Pivot - Elon Steps Back from DOGE, Wall Street Whiplash, and Meta’s Antitrust Trial Continues

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss Elon Musk's decision to step back from DOGE focus on Tesla, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom’s testimony in the Meta antitrust trial, and late Zappos co-founder Tony Hsieh��s newly found will. Plus, Sarah Palin loses her defamation retrial against the New York Times, and another whiplash week on Wall Street. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The all-new all-electric Can-Am Origin motorcycle takes you everywhere. Sleek power for the streets, and deep adventure routes for the trails. Discover your origin today. Learn more at CanAmMotorcycles.com. Now, our change will honor the Supreme Court of Canada, where justice and truth have guided decisions since 1875. As the country's highest court, it plays an essential role in protecting the rights and freedoms of all Canadians.

The new one-dollar coin features a semicircle of laurels, symbolising the nine judges and their enduring pursuit of justice. Find the limited edition, 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada coined today. Support for this show comes from ServiceNow, who are enabling people to do more fulfilling work, the work they actually want to do. You know what people don't want to do?

Boring, busy work. But now with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of the business, IT, HR, customer service, and more. And that means your people can focus on the work they want to do. That's putting AI agents to work for people. It's your turn. Get started at servicenow.com slash AI dash agents. You're going to have no gums and I'm going to laugh at your dentures someday. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.

How you doing Scott? Guess what? Guess what? We are Webby winners once again. Oh my God. Oh my God, I just want to thank the Academy. Okay, the Pivot won the Webby Award and the People's Choice Award, both of them. Both. Yeah.

We like the people of us. For the Best Business podcast. And the judges, right? And the judges, yeah. The judges and the people. We've got a lot to get to today, but let's take a moment. And also, you won for ProfG. What did you win over there? We won for ProfG Markets or for Raging Moderates, we run honoree, which just means please send in your $1,300 a year next year to be considered for something.

And then, by the way, this business, we should be in the awards business. Yeah. This is such a racket. And then ProfG Markets won the People's Choice Award, but not the Judges Award. So the cultural elite or the deep state of podcasting has decided they're smarter than the people who picked property markets. But Pivot, there was just sort of no argument across anybody.

Across the board. Will this make us more obnoxious or less obnoxious? Probably more, right? I think we're pretty much hitting the limit of obnoxious. I can't imagine. Yeah, I don't see us getting obnoxious. Yeah, I got a lot of congratulations, and I'm like, it's the Webby. It's the Webby.

We're very happy. We have to think of a five-word acceptance speech for that, by the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's right. Scott Galloey is my husband. There you go.

I don't like that at all. Do you have any idea? Think of one. Think of one. You're going to go get it. Someone's going to go get it. Maybe someone's going to go get it. My team's been to the dinner. They love it. They say it's a ton of fun.

It is. Oh, I love it. I remember I got the lifetime achievement. Jesus, of course you did. It was so fun. Lifetime achievement award. It was lovely. I had a lovely time there. I had met lots of lovely celebrities that I liked. I want a midlife crisis award.

I want an award for best midlife crisis, like really leaning in. Let me ask you an impressive question. If you could win any award, right? You and I are not award people, we really aren't. But what would it be? What award would you want to have? Other than the adult video tripod award? Obviously.

Tripod award, that's good. I just made that up. My nickname in the fraternity. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me why. Okay. What would be the award? The real life award. The real one? I don't know.

The National Medal of Freedom, whatever it is with the White House, they pin it on you. Oh, they put the thing on you. Maybe they'd be at the Kennedy Center. I don't know. Yeah. No, not anymore. No. That'll come back though.

Yeah, I know. I don't really care about priests, don't want a Nobel. I don't know. Did you win any awards in your life? If you want I know. I don't really care about priests, don't want a Nobel. I don't know. Did you win any awards in your life? If you won one. I was thinking about that. The last award I won from these other than these Webbys is in, did you have a high school poll?

No, not really. Most handsome, most successful, most likely to succeed. You didn't have that in your high school? No, I went to a snotty private school, but go ahead. I did, I won most comical and Steve Martin, which dates me. Oh, wait. Is there a Steve Martin award and most comical? Well, they did these things like, you know, Richard Pryor, so we could give the black

kids. I mean, we thought we were being woke and yet we were being very racist. And we had all these, you know, celebs that you were supposed to be in the 80s, like, you know, the blondie. Or, you know, they said, this is who you are, and they picked characters. See, Steve Martin, that's perfect, actually. I won Steve Martin, and I won most comical. Oh, I see that, I see that.

