Pivot - Elon Musk's Midterm Spending Spree, Trump's Press Secretary Debacle, and OpenAI Gets Bugged

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

Kara and Scott unpack Elon Musk's role in Ukraine's Starshield disruption, his quarter-billion-dollar midterm spending spree, and the fight against Russian bots. Then, they discuss the new White House press secretary’s painfully awkward debut, with insight from someone who's been there, briefly: Anthony Scaramucci. Plus, Trump’s reversal on livestreaming an execution, a bizarre espionage scandal at OpenAI, and Apple’s latest play for the smart home.Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, I have a new date. Did you notice? I know you're cheating on me. Talk about the ultimate co-host upgrade. I know. I know. I know. It's true. A little bit striking. I mean, I didn't even mind. It's like, it's like I'm the worst kid on the bad news bears and A-Rod

shows up. I know. to play second base. I'm like, okay, I get it. I get it. It's true. Because like one thing is like sometimes we talk about political or national issues. And like we're talking about the execution thing. And then she's like, well, you know, we're in the room when we killed Osama bin Laden.

And this is what we did when we had to deal with issues of whether to show his picture or not. And you're like, oh, she was in the room. And then somewhere else, she's like, when we were dealing with that on this issue. And I was like, God does not have this background. She's like zelling. I'm like, when I was in the fraternity. Dranking and saw it go by on television or whatever it is. She was great.

It's racing up the charts. I got to tell you it's racing. I knew it would. Well, what's really unusual about this is for you to talk about the success of something you're working on. So that's really unusual. Yeah, yeah. And just making money for the Vox Media Podcast Network.

There you are. Got to pay the bills. Got to pay the bills. I'm kidding aside. I think people are dying for substance. I really truly do. I think they're tired of this like, this, like, clown car of a Trump administration, and intelligence is making its way back. You talk about that a lot.

Yeah, she's got, she has a newfound affection because I think people appreciate intelligence. And also, she does hit it kind of straight down the middle. I don't think people, Fox essentially turned their sights on her for four years and tried to convince America. She was like this incandescental blue candidate. She's actually a pretty centrist. She is, very much so. But, yeah, I don't, you know, I don't like to listen to your work, but I force myself to listen to that one. Well, she's good. You can listen to her and then just go fast forward through me.

I decided I needed a piece of media with a woman who's been underestimated by men for 50 years and a woman who spent 50 years telling them they're wrong. Well, it's working. It's working. It's working. I also got to spend the day with Carrie Russell the other day. So my whole week has been really fantastic. I like her and her husband. I know. Well, her husband was there. It was the cast of the diplomat. that. It's not a strong badass ladies. Can I give some dating advice? Sure, go ahead. Just speaking of strong ladies, the best advice that I've heard from a woman on dating, and I want you to pass this by the secretary. Okay. Lure them in with the titties, feed them bacon, and then let the mental illnesses present themselves. What? Did you just like drag women? We're back. No, my God. We're back. Oh my God, Shane fucking Gill.

Just a little contrast. Just want to make sure you know you're on pivot with Scott Galloway, not with the secretary. You just mean. Bounce that one off the secretary. See if that makes her book to her. I'm not saying a word to her. She likes you. Inexplicably. Inexplicably, she likes you. She's got a sense of humor. There's no way she's not a little, she's a little salty. No way. We're going to do whiskey on the show at one point. She likes a good whiskey. Feed them bacon and then reveal the mental illnesses. Oh my God. And you said the word. Are you 12? You're 12. You are absolutely, oh my God, I got to go back to Hillary Clinton,

Jerry Russell. I need to rush back to the classy dames that I am used to. Anyway, I'm going to get, and, you know, soon I'll be interviewing Rachel Maddow. And it'll just- What did you think of Shane Gillis's S&L thing? Here's the thing. They like to get like all mad about, oh my God, he called women whores. Like, what, that's like another Tuesday for that idiot. Here, it's not funny. He wasn't funny. It was like such a lame joke, told by a guy who, essentially is the last person you dated before he became a lesbian, that guy. And he's just not funny. It wasn't, it was like such an old. And I do think it's part of the same thing I'm talking about is people are just sick of this just like dumb misogyny. I don't know what else to say. It's just like things are too serious for this like subpar humor. And it wasn't funny. I don't think it was funny. And that's the real crime. I think you're absolutely right. I think it would have been funny. People would have. Bill Burr and, you know, look, there is a line.

There is a line of humor around, around, I get it, around wokeness going too far and being irreverent. Comedians deserve a wide berth. This isn't dramatic social commentary that requires everyone to have their hair on fire, in my view. The sin was it wasn't funny. Wasn't funny. I agree. We should laugh a lot more. I agree.

But I do also think this anti-woke thing is done. Like, everyone's like, okay, we got it. And now you're annoying, like, essentially. Like, you know, everyone's changing the tune. Joe Rogan, all of a sudden is against the war. Trump keeps trying to. He's part people. Like he literally sounded

like a San Francisco lesbian on his last show. I think people are just tired of like the anti-woke stuff is over. It's done, I think. And I think everyone's learned their lesson, including the people who are being too,

like, woke, absolutely. The only, I don't mind, I think it's funny. I think he give comedians a wide berth. They're supposed to be irreverent. They're supposed to be obnoxious. Fine.

That's fine. The thing I find, I don't like to word, I think misogyny is under, I think Ms. Andrew is underused, quite frankly. I think the majority of female-driven podcasts are basically, let's just talk about how incompetent and irredeemable men are for an hour.

Where I do find, I don't want to call misogyny, but it gets the hairs up on my back. Yeah. I find this group of Brolagar comedians that are all like in that kind of Gillis, Rogan, I forget the other guy. Theo Vaugh. Andrew.

I think Theo Van. I actually think Theo Vaughan has a soul and a heart. He's an empathic man. He has a new show coming out, I think, on Netflix. I forget the other guy who called Puerto Rico. Andrew. Andrew. Or whatever.

