's part of Google DoubleClick and the broader ad atmosphere. So here, Vance has actually invested in both the advertising technology that is supporting Rumble creators and the platform itself. Now, if the platform is not able to put, you know, a megaphone to some of these disenfranchised far-right voices anymore. That's a loss of ad dollars. That's a loss of platform value.
Starting point is 00:38:10 And Section 230 could have a significant impact on that. And it's especially a threat when some of these lawmakers that are on the right are right in line with their colleagues across the aisle when it comes to the need to reform Section 230. This is something that, having watched The Hill for quite some time, it's really shocking to see voices that will be in complete opposition on pretty much every other issue but come together in these hearings when it comes to the need to reform big tech. And you're seeing less and less of the focus on issues regarding free speech and more about the explicit crime or calls to violence that are on these platforms. For instance, Rumble, while we see other platforms making at least some sort of attempt
Starting point is 00:39:03 to moderate extremist militia, for instance, Rumble becomes the home for a lot of militia like the American Patriot 3% to post their videos for recruiting. That's something that I've been following in the 3%ers don't have any threat of getting their content removed from a platform like Rumble in the same way that they do on some of the other platforms. Yeah, that's a good point. And it's easy, I think, for people like me to lose sight of how much extremist organizing is happening on a platform like Rumble because other than when I'm trying to watch the Republican primary, I'm not on it. So when this was happening in the past on like YouTube or Facebook, I was very aware of it because you kind of see it at the contour as the platform or you read about it. But when it's happening on
Starting point is 00:39:47 Rumble, it's out of sight for a lot of us, but it's still very much happening. So let's try to imagine like, let's say JD Vance becomes vice president and he is able to execute on every aspect of his stated tech regulation agenda. Now, like maybe he is saying some of this just for signaling. We're just kind of assuming that he actually means all of it literally. But let's take him at his word. And let's say that he is able to make a change to Section 230 where it only protects small companies, which just happen to be right-wing, and it doesn't protect the large tech companies,
Starting point is 00:40:21 where he's able to execute on breaking up know, breaking up the big tech giants, but not breaking up the smaller companies, where he's also talked about he wants to make it illegal for Google to do data collection practices, which, by the way, Rumble also does. But again, he's only targeting Google for it. If all of that happens, what do you think, what does Silicon Valley look like?
Starting point is 00:40:41 What does the internet look like? What is the world we would kind of live in the day after all of that happened? Well, you know, unfortunately, I think we're already seeing what happens. You know, we're already seeing Silicon Valley kind of move to this favoring of the right. It's historically been seen as, you know, a very lefty California, San Francisco, very left wing, when in reality, these tech company executives have a lot more in common with those on the right than they do with those on the left. You know, Joel Kaplan at Facebook, for instance, is a huge
Starting point is 00:41:20 supporter of Brett Kavanaugh and was sitting right behind Zuckerberg in his first address to Congress. He has Zuckerberg's ear. And so as we continue to see more pandering to the right from Silicon Valley, we're already seeing these companies kind of, as they roll back their moderation, trying to look more like some of the rumbles. And it may be an effort to stave off regulation from those on the right that feel that their voices are being censored in some way, and therefore they want to target companies like Facebook and Google. But when we look at Silicon Valley now, and we're looking at the rollbacks of these companies, I think we've reached a point where there has not been any regulation. There have not been any financial repercussions,
Starting point is 00:42:12 or at least none that are damaging enough to the companies. There's been no legal repercussions for really explicitly harmful things, not just like amplifying insurrection, but fomenting genocide, trafficking drugs. And because there haven't been repercussions, the companies have just stopped investing in all of the stuff that, you know, really riled up conservative voices in the first place, which is moderation, fact checking. You know, Facebook famously just a few months ago announced that it would be allowing misinformation in political ads. That includes claims that the election was stolen in 2020.
Starting point is 00:42:48 And so there's a clear pandering to the right as these companies have tried to stave off this unusual bipartisan support for regulation. into that moving forward, it's really unclear what we're going to see happen because will the companies take a turn and try to suppress far left voices for certain violations to pander to the right? It's entirely possible. You know, these companies are very easily influenced and like to wield the influence they have to, you know, ensure that they're being supported by members on the Hill in the way that they feel works best. But that has yet to be seen. And we also have the issue of Google just being very recently was just found in violation of anti-monopoly laws. That was a historic decision. And it's going to govern a lot of how we see tech operate going forward. Now, there hasn't been a ruling on what the reforms will be because of
Starting point is 00:43:53 it being found in violation. If that includes a breakup of a company like Google, we may see a complete shift in how these companies operate just so that they don't fall under the same types of regulation that we just saw with Google. Then again, this is under Lena Kahn and Jonathan Cantor. And so when we see a change at the FTC, that could also change. We're really at kind of an inflection point because the U.S. is falling behind where regions like the European Union are far ahead in terms of regulating what they call very large online platforms in a way that doesn't censor voices but does levy fines and put controls on the way that these companies collect data, may or may not violate people's privacy or allow harmful content.