Most comical, that's so funny. You weren't like, best, you know, handsomest. No, not most likely to succeed, not smartest, not most likeable, none of that, none of that. No, no. I have won, I won the Bun Award in my freshman year of college, which was the journalism. That's something to do with journalism, yeah. Yeah, it won, I won the Bun Award in my freshman year of college, which is the journalism.

That's something to do with journalism? Yeah, I won as a freshman, seniors got it, and it upset the entire ecosystem, and the seniors hated me for winning it. I think they hated you for other reasons. I'm just gonna go out on another limb. Yes, that's probably true, that's a fair point. I won a Loeb Award once.

Oh, that's big, that's journalism, right? Yeah, yeah, it's all the journalism awards. This was all, you're doing what I'm doing. You asked me not really caring. You just wanted me to ask you. No, I just, I didn't know. I wanted to actually, I was interested. Keep in mind, we only have 90 minutes here,

so bifle through your award. No, no, no. No, I haven't won much. I would like to win the MacArthur Genius Award. Oh, that would be pretty cool. That's the one I want. You can't be thirsty for it to win it though. You have to pretend you're very.

You know what award I aspire to, but will never happen just through randomness, there's something called, I think it's called the Carnegie Award. And it's basically the burning car award. And that is they give about, I think between 60 and a hundred a year to people who have risked their own life on the spot

to save someone else's life. So, it's literally rushing into a burning house. I would run into the burning house to save you. I think you would. I would. I would. I'm a burning house runner into. That's a good award.

It's a really interesting, I love those sorts of philosophical questions though, that in faced with that type of situation, and by the way, to be more thoughtful, men are more likely to run out of the field and try and save their comrades and get shot doing it. And women are more likely, and we hate to establish any sort of gender roles here, but men are more, women are more likely to like, let's think this through and not be idiots. Like how do we accomplish the mission? Without dying. And slow down and be more thoughtful. And quite frankly, that peanut butter and chocolate is really useful in all situations, including combat situations, right? slow down and be more thoughtful. And quite frankly, that peanut butter and chocolate is

really useful in all situations, including combat situations, right? Are you good in a jam? I did outward bound. I was pretty good in a jam. I was surprised. I'd like to think that- Are you panicky? I don't-

We're all going to die. We're all going to die. We should do like a survival thing. That would be interesting. Yeah. You'd want me along. I'm good at calming down emotionally throughout situations when people get upset.

I break up fights a lot at bars. Not a lot of them, like three or four times. I always established dominance and that's how I work. Oh, really? Yeah. I was surprised. I was really like, it was sort of Lord of the, I did Outward Bound and a bunch of other things like that. And I literally was

like, I shall be running this now. We shall do what I say. I find as I get older, I'm really happy for someone else to take charge. Yeah. Yeah. Really happy. You'd be a good team member. You'd be a good team member. Especially if she's wearing leather and I have to pay her a couple hundred euros.

Leather. Yeah. Anyway. No, I don't. Anyway, we have a lot to speak. I'm not a take charge person anymore. Anyway, congratulations on the Webby again. We're very excited. Thank you, Webby Awards. And congratulations to our team. Team, yes, all the team. Should we name them?

Go ahead. Zoe, Taylor, Lara, everybody. And name, Drew is amazing for us. Who's Drew? Oh, the tech host been with me 15 years. Memo to self, remember Drew. Anyway, do we thank Vox? Yeah, Vox, sure, sure.

It was a shot, yay. Yay, Vox. Vox. Yay, the suits, sure, sure, was in shot, yay. Yay, Vox. Vox, we love you. Yay, the suits, the corporate, the headquarters. That's not fair, they don't wear suits. They're not suit people. They're not suit people, they're actually lovely to work with. Can you imagine if we've been with them seven years,

what does that say about how easygoing and nice they are? They have to be. Between the two of us, we've been with them. The chances for a blow up between you, me, and any third party. Yeah. Our big, has he ever yelled at us? No, he never does.

No, Jim's the nicest guy on the, Jim's the nicest guy in media. Yeah, he is. He really is, he's the nicest guy in media. Anyway, enough about us. Enough about us, thank you, Webby Awards. It's well-deserved by us, let's just say. Okay, all right, we've got a lot to get to today,

including there's so much going on. Elon announcing he's stepping back from Doge following Tesla's terrible earnings report, just as we predicted. Trump sends the markets on yet another wild ride because he's so ridiculous. But first, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom testified this week that the app was underfunded after Metta bought it, boosting the FTC's argument the company was illegally anti-competitive. Systrom said Zuckerberg was not investing in the Instagram app because he saw it as a threat to Facebook, which he felt was better.