Oh, that guy. That guy. What I don't, I think actually they're funny how about to get your own audience. The thing that makes me, really rattles me, is when they go after female comedians. They have this agreement not to go after each other, but it's open season on Chelsea Hamler. Yeah. They basically tried to, you know, the right base. I basically tried to drive who I think the best comedian of our age right now is Michelle

Wolf. I find what I don't like is male comedians going after female comedians. And there's, there just seems to be a different standard for women who are successful on a comedic tour and irreverent. It's like open season among the bro-a-you- know, the broligarchy and amongst comedians. They all deserve the right to say, really a reverendant. things. And if you don't, it's like, I love the statement you made. You don't like Chick-fil-A, don't eat a Chick-fil-A. By the way, the CEO threw up all over himself this past weekend. I'm jumping around a lot. Okay, you are. Okay. When he was asked about the LGBT community. You didn't see that? Yeah, I did. I don't need that. Oh, my God. He missed a layup. He just

should have said, we believe in equal rights for anyone. Anyone of any origin. Everyone gets a chicken fucking sandwich. We love everyone. We have gay employees. We have non-white employees. Jay's eat chicken sandwiches is how it should like the way in my culture. We love you. We love you. we promise you the same dignity and respect as anyone else. He's missed a fucking layout. I know. It's really stupid. I do think we are at a moment where people are like, okay, enough with the woke stuff, enough with the, you know, everyone's like, everyone's learning.

Here's an idea. Let's meet in the middle, Kara. Yes. Let's meet in the middle. It's like everybody fucking relax. But there are some people with really bad intent, and those people need to go away. They're just mean and nasty, you know, like an Elon, for example. All right.

Speaking of Elon, he's denying responsibility for limiting you. Ukraine's access to Star Shield, the military version of Starlink. He says the system is controlled by the U.S. government, and the restrictions are decided by the military and ultimately President Trump. Ukraine lost critical access to Star Shield this week. Disrupting drone attacks and air defense operations service has reportedly been restored. This follows Trump's calling on Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries and saying President Zelensky should be replaced. But Zelensky is pushing back, telling the financial times he's done with Trump's energy ceasefire. And the Ukraine will resume refinery strikes. He's also hitting data centers. more, he said. He said the Star Shield disruption was, quote, not a technical problem. It was the will. In this case, you know, the problem Elon had is he went at Zelensky and then it suddenly shut down. And so I do, I think it is unfair to put this on him. It is run by the government. The decision was made by Trump. That said, he was right in there, you know, slagging Zelensky. And so not a surprise that, and the way he sort of, you know, peacocks around like he's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. shadow president, people are going to assume it's him. And a lot of people reached out to him. I suspect he probably called Trump and said, turn it back on, would be my guess. But I don't know,

what do you think? This is unusual. I'm usually the one defending Musk and you're the one going after him. Yeah. I think this is another example of how Musk in concert with Trump are the ganges and con being traitors to the West. Well, that shutting it off is. insane. It shouldn't have never happen. Well, but first off, Musk hides behind the notion of I don't control Star Shield. So Starlink is the commercial venture. Star Shield is built on Starlink technology and is now the contract with the Defense Department. I think what's happened here, and I don't know this, this is my speculation, but Occam's Razor, the obvious explanation is usually the right one. You have the bad news bears of

geopolitical strategy, Kushner and Whitkoff, go over and say to Zelenskyy, We'd like you to surrender. They're not asking for peace. They're asking for surrender. That's right. And the terms that Kushner and Wickev wants Zelensky to sign up for, where they basically say, give him what he wants, they think that's peace. That's not a peace.

That's scheduling the next war, such that Putin can rearm and then decide if and when he's invading Finland, Poland. I mean, this is... Poland's been particularly irritating to Russia, I think. Well, let's sideline that for a second. But basically Zelensky said, no, I'm not surrendering. And then I believe what's happened to yours is fairly obvious. Trump and Musk got on the phone and said, let's throttle back Starlink and send a message to Zelensky that if he doesn't come to the table, he's going to lose the war. This is a decision, in my view, between Trump and Musk that reflects something very dangerous that a man who is addicted to ketamine is now deciding geopolitical strategy.

and who gets to invade Europe or not? I am in violent agree with you in that. I have said that a long time. I mean, that he's really, what is this person doing in the middle of this? And he's not like the head of Lockheed, but he is consulting with the president. And the head of Lockheed, they sell the missiles

and move along, right? Essentially, they're not on the phone on where and when it should deploy. And he's far too involved in everything we do, 100%. And speaking of which related, Elon Musk said back in 2020, five, that in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future. Well, so much for that.

He's poured over $276 million in the Republican group and his own Super PAC since July, making him the largest known donor of the midterms. And that's just the money that's been publicly disclosed. His donations include $158 million to the main super PAC back in Republican Senate candidates, one of the largest political donations in American history. It's also as much as the Democrats have raised from everybody. So one single person is responsible. Another big chunk has gone to Ken Paxton. You know, the question is, will he get his money's worth around this time? He's not only trying to influence the midterms of his money.

He's spreading disinformation on X, like the story that James Telerico was in a mental hospital. I mean, this guy is like all, his dirty fingers are everywhere in some fashion. Another thing that he, that was in the news was these drone strikes that Ukraine did on three data centers operated by Yandah. which is essentially Russia's Google. Ukraine's President Zelensky suggested these Yandex strikes led to a drop in bot activity with less hate online, particularly on X. But extras say there's no evidence of that and that the drop in bots appears to be tied to Yandex's web crawlers, automated tools at index websites.

It would be nice to get rid of Russian bots. It called attention to the problem with Russian bots, which I think is great, and they should continue to hit Russian data centers. But again, also linked with Musk because his platform is the one spewing out most of the much, a lot of the information. information out there. With respect to Elon and political spending, are we comfortable with an individual who controls battlefield technology now and can spend a quarter of a billion dollars and potentially get

people elected or keep certain seats in America? I mean, is that what we want? I now believe that taxes, a progressive tax rate, protect us from corruption. And that is power corrupts, absolute power, absolutely corrupts. We need protection from the uber wealthy nation states or individuals cosplaying nation states. And the way you do that is with taxation. We need a, whether it's concentration of power amongst companies such that they raise the rents, such that your chicken and your pharmaceuticals go up faster prices and inflation.