Starting point is 00:44:47 And as of right now, you know, the U.S. is, even though these are American companies, it's falling behind in the way that they are being governed. during trump's presidency trump was threatening a lot of pretty severe action against the big tech companies and the way like you said that they averted that and it's probably a pretty good guess as to what they would do again was just to pander very hard to every republican conspiracy theory and talking point about how the platforms are suppressing conservatives and they're controlled by the left. And so they need to like really severely tilt what people see on the platforms, which they did in order to buy off Republican acquiescence to avoid regulation, which they care about so much more than what content people see or their influence
Starting point is 00:45:40 on day-to-day politics. I want to talk about J.D. Vance for a second because such an important part of his story is the backing that he received by not just Peter Thiel, but like a few really big Silicon Valley venture capitalist figures, you know, Elon Musk, now Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz have like gone all in on him and are now backing Trump as a result, which is pretty unusual for Silicon Valley. Like whatever you can say about the kind of like footsie that they play with Republicans in order to avoid regulations, they at least tend to donate to and side publicly with Democrats. And so this has been a big change. And I'm wondering if you can talk about why they see
Starting point is 00:46:21 Vance as their guy and why they would like this agenda that he's pushing. Because, of course, this agenda is so much bigger than just Rumble, which, yes, Peter Thiel has some money in, but is small potatoes for people like Andreessen and Horowitz who have billions of dollars in play in the tech industry. Well, I think Vance is a unique figure for them to support for a few reasons. One is he tries to play and gets a lot of support from being an everyman, right? He plays up his background in Appalachia. I'm also from Ohio. I'm not from Appalachia, but I am from Ohio. And J.D. really plays up that he represents the
Starting point is 00:47:02 average person without highlighting the fact that he is actually a multimillionaire. And so for these billionaires to support him, they're kind of putting their money behind somebody that's in their corner and that they can pay to be in their corner, but who's also speaking to a population that would otherwise not find anything in common with those particular leaders because, are multi-billionaires and we're talking about the average person who really doesn't care about Silicon Valley. They just want their kids to not see horrible stuff
Starting point is 00:47:34 when they're online. What is it about his tech agenda that they would like? Because again, it's this kind of same puzzle of why would he want to do all this tech regulation if he is himself of Silicon Valley? And I think the natural extension of that is why would Horowitz and Dreesen, Thiel and Musk want the tech agenda that J.D. Vance is really pushing and making a big part of his platform? Well, I don't think it's just his tech agenda, but I think crypto is also
Starting point is 00:48:01 a big part of this. And when you think about, you know, the people you just mentioned, especially Musk, are big pushers of crypto. And having, you know, we've seen both candidates on both sides kind of pandering to the crypto sphere in the past couple months, because there's this big push now, do we make crypto something that is regulated by the government, which is somewhat hilarious because that's the whole point of crypto is that it's not regulated or under the government. But, you know, really we have this point with crypto where these are people who have a lot of investment in it. It's unclear where that market's going to go. Vance and Trump seem to be all in. I mean, Trump has actually pushed
Starting point is 00:48:45 like his own crypto before. Yeah, I hold a few Trump coins. Sure. Are they the ones you can get online? Are they like Trump coin crypto? I don't know. I'm not prepared to carry this joke any further. So I'll just say both. But, you know, I think that is a big piece of it, too. And continuing to keep an eye on how these individuals are tied to the broader crypto industry, the lobbying of the crypto industry. That is something that Vance appears to be really, you know, in their pocket on. And that's a big area with a big question mark moving forward. In the work we've done for TTP, we've really followed kind of the influence of crypto and seen how very quickly crypto mining, for instance, in Texas, has made a significant impact, not in a great way, on Texas's energy grid to the point where these crypto companies, even if they're not mining, they've created such major deals with the energy company there because of the nature of that particular grid in Texas that they now make a big chunk of their money from selling back energy at
Starting point is 00:49:58 a higher rate for periods where there's, blackouts or energy failures because of major weather events. And the crypto industry has kind of cornered this. So it's more than just the digital aspect. There's a lot more that the crypto industry has kind of seeped into that obviously panders to the right, you know, when you're looking at Texas and Greg Abbott and what's happened with the energy grid there. So I think that that is Vance's stance on crypto and Trump's, and that is something that we need to continue to watch and not completely separate it from, you know, the other issues that these Silicon Valley executives are interested in.