He was incorrect, but that's what he felt. I've interviewed Systrom and let's listen to this clip because they used it in the trial to try to impugn Kevin Systrom. We were struggling to keep the setup, $500 million valuation, and then Mark came along came along and was like hey how about I double that and you get to keep working on what you love and you get all the expertise of Facebook you get to work with me, Cheryl, Shrep, etc. That sounded like a really good deal and if you look in retrospect I think it was a great deal. Think about all the things we've accomplished being part of Facebook. All the things we have plugged into whether it's hiring, spam

fighting, the ad system. I mean we have thousands of salespeople who are basically selling ads for Instagram and we snapped our fingers to access them. So a lot of really great stuff is... Yes I snapped my fingers. No but I guess my point is like... Yeah no you had, no I get it. I getperson. No, but I guess my point is like... Yeah, no, you had... No, I get it. I get it. It's like which would have happened without the other kind of thing. I mean, I bet you we would have been successful as an independent company as well. So they were using this to say that he was happy there.

And now let's listen then to a clip from 2023 at South by Southwest where I interviewed Kevin. I think the worst part of the sale was just like trying to both accomplish something great with the company and also merge it into a company that didn't quite know how to look at you. Were you a competitor? Were we excited to own you? It's like a roommate who moves in and you're like, oh, this person's really cool, but also

their stuff's everywhere. Right. That's kind of what it felt like for eight years and bad roommate. Yeah, it's like, are there any good roommates? I don't know. Maybe that's the reason why like people shouldn't have roommates. But I like it was challenging, but we did great things. That's the attitude that Kevin had for a long time. He was very

frustrated internally. Mark was petty with him, I think, and jealous. I think that's no question. It's an interesting trial. It was interesting that they had Kevin there and not interesting, Evan Spiegel who turned down, who I interviewed yesterday, by the way, in Washington, at Snapchat who had turned down and then Facebook proceeded to blast them by taking all their ideas.

Any thoughts on this? I mean, I think people publicly try to put on a good face, right? You've been in these situations, Scott. Yeah, look, Kevin strikes me as a very talented entrepreneur. I don't doubt that anything he says is, there's some veracity to it. But he cashed their check, what a shocker. The current CEO or the CEO was on top and wanted to maintain his platform, his kind of first born Facebook, maybe even at the expense of Instagram. But the thing that sort of countered all this

is whatever he was feeling or whatever resources he was trying to starve one of the kids from, he clearly changed his mind because Instagram is now responsible for over half of ad revenue and it's growing faster. And so at some point- Better product. At some point, the Zuck realized this and has absolutely turned it into a monster of business. So that may have been true then, but clearly, if that was true, Mark has seen the light. And what I have found or what is interesting, I had dinner with Jonathan Haidt the other

night and he actually said, you know, I get so emotional and biased about this stuff. He said some of the controls that Meta hasn't put in place for parents, even though they're not easy to use and you can criticize them. He said the one that gets away with more than or doesn't get the scrutiny it deserves and he thinks is actually the most mendacious is Snap. Really? Interesting. Why? Well, things like their add-on feature where you can, the core components of it,

he said are tailor-made, likely unintentionally, for drug dealing and for people reaching out to minors. Because that feature where you can add on people near to you, immediately it adds people near to you, is perfect for a drug dealer. I would push back because I think they've always done a lot of moderation. They've always, when they have a problem, they fix it. They don't like belly ache about it.

They had a whole problem with. Streaks? Yeah. I'm just saying they fix things quickly and they do moderate. They moderate much heavier. And what I'm saying is the attitude isn't, ugh, what are you talking about? It's like, oh, we should fix that. I would agree. I think it's a locational thing, and it's more for your friends,

and therefore it opens it up more. But I have kids on it. I would rather have them on Snapchat than Facebook, because I think they got inundated on Facebook. Well, they're not going to be on Facebook. No young person's on Facebook. No, no, no. Or Instagram even. I think Snap is actually pretty scary.