Whether it's having a check on governments and no narcissist can overrun Congress or the judicial branch, whether it's someone worth a trillion dollars who can sweat off his brow, put a quarter of a billion dollars into races. When you combine money with distribution, what you have is the most dangerous combination in politics, and that's what we have here. Also, I do not buy any of this misinformation pushback on what was obvious.

When the Yandex server facilities were bombed by Ukraine, Tucker Carlson's engagement fell 72%. A lot of conservatives' engagement just fell off a cliff. Do the math, folks. I mean, this is, I've noticed, The number of times people use the word genocide in my comments is dropped in the last week. Right, but a lot of people who are experts said it's not, it's not the same thing. You may think it, but that the bots were, bot traffic was not affected.

Just, I mean, there's been a lot of very good reporting on this. But it does suggest that this is maybe a good place to push on. This is a good place to push on the wound, essentially. But they would be stupid not to be doing this. They can't afford to beat us economically. They can't afford to beat us kinetically. For a small amount of money, they can take advantage of the fact that we have poorest platforms who will cash anybody's check. Using AI, you can spin up bots.

I mean, haven't you seen it? Look at the most vile comments in your feed. There are people with three followers. It's a bot. Yes. The bot problem, and it's largely right wing. That's because this is Russia. Also, I want to go the other way.

When I say something, like, when I just put out a thread or something I'm so, so that says 25th Amendment. That's me saying that the president isn't incompetent and should be removed from audience. I get thousands of likes because the AI from an adversary says, that's dividing them. Let's elevate that. Let's retweet it.

Let's re-threat it. So it works both ways. And then what happens to you as a person? Your incentives are, oh, people like me when I say this divisive thing that the president should be removed. So I'm going to do more. more of that. Yeah.

And the more angry and incendiary I get, the more people like me. Yeah, no, it absolutely is creating it. Years ago, I think I told you this, when I was looking at some bot, I interviewed a bot person, they were showing me how when Roseanne Barr insulted Valerie Jarrett, suddenly it got to be a big online thing. And then a week later, Sam B called Ivanka, see you next Tuesday. That's what she, cunt. She said cunt.

And it was all the same bots that were doing the end. anger around it. Bots started, oh my God, Roseanne's the best. Oh, my God, Roseanne's the worst. They were on all sides of the game. And then people got attracted to it. It's like a traffic act. It's like a digital traffic accident that they create.

The TikTok algorithm, if you want to gain, okay, so you take the top 10 best-selling authors who are quote-unquote thought leaders any week. Go on TikTok and do a video saying, Andrew Huberman, or Mel Robbins, or Jay Shetty, is a fraud? hundreds of thousands of views. Yeah. So anything that's incendiary and calls out people and...

Dunks on people. It immediately, and then if you say something mean about it, anything that divides us, I actually think one of the reasons it's so important that people spend more time out of the house and we demand that our kids basically get out. I've said to my kids, join a gang, shoplift, I don't care, as long as it's out of the house. You need to get out and see how wonderful people are. because if you're in your room on your phone, you're going to think the whole world sucks.

You're going to think everyone is awful. Because the incentives are, I love the statement, we're actually not that divided. We're being divided. A hundred percent. But I do think it's because people stay on these platforms, right? And, you know, I've been having beasts this week

by all these dudes that are going back, both Casey and what's his name? Keezie, who left Substack because he was offended. And now he's going back to Twitter. That case is a new? Yes. And then he left because he was offended by Elon and now he's back. I know.

And the same thing happened with Gruber, what's his name, John Gruber, who's another day. They're like, well, the tech discussions here. Who got off Twitter first? Who got off Twitter first, Kara? You did. I just deleted all my tweets, by the way, this week, which I was like, you know. Some of those are comedy gold. No, they're not.

I downloaded them all. I have them. I have an archive of them. No, no, I'm at mine, not yours. No, I know. You can archive them to yourself and then not have them. I'm just not painting this asshole. fence. But, you know, everyone's like, why are you so mad about it? I'm like, because it's like

for the tiny, it's soul-sucking and you are helping someone who is very bad. Like, there's few things you can stand up in life. And I do, I don't think it helps you that much for your business, because you're in on the conversation of a small group of AI people or like, oh, it's not so bad in my area. That's like saying like, I'm living in the good part of, of this country, But over in the other side of town, they're beating up on black people. Like, are you kidding me? Like, it just, I just can't take it. Look, I believe, generally speaking, you should separate the person from the politics.

I don't like boycotts, generally speaking. I think unless there's, you think you're going to have some real effect, if you think big tech is out of control, I get it. I think consumers should be made aware of their options as a capitalist. When you are on Twitter, when you own a Tesla, when you use Starling, And I got to be honest, I'm guilty of this. I love Starlink and I use it. But I sold my test, so I got off Twitter because when you are on Twitter or when you are on Starlink or when you are using any of his platforms, you are decided to paint the fence your term of someone who cut funding for HIV positive mothers in Africa, who is turning off and on battlefield technology for Ukraine that is literally trying to defend Europe, who is being sued, congruent.

currently by two women, when he denies and disavows his daughter, his own blood, because this, this, this young woman went through transition. That is who you're supposed. At some point, there probably should be, and everyone has to make their own choices. And if you, and also, I don't have moral clarity on this. I use Starlink and I love it. You don't have much choice, right? And that's really, in this case, it's a complex thing, but please don't flounce out. And slink back in. That's my, I'm like, enough of you. Well, but if you slink back in, at least be honest. I'm going back on because I need to be back on. Let me just feel for Casey. Casey is a great journalist trying to build a business. He's younger

than us. He doesn't have the following of Carra Swisher. He's decided he needs to be back on Twitter because that's where a lot of the action is for him. I get it. But just be honest about it. And don't try and pretzel yourself into some sort of. He was. He's embarrassed. He's appropriately embarrassed about it. I get it. He's a young guy trying to make a living.