Starting point is 00:50:36 That's a good point. So that behind all of the kind of posturing about, is Facebook sufficiently friendly to conservatives? Is Google, you know, privacy practices, should they be disallowed for Google but allowed for Rumble? Behind all of this, there is a kind of bigger fight over the future of crypto in which a small number of extremely rich people in Silicon Valley have a huge amount of money tied up. And so that's the kind of stakes for them. Well, it's kind of depressing, but kind of clarifying how when it comes to big tech
Starting point is 00:51:26 regulation. And regulating it and doing it right is so important so that it's not favoring any particular side but is meant to protect people. And we do see people die as a result of these tech harms, not just in the U.S., but abroad. We see no accountability for that. And really, it's just the average person who suffers as a result of infighting among billionaires and the agendas that they're pushing. That leads me to the last question I want to ask you, which is, how do you see this fitting within the context of Silicon Valley's kind of larger disposition towards this race? Because obviously, there's been a lot of unhappiness in the Valley over the Biden administration's regulation of big tech, not just crypto, antitrust, AI. At the same time, you have a small number of people breaking for Trump,
Starting point is 00:52:17 which is a big deal because it's unusual. You also have a lot of people in the Valley coming out seemingly pretty big for Kamala Harris. So I'm kind of curious how you read Silicon Valley's role in the race at this moment. Well, I think seeing which executives from which companies or investors from which companies are supporting which candidates is important, especially with this Google antitrust case that's just dropped. Notably, Kamala hasn't made any strong policy claims about tech regulation in any direction thus far. Now it has only been shockingly three weeks since she was named the nominee. It feels like it's been a lot longer. I don't know about you, but we still haven't really seen a clear agenda on that yet. And it will be interesting to see how strongly these candidates come out
Starting point is 00:53:08 and make claims about whether or not they'll be regulating big tech. And not just big tech, but privacy issues. There's a huge privacy fight right now happening at the state level all across the country. And that's not just about social media platforms. That's about your data on everyday websites. Who's gathering it? You know, that's about generative AI. What is the place of generative AI moving forward? We had a big AI race for about a year. Now there are questions.
Starting point is 00:53:36 Did that bubble burst? But still, we're talking about a lot of data, a lot of potential privacy violations, potential copyright violations. These are all huge questions that have big dollar signs attached to them that we haven't really seen either of the candidates address yet. And that may be because they're still trying to get their footing, figuring out where to stand in this position, in this race. I think that the candidates, you know, need to make some sort of statement, although it's not one of the top issues, but making some sort of clear agenda on whether Kamala will continue the strong fight against antitrust violations that we've seen from the FTC as it stands right now.
Starting point is 00:54:20 Or will there be a shift under her administration? Those aren't questions that have been answered yet. And I think they're going to be really important to see who Silicon Valley swings toward moving forward. Well, it's something I'm certainly going to be watching very closely. Katie Paul, thank you so much for coming on Offline. Thanks so much for having me. This week, we're going all out for the Democratic National Convention. Here at Cricket Media, we're giving Friends of the Pod subscribers access to a ton of behind-the-scenes content and community events, including a DNC subscriber live chat, a new subscriber-exclusive segment featuring Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan, four back-to-back ad-free episodes of Pod Save America recapping the biggest convention news of the night, and brand-new episodes of Inside 2024 and Polar Coaster.
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Starting point is 00:55:24 hoping the presidential election flies by. It is exactly the time to get involved, get moving, and convince all the undecided voters in your life to show up at the ballot box this November. Tune into season four of The Wilderness, where John talks to some of the smartest strategists, pollsters, and organizers in politics to give you the insights you need to persuade the persuadables in your life. He also explores the thought processes of voters who are slipping away and dives into what we can do between now and November to secure our democracy. The full series is out now, so head on over to the Wilderness Feed to listen. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher.
Starting point is 00:56:11 It's produced by Austin Fisher. Emma Illick-Frank is our associate producer. Mixed and edited by Jordan Cantor. Audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, and Reed Cherlin for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Dilan Villanueva, who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Thank you. disinformation and may feel like you need a guide, enter Wired Politics Lab, hosted by Wired's senior politics editor, Leah Feiger. Each week, you can expect in-depth analysis and conversations
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