Also, the whole zeitgeist of it, were it's disappearing messages. It was, right. I mean, isn't that kind of perfect for people looking to reach, it doesn't promote a certain level of lack of accountability? But in this information,

I don't think that's why they did it. I think it was because they thought privacy was critical. That's not why they did it. I was there. But regardless of what they're, I don't think any of those people are looking to harm children. But when they have features that make it easy for adults to reach

out to minors, you know, isn't that a problem? It is. But I don't agree with John. I think Facebook has done less and been more resistant to dealing with things and they're the big. I would agree with you. And I think I think Snapchat, I'd rather have my kids, and I get the locational feature, and if kids open it up, there are things you can do to it to stop that, right? It's much more open to fixing,

and it certainly has had issues around drug dealers and things like that. Every one of these platforms has. I'm just saying, platforms like, who have had problems like Reddit and Snapchat, have always been willing to change in ways and admit in ways Facebook never has and you know, I Ultimately, I think Facebook doesn't really matter because they're the biggest and they have the most impact on everybody

I think especially through Instagram and so they should be the most responsible my kids are on snap though All right, aren't your kids on or I guess that kids have aged out of it. It's really about Snap. I think Louie doesn't use it as much but he definitely that was the only one he used. And there was one incident where I did catch him with a girl on Snap but using the location features. I told you that didn't I? I caught him. He went out, he left the house and I found him on Snap because he's so dumb with his technology. I said, I know exactly where I'm coming to get you. Oh, come on. Be a brother.

No. Let him help him. Actually, his brother turned him in. His brother's the one that turned him into me. His brother narc'd on him? Yeah. Well, he's like, Louie's not here and then we like, let's use the Snap feature. It's a long story, but he wrote me the most legendary text of all time,

which is why I love him so much. I wrote him and I said, he took an Uber. He used my Uber to get to do some sort of. So a lot of breadcrumbs. It sounds like you wanted to be caught. He was. I was like, literally. So he wrote, I'm like, you are so grounded. I texted him, you are so grounded.

I'm going to kill you. And he writes back, he goes, sometime it going to be like that chief I'm gonna read it at his wedding I love that line sometime it gonna be like that chief anyway when I when I was um you're about to enter into this period of when I was a senior in high school I asked four women to my prom and all of them said no and my friend out of Mark, who I think felt empathy for me, set me up with a woman, actually one of the most beautiful women I've ever met,

this woman named Lena. I posted the picture of her on my Instagram. Anyways, Lena and I went to the Windward prom and I was so excited. I was telling my mom I was going to a prom and she went with me and I rented a tuxedo and I didn't know how to put the fucking thing on because I'd never worn a tuxedo, and I didn't know how to put the fucking thing on because I'd never worn a tuxedo before. I didn't know how to do cufflinks or anything. Anyways, I said, and she said, well, what are you going to do?

I'm like, well, the after party is near here. I'm like, and I've got a key. I just might bring her back after all of this to here. I did manage to get her back to my place and you know what, there was firewood in the fireplace that my mom had put in there. Oh no, your mom's so good. Wasn't that nice? She looked at me, I was six, two, 140 pounds with bad acting. She's like, he needs all the help he can get. He needs all the help he can get.

Well, you are about to enter this period of your young men that you have, so I hope you've done a good job. No. Anyway, anyway, my kids are great. You know what my mom, she was saying to me, she was saying, when I was talking about my women troubles,

which was mostly an inability to get a woman in my life, she would look at me and she'd be like, wine. Wine, wine. Wine. Wine, wine. I did do, I mean, you have to do the responsible things, the sex talk, the condom talk, everything else, but just treat women well was the one that I really pushed on him.

Well, I told you about the sex talk I had with my son, right? Yes, you did. We're not going to do that again. When I went into his room with a banana and a condom. I know you told us to. And he said, what's the banana for? And I said, well, I can't get hard on an empty stomach. Oh my God. Boom, never gets old. You can't tell that joke over do it again. And he said, what's the banana for? And I said, well, I can't get hard on an empty stomach. Oh my God.

Boom, never gets old. You can't tell that joke over and over again. Never gets old. It gets old, it gets old. Never gets old. Okay, once again. I'll be here all week, try the veal. All right, we're gonna,

the invading Poland one is not allowed anymore. Oh, by the way, that's wrong. That joke's not allowed anymore. I need to correct it, it's wrong. The Polish cavalry, that was an attack meant to divert German forces and it was effective. And it's an insult to the brave men of the Polish cavalry. That attack was actually an effective diversion of German, they weren't tanks, but German armored vehicles. I've had literally eight Polish historians reach out to me and say, stop saying that. For your dick joke, yes.

I think just because it's not funny. But anyway, let's keep going. It's not the only legal trouble Metta is dealing with. Metta and Apple are the first companies to be fined for violations of the EU's Digital Markets Act. Of course, this is going to happen, anti-trust rules. Metta about $230 million, Apple's $570 million, both of them giving $60 to comply. It's hardly any money.

So any thoughts on that? Any thoughts on that? On the Any Trust? Yeah. The Europeans are extracting funds. I think they're probably not going to pay and they'll just keep, you know, objecting to it for a while. The question I have, I'm hoping you know more about this than I do, but is it okay, everything's fine and continue?