I get it. Although I was like, oh, my, I haven't raised my kids properly. That's how I feel about Casey. You're out of the carriage house. No, he has his own place. And I love him. And then must say, but you ask, I don't think he's going to get this is, people call this a blue wave, right?

You can't buy your way out of the price of eggs. And everyone's saying this is a blue wave. It's not a blue wave. It's a red rib tide. And it's not that the Democrats are doing anything that right. It's it the Republicans that literally have the mother of own goals. But he's saying he's claiming he's going to spend less. That's like Kara Swisher saying she's not going to text Scott late night with nasty games.

I haven't this week. It's just not going to happen. I'm texting Hillary late at night now. That's my new texting. But I'm always like, great job, girl. Go, girl. Well, done. Well, done, secretary.

What a breath of fresh air you are. Oh, my God. I did. I wrote her that. Oh, my God. What a breath of fresh air, like a warm summer breeze. Oh, you're the best. Just so fantastic.

That suit, that fuchsia suit, fantastic. One of us is knocked on doors for Secretary Clinton. You should wear more fuchsia for me. That's all I have to say. Okay, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Trump's new press secretary makes an awkward debut. Support for this show comes from Quince.

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slash pivot go to ramp.com slash pivot that's ramp.com slash pivot support for the show comes from built do you have a punch card at your favorite coffee shop or have you ever bought a plane ticket using miles if so you know rewards programs can be a great idea and now thanks to build you get rewards on your biggest monthly expense your rent build points can be redeemed for flights hotels lift rides amazon.com purchases future housing payments and more here's exactly what to do to get the most out of your built membership from the minute you sign up. First, download the Build app. Second, link any credit or debit card to the app so purchases at your local spots become even more rewarding. And third, ask the neighborhood concierge in the app pretty much anything. It'll tell you

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reporters, all of whom were in the tank for the Trump administration, when asked whether the U.S. had stopped sharing intel with Ukraine. Zacharia said, I'll have to get back to you on that. Let's listen to this particularly awkward moment from the briefing in a briefing that was particularly awkward. The idea of not spending evenings with my kids is completely unacceptable. So my president, excuse me, my husband, that's a good one. My husband is out here, is out here for the.

a week. Oh, my, the true social, the former true social advisor, which is also, by the way, true social's falling off a cliff, has faced questions about illegal credentials with no record of being licensed to practice law in the U.S. despite Trump describing as an attorney. Zacharia reportedly failed the California bar, according to Wall Street Journal, when she asked, where she did pass, told reporters, when I moved to China, though she announced though she misheard the question, she did not. It was very loud, and it was by Sean McRish. I heard it. You may be thinking yourself, how many Scaramuchis is she going to last? So we asked the man, we've all been waiting to hear from, on this to send us his take, Anthony Scaramucci, the Mooch, who served as White House Communications Director for a record-breaking 11 days.

Let's hear it. I am totally biased. You know, I really want her to make it because I would like this record to stand. It's been nine years, and I have milked this thing like a dairy farmer. And so I obviously want her to make it longer than me, long. longer than the lettuce from Liz Trust. But here's what I think is going to happen. If he's keeping her, they're going to put her in a lockbox and give her media training

and then bring somebody like Vance out or Rubio to do the press conference with her so she has a crutch. If he's not keeping her, I think he's going to blow her out very quickly, which would put my tenure, my record tenure in jeopardy. So let's see what happens, but I'm betting. I'm betting he's going to keep her. Yeah, I would agree. I think I said that too. She seems to be settling in as well seen with special assistant to the president, Natalie

Hart. Natalie gave her seal of approval, joining President Trump on Marine Munn. And now there's rumor he's trying to ace out someone who's actually competent, even if she's sort of a-quizzling, Susie Wiles. This is the most important job in the – one of the most important jobs in an administration is the communications. And so talk a little bit about this. Can you name a worse blunt rotation?

I'm talking, something that's been helpful to me is I call my son every night, who's a freshman in college. And I know way too much about his life right now. And I know he has a biology test today. And I texted him last night. I'm like, are you ready for your biology test? And he sent me a picture of Katie Zacharoia. Like it doesn't matter. Like, does any of this matter?

Yeah, right. I can have a job. And my favorite, I think I saw somewhere on thread. someone said, someone needs to tell George W. Bush that it would appear that Katie Zacharia was left behind. I love that, no child left behind. You've had a good time with this. Oh, I got to be honest. Yeah, for some reason.

You like it more than the Kelly Clark's an animatronic bird in Brooklyn thing. I absolutely love her. I think, first off, I like hot people. She's hot. I think she's really, really attractive. Okay. And also, I've been putting out all night when I moved to China. Any question, I guess, when I moved to China?

When did you pass the bar? I want to when I moved to China. What is this? Does it matter? Because Trump is his own spouse. At this point. Who cares? I don't know.

And to be fair, she did graduate with honors from the Derek Zoolander Center for kids who can't read good. And who want to learn to do other stuff. There's a great Atlantic piece of comedy piece about that. She had, she hates the alphabet. She attended the Four Seasons Law School. I mean, this is just going to be... Pepperdine. She looked like a newborn baby giraffe taking its first steps.

I mean, she's just... But doesn't matter. Like, let's ground you in. We can make fun of her all day long, but is it going to hurt him? I don't know. Although a lot of people said it looked, the past two press directors look like Churchill, like Churchill compared to her, but, and they're all blonde ladies. Just be clear. I was like, Scott Jennings, where are you?

She's what you get when you scrap DEI programs. Yeah, that's true. I, okay, I'm speechless. Okay. I'm here for it. I hope she survives. It's going to make press briefings fun again. It's going to make press briefings great again. I just can't wait.

I hope they keep her. What's the last one's name? What's her name? Leavitt? Leavitt, right. She was as sharp as a fucking tack. She could lie with such, such skill. She's such a skillful liar.