Because that's a parking ticket in terms of their cash flow. No, they have to comply with the rules. So they have to decide what to do. They can pull out of the things, they can close down services. They've done that in various countries. I think in Canada, Facebook pulled out of news. They don't put news on there.

And only right-wing, there was a great piece about how sort of right wing blather invades social media there, because Facebook has pulled news organizations out of it, because of something they didn't like. So they'll have to either comply with the rules or they're gonna have to leave. I suppose.

And this is, I mean, okay, so the good guys, you could argue are winning here. So the EU find both, they find them both for violating the new digital markets act. And it's the first time that the EU find both, they find them both for violating the new Digital Markets Act and it's the first time that the law has been enforced. It was 570 million for Apple and 230 million for Metta. Yeah, I just said that. But, well say it again!

Alright, okay. Okay, so anyways, I'm saying it again. I know you have research in front of you, but go ahead, keep going. Yeah, and then, so what is that? Half of what Apple and Metta make in one day? So the question is, the question for me is, is it going to happen every month unless they change their behavior, or is this like that old find where they effectively are like, okay, you were bad, now continue to be bad, and you got caught this time and we're finding you, but it's not gonna really change future behavior.

I shall find out. I do not know that. Any Europeans can write us, but I don't know. I think they're going to do other things to not comply, because compliance is problematic across the globe, from what I understand. They'll figure out some work around of some sort, but I will find out and I will let you know next week.

Is there any predictions for that medicase from your perspective? Most people think it's pretty weak, but Systrom's testimony was definitely strong, I think. Well, I do believe one of these companies, I don't know which one, is going to prophylactically spin something. I think that they're so smart that when they feel the wolves circling, they're going to get out ahead of it and go to them and say, all right, what's our blood offering here? What if we sold Chrome to OpenAI or what if we spun Instagram? I don't know, or WhatsApp.

I think we're going to see our first spin in the next 12 months. All right. That's a good prediction. I don't think it's going to be Facebook. He's very stubborn. But I suspect Google, which has a much tougher case, this case, they feel very confident over matter about this particular case, just so you know, they're very competent. Although they they sort of communicate on social media like they're desperate, which is interesting. So the next one, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has lost the retrial of a 2017 defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. Palin filed a lawsuit after

the Times ran an editorial claiming she had engaged in a political incitement ahead of the 2011 shooting of Gabby Giffords, incorrectly drawing ties to an advertisement. The Times issued a correction in under 24 hours, but Palin's legal team argued the mistake was actual malice. The bar for actual malice is high, established in 1964 case, very famous, New York Times versus The Solom, which the Trump administration is trying to get overturned or changed, protects news outlets from liability when they publish false statements as long as they did not do so knowingly or willingly or with actual malice.

Supreme Court Justice, again, Thomas and Gorsuch have called for the court to revisit the malice standard for well-known people. If you're not a well-known person, you can sue for defamation much easier. Obviously, Palin is super well-known. So she came back the second time. It was like in two hours. The Times had great lawyers, FYI, and also the person who made the mistakes,

James Bennett, who has since left the Times, apologized to Palin on the stand this time and actually cried. I know him pretty well. I thought it was quite dignified for him to do so, like to apologize like that. I think it probably really helped the case. I don't think he's ever going to win, but I think this is over. This is the last stop for her,

unless I don't know if she can keep it, Palin, but any thoughts? I think she's just a trivia question at this point. She caught this moment of charisma and fire. And then over the course of the last 10 or 12 years, Governor Palin has just revealed herself to not be a serious person. I thought you were serious. You usually do jokes, but go ahead.

Well, and then I think this is actually really important because I think this would have inspired a ton of. The reality is when you're one of the key tenants of America that's really wonderful, is pretty much anyone can say pretty much anything about pretty much anybody. If you if it ends up you know you're spreading misinformation against someone less powerful than you, not famous, and it it creates economic harm or undue stress, then you have a libel or slander case. And I think the you know, the law mostly gets

it right. And they said in this case, look, you are doing you are such a public figure. You continue to say like kind of, you know, look, you are doing, you are such a public figure, you continue to say like kind of, you know, insane things, people respond, people cover you, people are quite frankly biased against you and they're allowed to be biased against you. And she was unable to prove that, look, to me this seemed fairly obvious. And so-

But people were worried about this case and a lot of others, including why George Stephanopoulos, they settled for that thing that he did to Nancy Mace. I think there were probably some sort of text that he was warned several times in that case or something. So there was something there for the reason Disney cave, there must have been. But I talked to people at Disney, they were worried that it would go to the Supreme Court. Everyone's worried about at times there was a Sullivan case getting to the Supreme Court, which it eventually will, because the right is very much intent on cutting back. You know, they're trying to get rid of slap laws, which protects journalists from being,

you know, nuisance lawsuits in many states, not every state, which is why they try to sue in places like Texas and other places. But they're on the march trying to overturn these things, just like Trump tried to overturn the Civil Rights Act this week. Anyway, it was good for the New York Times. It was the right decision, you're right. Lastly, late Zappos co-founder Tony Shea did have a concrete plan for his $1.2 billion fortune when he died.

The year recently found will according to the Wall Street Journal. This was interesting. I know Tony very well. It was a sad end to a lovely person who was quite troubled. The document notes that if any family member's challenges, wishes all will receive nothing, marks $3 million for Shay's alma mater, Harvard, and allocates a whole bunch of money to undisclosed recipients he wanted to surprise.

He left a lot of post-it notes of things. He had a real problem, really essentially a drug problem at the end of his life. They thought he had died without instructions, and really the last part of his life during COVID was really disturbing, I think. Koda, I'm glad he gave money to Harvard and other places, but it just reminded me of a very sad story of a particular.

It is really sad. And I remember being invited. He had created this kind of, for lack of a better term, kind of cool e-commerce hub, commune kind of thing. In Vegas, yeah. In Vegas. And he invited me to speak. They used to do these little gatherings.

And everyone said, oh, you should go. It's a total party. Yeah. And I never went. But his is sort of a tragic lesson on if you don't keep some perspective around why people are around you. And also, he's a big boy.

He made his own decisions. But there's this, I forget the adage, more famous you become the lonelier you get is essentially. And he struck me as someone who really struggled with loneliness. And when I was with, I met with the head of Warner Brothers film and I liked his, we spitball ideas.

And one of my ideas, I think the most, you know, there was that whole raft of big tech. There was Bad Blood, We Cr crashed, the one about Uber. And I said, the most interesting one hasn't been told. I think the story of Tony Hsieh is actually the most interesting story. I would agree. I, that's a great idea.

It is interesting. I mean, I spent a lot of time with Tony and interviewed him many times. He was a gentle soul. We would have a running joke because he was a hugger. He'd always like, come here. He did this happiness tour, which sort of was a gentle soul. We would have a running joke because he was a hugger. He'd always be like, come in. He did this happiness tour, which sort of was a tell. He was so sad he needed to have a happiness tour.

But he's always like, you know, I'm going to hug you. And I said, I'll break your arms if you do. I did a video, which I would send you, but you wouldn't watch of my tour of their Zappos office. It was a very cult, like kind of, you know, Japanese companies, they do calisthenics together and that kind of stuff. He was how Japanese companies, they do calisthenics together and that kind of stuff.

He was trying to have this sort of happiness thing, and he had a guy who was head of happiness there and would take you on the tour. And, you know, they'd have all this, like, a lot of candy happening, a lot of sugar, a lot of, like, creative stuff in the office with the people and everyone had their own little teams. It was, I found it, I teams. I called it forced fun.

I was like, I don't want to have any forced fun with people at work. But he tried to create these ethos and he did the same thing in Vegas, creating, trying to revive downtown Vegas. A lot of it was very much about him and he had this holacracy thing. We wrote about it a bunch at Recode. He had a whole theory of management. I remember the last time I saw him, he came to code every year and he's a very good poker player.

He had a certain drink he drank, a lot of, it's not absinthe, but it was like that. It was something Fernet. He loved Fernet, that was it. And he was so sad, you could tell, and was sort of forced jocularity. But a very gentle soul, anyway. So back to me, and I'll relate this to nitrous. I love nitrous and I have terrible dental hygiene.

I've come out of the closet as somebody, I brush my teeth twice a day, that's it. I think I've flossed maybe six times in my life. I love flossing. It's like, it's literally like social shaming. And I go, and every time I go into the dentist to get my teeth cleaned, they're like, you know, your gums are a little bit inflamed,

you really should do this. I'm like, look, you're gonna give me a bunch of shit, a bunch of picks, a bunch of devices. I'm not gonna use any of it. I get my teeth cleaned every three months. I want you to turn the nitrous up. I want you to turn on Tom Petty. I will be back here in three months, but save the fucking speech.

I don't have good dental hygiene. They can't fix it if you don't do that. You need to have like everything. You have to do the water, the pulsing water. The health industrial complex? No, if you get your teeth cleaned every three months, that helps. You're going to have no gums and I'm going to laugh at your dentures someday. You need to do those things.