And I'm really young. She was very good. Mean. I wouldn't turn my back on her. This one, you could trip, like, you know, one of those things where you go, you know, oh, there's something on your shirt and then hit their face and do it again and again. You ever do that to your kids? Well, she does.

She does have a lot of greed, but it escaped from a lab and woo. All right. We're moving on. Moving on to a serious topic because you refuse to give an actual answer. Donald Trump says the execution of Nidel Hassan, the former major convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, will not be live streamed. This is something I actually said on Hillary's show. I didn't think he was going to do it. Defense Secretary Pete Higgsath announced last week that the public would be able to watch Hassan's December 3rd firing squad execution. The plan was called medieval and barbaric drawing backlash from both Republicans. and Democrats, the Pope, everybody. Hillary Clinton and I talked about it on this episode

of this new podcast, High Stakes, the former Secretary of State, who knows a thing or two about to explain why broadcasting in execution like this would have dangerous consequences. She's not talking just about the morality of it. Let's listen. I think it could become a recruiting tool.

It could become, in a funny way, a message to radical jihadist extremists that you can die a martyr's death. If you go kill Americans, you will be immortalized. When we did the bin Laden operation, one of the issues we had to deal with is what to do with bin Laden's body. If we had published pictures of his body

and the wounds that he had suffered and the firefight that took place inside that compound, we would have martyred him in a very visually dramatic way. And we didn't do that. And we also didn't bury him somewhere that could become a pilgrimage place for extremists. Trump had the opposite tag. Let me read what this is what you just posted on true social. I think streaming the execution for all to seem might have been a strong deterrent for the world

to witness how America deals with terrorists and scum like Asan, but many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die through streaming or through any other visual device. I think he's just trying to get out of this. I think she's 100% right. This is like, and especially this guy's in a wheelchair. The whole thing is the barbarism aside, I think she's making the correct point is this is a great thing for countries who do these things like in Afghanistan or Iran. Look, this is a very serious topic. And my view is that literally within a minute, Katie Zachariah solved imposter syndrome or cured.

imposter syndrome from the entire human race. That's a joke. You didn't think that was funny? I got it. She cured imposter syndrome? I got it. I saw that one. That's good comedy.

All right. Do this one. Okay. All right. This is another visual, though. This is like... Look, I think Secretary Clinton gets this exactly right. And that is, this is how fucking stupid our secretary of defense.

And it will go back to being the Defense Department, not the Department of War. He wants to turn this guy into a hero, into a martyr. And they handled... We need, competence needs to become the new black again. Giving bin Laden, they washed his body as in accordance with Islamic law. Islamic law. They wrapped him and then they buried him at sea and they didn't want to make it. They didn't want to make it.

What Hexas wants to do, he thinks this is a warning. No, it's not. He's producing a recruitment video and he's handing jihadists the highest production value content they've ever had. This is, look, Hassan deserves what the law hands him. But America doesn't deserve to become a country that streams it. And jihadist radicals don't deserve the greatest content they've, you know, ever. This is, this is a... It's stupidity.

Well, it's not only, it's a unique combination of depravity and stupidity. It's like, okay, we're... I mean, even thinking, you want to talk about ghoulish. What are the logistics here? He's in a fucking wheelchair. They were going to lift him out of a wheelchair and hang them? What were they going to do? Yeah, exactly.

And this would have been the most watched video in the world. And it would have further cemented the notion that I'd like to believe is a temporary bump in the road, but a lot of people think is the new road, that America is no longer the good guys. It's brutal. A whole time I thought about kids, because kids would get to it, you know, online, because it's not like justice on TV. They can't watch it. It's only on months. This would go everywhere and kids would look at it. And, you know, kids are already too much video content that's violent.

There is. But this is like the real fucking deal. And that's what I kept thinking of like, oh, my God. Like a certain kid, a 14, a boy, right? It's just not just so bad for them in so many ways. And, you know, Trump pretending like it would deterrent. It's not a deterrent to these people, Donald Trump. And again, Hillary's right on that regard.

But I think focusing on the heinousness is important and the immoral nature of it. But more important is it's not going to do what you think it's going to do. And as usual, it's just, you know, the moronic Pete Higgs says without talking experts. And in the case of bin Laden, what Clinton was saying is they consulted like all kinds of experts to figure out what to do. And some people wanted to show those pictures. But they had like a huge, they had a big debate internally. and then came to recommendations for Obama, President Obama. And that's how it should be, right?

They had a full debate inside, and there were people on the side of, and one of the issues they had was if they didn't show the pictures of him dead, there'd be all these conspiracies that he was still alive, which is something to consider, right? Something to consider. But in the end, you know, becoming a recruitment video is exactly what happened here, and a brutal and disgusting one, too. Anyway, I knew Trump was going to not do this.

He had been calling around to people. back here was pretty universal. I know, but initially he was, because his instinct is for stupidity and exhibitionism. The good side of the silver lining here is that we all got to witness Katie Zacharias's first day on Earth yesterday, and I'm excited to see Day 2. I'm excited to see Day 2. Oh, that poor woman. I am so here for Katie. She loves the Pizza Gates down.

I had a poster of Farah Fawcett, then I had a poster of Super Tramp until I found out it was all dudes, not beautiful women. singing that lovely lyrical. I'm going to put a poster of Katie Zachariah in my bedroom. I think she is, I am, this is a gift. This is a gift to all of us. It's a recruitment video. It's a gift to recruitment thing for Scott. All of us.

It's not. She's pathetic. I think her and Peter Ducey should have 50 kids and we should take over the Grenada together. Okay, all right. Let's go on a quick break. We come back, open air in the case of corporate espionage. Support for the show comes from Netsuite. AI is a catalyst of change across industries and is transforming how work gets done.

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top companies and see how much you could save. That's policy genius.com slash pivot. Scott, we're back with more news. The FBI has arrested an open AIA engineer accused of secretly planting a listening device in an executive conference room at the company San Francisco office. This device was discovered during a security sweep and Open AIA says it used its own AI model to help identify the employee. They seem to have cameras everywhere. There was a picture of them. Surveillance video showed the employee returning to check the device and a search uncovered a second recording device in the employee's bag. The employee has been charged with illegally intercepting communications through open AIA, so there's no evidence that sensitive

information or code were stolen. I feel like he's from another country to, and they're worried about, you know, they should have had very locked down situation. I've been to that headquarters and they're a little loose with the security, I would say. I wandered around for a while. That was like maybe six, eight months ago. You know, obviously, is there something bigger behind it or any thoughts on this? People think that espionage is James Bond and an Austin Martin, you know, infiltrating a cliffside lair and having a gunfight. It's not.

It's the office assistant who is, you know, commutes to Gowanus and works at Google or an AI engineer who's been put through undergrad and grad and gets on a quote-unquote advisory board back in China, and then it's asked not to reveal that, and then before they know it, they're uploading thumb drives. The corporate espionage vastly, vastly out numbers or dwarfs, actual espionage, because there's so much money on the line. The way China is beating us is they steal our IP,

and then they sell it back to us for six, cents on the dollar. And they do that. The greatest economic program in history is corporate or IP theft slash corporate espionage. And what we have here, have you ever had that happen to you? My companies aren't important enough. Well, still. So I don't think it's happened to me. What has happened to me is as a faculty member, I've worked with, I'm choosing my words carefully here, There's a recognition amongst our security apparatus that the most powerful tech companies have spies everywhere. And what's interesting about spies, Kara, is they don't realize they're spies, or a lot of them don't. Now, imagine you're a kid from a small village in China, and you're just academically a superstar,

and you keep getting elevated to better and better schools, and then they say, how'd you like to go to Dartmouth and have everything paid for? great, they go, they're outstanding, and they say, hey, would you like a job at Google or Starlink and we can help you? And this kid ends up at Starlink. And then they're asked to go on a quote-unquote domestic advisory board. And by the way, don't let your employer know about it. And but our security apparatus is hip to it. There are people, Google and these companies know they have dozens of not hundreds of spies internally. And then our security apparatus, you want to talk about spy versus spy, also has agents pretending to be engineers trying to root them out. And then what they

do is when they find that their actual spies uploading information or providing information back to the GRU or the Mossad. By the way, the West spies on each other. There is so much spy. Oh, yeah. No, the Israelis are doing a lot of spy. Or back to the CCP. They then bring them in to, they sit them down with a domestic agent and they say, okay, door one is we, unmask you and you have to go home to China. That's the biggest threat. We're sending you home. Or number two is you're going to begin to work with us

and you can stay in your apartment in Brooklyn and to continue to go to the Soho House, but you're now working with us. There is so much back and forth, but what you have here is the most valuable IP on Earth sits in conference rooms with WeWork level security. Yeah, it's true. It's really amazing.

I used to wander in face. I was always the stuff. by that. Like, they have, they have locked it down much more in many years since, but, boy, were you able to wander around those halls, like, in a way that was very strange. The best ad, the best ad for Open AI is that it used its own AI to catch the guy. That's the best product demo they've done all year. Yeah, they definitely have a picture of him. Anyway, interesting development, and we'll probably see more of it. Another interesting story, Apple has unveiled its new home view, a $299 smart home tablet marking another major product launch under new CEO John Ternis.

The seven-inch device can sit on the counter or mount on the wall and uses facial recognitions to identify up to six household members and personalize their messages, calendars, and apps. HomeView will feature Apple's revamped AI-powered Siri, we'll see, as the company tries to gain ground in market where Amazon holds nearly 50% of the smart speaker sales through its Amazon Echo and others. These devices, they keep Facebook trying to put one in the house. They all do.

I mean, what do you think? What do you, will it catch? I don't want one of these, but maybe. Well, I'm generally critical of new tech products, but I actually think this. Cheap, right. Well, okay, so a $300 tablet entering a market where Amazon holds 50% of the market,

you know, the problem here isn't the hardware. The problem is Siri, right? And so this is why I think it ultimately wins. It's amazing to me that the most valuable asset any consumer owns, their home, has such a dearth of really aspirational brands in the home. It does. Name a ubiquitous furniture brand. Right. I mean, I have a Sonos, I guess.

Okay. So that's one brand, hardly any market cap. But you'll sell, there will be a $3 million home for sale, and they'll list sub-zero, a $4,000 or $6,000 refrigerator. There are so few, and just being very, I will buy one of these because I like the idea of an Apple appliance in my home. I think it's really strong signaling and self-expressive benefit. And there are so few, there are so few great brands within, you know, even in expensive cars now, they have Bangin Oliveson, and they have, I mean, they have different kind of sub-brands within Ricaro seats. And within the home, there are actually, they're shockingly few brands. And if you can advertise sub-zero is a listing or as a feature on a multimillion-dollar asset, Apple is the strongest consumer brand in the world right now.

Let me get back to what you said. Will you use it? I have tried all these things, and I never, the phone works just fine. Like, I don't, like, I just don't see, I have not, I have had all, every single one of these. I even tried the stupid meta one, and largely I didn't use it because I don't want him in my house, essentially, any Facebook stuff in my house. But, and I trust Apple a little more, but away from the trusting of it, which is another big issue, I use my sonos, and I know it's not that big. I do not, I never use these things because the phone is right at my fingertips, essentially, and with me at all times. I don't know.

Maybe people will. I do think there's room. Look, I have, for whatever reason, I have a bunch of interfaces in my house for temperature to turn things off and on. They're very confusing. I do think someone's going to. bring it. Apple has more license to bring it all together and have an Apple logo and say, all right, you want to turn your pool heater on, you want to take the temperature down, you want to have the lights go off. It's needed. Someone needs to bring it all together because every time I'm in a

new place, I'm trying to figure out like how to make you work. Your apartment, I don't even know how those, like you have so many things on the wall and I don't, and they're all very complicated. Yeah, the thermostat, the temperature, the, just everything. And it's all going digital. So, Apple has more license and opportunity to bring it all together than anybody else. Yeah, I guess. We'll see.