I'm sending you a water pick. You need a water pick at least. Yeah, I tried that. Water picks are great. I do a water pick twice a day. I love it. It's great. My gums are excellent. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. Can we come back? Enough with the water pick. No joke. My son, my youngest son, will come into our bathroom anymore because I traumatized him by chasing him around on a quick break. We come back enough for the water. No joke. My son, my youngest son will come to our bathroom anymore because I traumatized him by chasing around with a water pick. Okay. It's not a weapon. When we come back, Elon heads back to Tesla and Scott makes a great prediction.

Support for the show comes from DeleteMe. There's a whole online industry of data brokers, things that are really best kept private like your name, Support for this show comes from Delete Me. There's a whole online industry of data brokers. Things that are really best kept private, like your name, contact info, photos, and addresses, could all be compiled by data brokers and sold online. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. I have not had a data breach, thankfully, but I've known lots of people who have and the consequences are very dire. It's so much your stuff is exposed. And I really enjoy Delete Me because you can really see what

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Riding a bike in the ride to conquer cancer is like being part of humanity's greatest. The money you raise, the time you spend, the energy that you give is helping people live, is giving people hope. And that's just so beautiful. Care of the fire for cancer research. Join the ride at ridetoconquer.ca. Scott, we're back. Elon says he's shocker of shocker, Elon says he's scaling back this time at Doge starting in May, claiming his work is mostly done, which means he got nothing done. He will instead be allocating more of his time to Tesla.

The announcement came in the wake of Tesla's brutal earnings report with net income falling 71% during the first quarter of 2025. In a letter to shareholders, the company referenced changing political sentiment that could have meaningful impact on demand for our products in the near term, you think. Tesla shares were up over 5% following his announcement that he's returning to the company, which is shocking

because I think him not returning to the company is probably better for it. And as of this recording, it's still up. We've of course been calling this for weeks. Scott, let's listen to what you said back in February. Doge and Elon Musk are going to fade away because you can be sure he's doing the math. And he's like, even if I can get rid of all those pesky regulators, I'm still losing money here because my sales are plummeting because the general public across the US, much less

Europe when they see these idiots surrendering to Putin and when they see the type of recklessness and they see that they're not saving any money, all they're doing is making our government less competent. You're gonna see Tesla sales continue to plummet, Tesla stock continue to go down, and I think he's gonna fade back to the corporate sector. Boom goes Scott Galloway. This is why we won a Webby. This is why. This is why. So it all came true.

Obviously, besides the shares being up though, if you look, take apart the report, they would have been drastically non-profitable had it not been for selling emissions, things that Trump is trying to get rid of, and investments, I think, in Bitcoin or something like that. It earned this $595 million. And again, these regulatory credits to other automakers, which are going to be rolled back, was critical to that. It wasn't because of cars. Do you think the companies—let's go for more—has the company been permanently damaged? And again, I would underscore it's not just the political stuff.

They haven't made a great product. They made the Cybertruck, which is a dud. And they haven't rolled out great products at other carmakers because all other carmakers are going up in EVs and hybrids. So more than 47% of Americans have a negative view of the company, according to new CNBC survey. And more than 52% have a negative view of Musk. So how do they get out of the brand hole?

Also financially, he's touting RoboTaxis, which he says will move the financial needle in a significant way, but this is not true. He's got competitors with Waymo. He's predicting 1 million units of the Optimus robots in less than five years. I think Optimus robots is the cyber truck of the next thing that he's doing.

So what do you see in the next couple of, let's have some predictions from Scott Galloway on this topic. Yeah, but whatever I predict about Tesla tends to be wrong, but- I'm not talking about the stock, because I think you were right about, I'm talking about, can he pull out of this hole, one?

Can they pull it? I think they can't, but I'd love to know what you think. Well, it all comes down to one thing. It's very mundane, it's product. If they come up with a hit product, they're kind of back. The problem is that this has become a meme stock. And keep in mind, automotive revenue declined 20% year on year, Kara.

They're now the fastest declining automobile company I think in the world. I'm having trouble thinking of an automobile company that declined 20% year on year. And what is just so fucking cynical about Elon Musk is he goes after, he, you know, parachutes into town with a chainsaw and starts talking about government waste. Without government subsidies, this company would have lost money. It's just so incredibly cynical. It's government largesse and subsidies. These emissions. These are regulatory. That are the only reason that Tesla kept in,

was in the black. And then the thing about Tesla that said that we're not even an automotive company and if we aren't a different automotive company, we're an entirely different type of automotive companies, they could point to the fact that electric cars have much fewer parts, dramatically collapsing the supply chain. He milled a lot of his own products, which would

increase margin. He's technically the most vertical automaker in the world and also to Tesla's credit, it's the most American-made car in America, meaning more parts that go into their car are from go into their car are from America. And as a result, in 2022, Tesla had operating margins of 20%, which is staggering. That's double, that's at least double what the other big automakers report in terms of operating margin. But what's happened this year, this quarter,

their operating margins have dropped to 2.1%. So this is an unprofitable government subsidized, I mean, this is DeLorean. This is a company that's riding on government subsidies right now. I'm explaining for the kids what DeLorean is. Oh, do you remember John DeLorean? Yes, I do.