It seems like $290.00, you're not going to get that much features. But we'll see. Also, I want, under the notion of, I do think Apple has more credibility around privacy. I would like an Apple device that uses motion detection, that when I walk in at night, it knows exactly how to turn my lights on to what level. That it immediately.

That's where this is going, right? It recognizes you. And then when I walk into my bedroom and it's after 11 p.m., it gives me three minutes to get undressed, and then it starts to dim the lights to just, you know. Is that all it takes? Or at some point, it'll connect to my, whatever the mattress is that cools up or down. Maybe voice says, do you want to wake up tomorrow at 7.30? Or whatever. It just, someone's going to bring this all together. There's a lot of friction at home that is unnecessary when, and then create. one interface. For example, I used to be a member of that thing called Inspirato where you rent homes all over the world. One of the genius moves of Inspirado was it had the same fucking TV

remote. Oh, yeah. They just said, learn one remote. Right. Yeah, exactly. Rich people. And because I can't. At my age, I can't figure out how to turn on the TV if I'm in a different place. Think about it when you, I'm, A, I'm not turning on the TV anymore. But the last time I wanted to watch the Man City Liverpool game. It's, I had to call it. I had to call it. I had to call my 16-year-old and say, how do I log into Sky TV and figure this out? And do we have a subscription to this? Do we not? No, it happens everywhere. I agree. The home is a real place where it's still very friction-fold. And I'm just remembering many years ago, every big techie I used to visit would have these elaborate systems. And they wanted to show them to me all the time.

Like, I remember one guy here this panel. It would be like, this is how you turn on the light. And it was so complex. And I went over to a different panel, and it was an on-off switch. I go, oh, look, on-off, on-off. Yeah, remember those? Oh, God, though. I mean, this has never worked in the home.

I do not welcome it in my home, but we'll see where it goes. I like the simplicity of on-off switches. But it recognizes up to six people in your household. For me, that's my partner, two kids, my dog, and then the three versions of me, depending on how much tequila I've had. And of course, Katie Zacharia, who's going to be your new best friend.

It's sad, Scott. It's depressed, Scott. All right. They should do your moods. Like, oh, Scott's going to need this. Let's serve up this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway.

He's going dark. It's going dark. Bring him the dogs. Put the lights up. Bring the dogs. Yeah, yeah. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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what is valuable about Greek life. That was Cornell University's president Michael Kotlakov trying to quell some of the anger on his campus in a video address on October 3rd. A few days later, he addressed Cornell's faculty and what he's said is since leaked out to the world, and it's clear that he doesn't want an outright ban on frats. He thinks a ban could make matters worse,

driving violent behavior off campus and into the shadows. But clearly, his response wasn't enough for Cornell's community because today, the university announced a ban on frat parties for the rest of the academic year. Cornell also says it's going to add experience sexual assault investigators to their police force. The question is, why didn't this happen two years ago, when the sexual assault at a campus fraternity was first reported.

Or maybe the question remains, why don't we just ban threats? We're going to ask on today, explain from Vox, available in your feeds Monday to Friday. Support for this show comes from Clavio. Let's set the scene. It's late. The team is tired.

You've got a global launch coming up and your customer inbox is full. No worries. Meet your new best friend, Clavio. With one prompt, Clavio's AI agents build the whole campaign. The emails, text, WhatsApp, all in. your voice and find your next sale before you do, and nothing goes out without your okay.

Plus, Clavio answers those emails and every new one still sounding like you. It does this because customer data, marketing, service, analytics, and AI agents live in one place. Clavio. Idea to launch support handled one evening. Over 200,000 consumer brands have a best friend named Clavio. Go to K-L-A-V-I-O dot com slash best friends. Okay, Scott, we're going to do a prediction. I'm going to go tiny bit first. Recruiting a few hours for Elon Musk is expected to reveal the Tesla Roaster event in Texas after years of delays. Elon posts on an X that the Roaster is a candidate for the greatest product demo of all time. I mean, fine. I'm sure it's adorable. It's taken forever. So many delays. Okay, fine. Whatever. I don't think it's going to be hit it out of the park and change the situation in Tesla.

And by the way, analysts at Berkeley are saying Tesla's SpaceX merger could be announced at Tesla's annual general meeting this year, which is something, of course, that I have said was going to happen. It's inevitable, given the downward slope of the sales of that company. And I don't think the roadster is going to save them by any means. They need a general purpose, inexpensive electric car, which they have, you know, they have one, but they haven't innovated on it. So hardly matters this roadster. I'm sure it's very nice. I'm sure it's a very nice product. Yeah.

I think this thing sends the stock up, you know, 5% or whatever. And it's an incredible product demo. It breaks the 0 to 60 claim. The 0 to 60 claim breaks the Internet. The stock pops. And not one paying customer has a roadster in their driveway by the end of 2027. He doesn't sell cars. He kind of sells the future on Layaway.

There's never been an engineer that's able to manufacture so much. He's a flammer. I mean, he's just, he's... P.T. Barnum. He literally, yeah, he's the ultimate carnival barker, and it's resulted in a business strategy where he gets access to cheaper capital to pull the future forward and results in an ability to launch, be responsible for 93% of the payload launches,

which, by the way, is incredible in the drill engineering. Can I say nobody who wants a roadster can afford a roadster, and everybody else just wants a good electric car. Well, the problem, you know, I have a cyber truck, and the problem is all the bitches that want to get in when I stop at a stop time. Such as Katie Zachary. That's exactly who rides in a cyber truck with you, Katie Zachary. So, you know, people want in.

Do you see the only woman you could lure into that? That's like a comedian named Dan DeSino or someone. If someone tells me, I'll reference them correctly, it's hilarious. Look, mine is, I'm going to cheat because we didn't, because you were off with Secretary Clinton cheating on me. We didn't have wins and fails. I've been using all of this news and my outlet for it as I try and turn it into I don't want to call it a lesson, but a talking point for me and my boys. And I've been thinking a lot about what's going on in some of the headlines. And it's like, okay, the media, universities,

fraternities, live executions. And I'm saying, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and distill all of it down to a lesson, which may be wrong, because I have never done anything in my life that I'm more insecure about than parenting. And I talk to my sons about it as a means of a conversation, and hopefully some of it resonates and some of it's right, and some of, it helps me do what I'm supposed to do, and that is prepare my sons for others. And my fail is, I think we have normalized being really critical of women's looks. And I'm a sexist here, and that is, regardless of how many subscriptions to the Atlantic and the New York Times you have, for thousands of years, we have evaluated women's

and men based on their fertility and their power, respectively. Our job as a species is to propagate, and so we look at women through the lens of cues for their fertility, high cheekbones, thick hair, porcelain skin, wide hips, you know, big breasts. We look for features of fertility that, quote, unquote, make them, from a very anthropological perspective, fertile. And then we look at men as protectors of young, their power. And as we as society evolves to more capitalist society, basically how much money they make.

So when you insult a woman's looks, you're really going at the core. You're really cutting to something very instinctively hurtful, more so than a man. And when you insult, let me flip it, you would never say about a man or I never see it. Dude, you are so lazy and competent and stupid, you will never be able to develop the economic power to take care of a family. You will not be able to procreate because you are such a weak, irresponsible, undisciplined man.

You will never get to procreate because you are so ineffectual in the world. To say that to a man would be so puncturing and ugly that people don't say it. But when we have podcasters saying that her claims of assault have less veracity because she's unattractive, speaking about Jane Doe. You're talking about Megan Kelly. When people are comfortable posting memes

of a billionaire's wife. This is Susan Dell. It's this. So anyways, I'm going to take this forward. I talked to my boys about it, and I said, look, I think the most accretive thing we could do in the history of the world would be fathers who are much more engaged in their children's lives. And what I've said to my boys, and we talk about it, I said there's two doors with respect to women's looks.

Door one is she looks great in terms of any evaluation of a woman's looks. Door one, she looks great. It's okay to say that someone looks great. Even hot if you want. I'm down with that. That they dress well, they look great. They look great. Door two is nothing.

And there is no door three. Yeah, I would agree. Let me ask you, like, let me press on that, though, a little bit. Like, look, a lot of these MAGA women or women have done, and men too, by the way, FYI, significant surgeries and it's hard to ignore. What do you do? Do you just ignore it? You just say ignore it.

Because some of them are, it's like, it's jarring in many ways, whether it's a, I'm not going to name the names. There's a lot of them. And so, and the changes are significant. Is that totally off base or since people are doing it themselves and publicly appearing? So it's a really great debate, but I agree with you. It got really, both of the things got very ugly, very fast in a way that's just puerile, right? Just same like Shane Gillis was, same thing.

It's just, it's just dumb. But there are moments where you're like, well, can you ignore it? Let me ask you that, I guess. I think mocking a guy like Bezos, who I think looks good for his filler, I think there's a lot of sunlight between that and having thriller videos and showing a billionaire's wife is a ghoul over and over. Yeah, I agree. Okay, if you want to make fun of Nicole Kidman, she looks amazing.

Every star, and I'm starting to believe that almost every wealthy person at some point will have Botox or more. Why? Because they can. but there's a lot of sunlight between that, a famous person, and the wife of somebody who, quite frankly, didn't ask to be famous, and just dragging her. Yeah, it was real distaste.

And then the notion that, you know, a victim, and I am comfortable calling Jane Doe a victim, she's a victim of something. We can have arguments over the legality of it. She's a victim. You don't say that she's less of a victim because she's not attractive. It's just, you would never, if a man was raped in prison

and accusing people, you wouldn't say, oh, it's unlikely he was raped because it's not good looking. Right. Now, Megan Kelly has taken the most heinous turn on this, well, on everything. My point is just as I'm trying to think, okay, everyone has a fucking opinion. And I'm like, okay, well, how do you narrow the opinion

or the delta between your opinions and actually doing something? And I look at it through the lens of being a dad. A fairly basic lesson, I think, there is a different standard for women. You do not reference a woman's looks unless it's positive. Full stop. You just don't. All right.

Just don't go there. No reason to. No upside. This is a very good thing to talk to your kids about. It really is. It's really hard because it is hard to not see and say. And I think people have to exercise much more civility in that regard. I agree.

It's gone far too far with Susan Tell. One thing that is not gone far too far. Have you seen this video of Jamie West? She's an Indiana Democrat running for county council seat. She appeared on a local TV forum and appeared to be having a nice evening with possibly some tequila. Oh, God, that was great. You afforded that to me. I know.

I laughed. You know, I mean, I noticed it, but she was so, ugh. I just want to talk to the Democrats. And by the way, we got guns. I was like, I just, I, she's a legend. I'm sorry. She looked great. I'll have a floater in my daquery.

She looked great. Let me say, as fat women. That was, I don't know why. There was real joy. Also, that representative crashed out after his debate. Oh, my God, Andy Harris from me. He's always been crazy. That was good. You can't take me. That was good. Yes, you can. This is a two-party state. It's a public forum and a public environment in your reporters, but I have not agreed to you filming me. Jamie Raskin, let me say, if you want to go find it, anybody did a great take down. Like, that guy is, has been insane for many years. And he just always yelling at people. He's always like, ah! And that was like a particularly yellie yell.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. We're going to have more because Election Day is coming up soon. We want to hear from you on anything you want to talk about. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Just submit a question for the show. We call 85551 Pivot. This Sunday in your feed, a pivot extra, Scott, Prof.G conversation with Heather

Cox Richardson about Trump's corruption, Iran's impact on the average American and how history helps us predict the next chapter of our democracy. Scott is classing enough with another smart woman, which is really great. And reminder, Scott and I are hitting the road in just a few weeks for Pivot Tour 26. Get your tickets at PivotTor.com. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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