So John DeLorean was kind of a man's man in the 70s. I think he came from Chrysler GM and he was considered the best automobile designer. He designed the Pontiac GTO and he raised a shit ton of money to start a new automobile company called DeLorean that was famously portrayed in Back to the Future. And he got huge subsidies from the United Kingdom to say, the United Kingdom said, all right, we're going to give this company enormous subsidies to try and re-inspire manufacturing domestically, similar to a tariff.

And then the car was kind of underpowered and just didn't have any consumer reception. And then this photo came out of, I think it was a warehouse in Ireland showing thousands of, excuse me, Delorians just sitting there. He was on the ropes. The UK said no more subsidies. It was not selling. And basically, they set up a sting, the US government, to try and entrap him. And they did, and gave him the opportunity and seduced a guy, in my opinion, unfairly, who was desperate to pull his company out of this tailspin. And he agreed to finance or take part in what was ultimately a cocaine trade. And he was arrested on the spot. I believe he served some time,

and then he converted to Christianity. And, you know, he was the, you want to talk about a fall from grace. He was also married to one of the most beautiful women and a big model at the time, Christina Ferrara, I think her name was. But he was an American icon that really fell from grace. And there's a couple, I mean, a lot of life lessons here,

but more specifically, cars are almost impossible to make on a single platform. Rivian, which is an amazing car, if you buy one for 80 grand, it's costing them 120 grand. It's all about scale. And when the sales of Tesla go down, it takes, it's an especially big hit to earnings because this is a business

all about scale. And when you start de-scaling, your profits are the tail of the whip. But it's insane that this company and the stock went up. That's what I don't get. Well, because they think, you know, it's a meme stock. Like it's never, here's the problem. He has been warned by his own employees about the cyber truck. He was warned about variety, you know, different things where they warn. The other thing is, as we talked about last week, rolling odometers faster, all stuff like that, saying we're going to,

like I think this week he keeps going on and on about self-driving. He's nowhere near, he's been bragging, as you noted, you put the list of things he's told untruths about, or just, well, he's dreaming. I'll say his dreams of what's going to happen. And so if he's got to deliver and not promise, and the same thing with Doge, two trillion, or one, two, two trillion, not one trillion, two trillion I'm going to save. And then they can say 160 billion.

And even that, David Ferenhold has taken apart. He probably has cost the government more through this Doge thing than he has created. What he's done is he's destroyed things the right wing wants destroyed, like USAID or the regulators that are against him. He's not done any significant changes to the way the government works, which, you know, and again, as we both pointed out, maybe the government works a lot better than you think. There's fewer government officials. Evan Spiegel was pointing this out. There's fewer government workers than there were 20 years ago, and there's just more regulations,

that's for sure. But he has now become an over-promiser, an under-deliverer, and that's what he's doing here with these ridiculous talking about the robo-taxi. Uber has $12 billion in revenue. That's it. And that's what he's doing here with these ridiculous talking about the robo taxi. Let me just, Uber has $12 billion in revenue. That's it. That's far from a trillion dollar business. The second one, Optimus Robots. Are you going to buy an Optimus robot, Scott?

I don't know. Are you like a million units? This is okay. These guys are geniuses in saying that we have to put something out there in the future that's exciting and exotic. Yes, love it. They will never have to deliver up to the people can at least fill their dreams and somewhat justify such that I can have Cathy Wood say there's going to be a billion robots and justify my irrational valuation.

By the way, just I need to correct this. He was found, DeLorean was found not guilty. And I just want to go back to this for a second. In 82, he was charged with cocaine trafficking after FBI informant James Hoffman solicited him as a financier in a scheme to sell 220 pounds. It was total entrapment. At the time, you know, Tesla, or sorry,

DeLorean was on the verge of bankruptcy and a guy approaches you, who's a federal agent, and says, I have a way for you to make a lot of money if you on the verge of bankruptcy. And a guy approaches you who's a federal agent and says, I have a way for you to make a lot of money if you, if you sell 200 pounds of cocaine. And he said, yes. And then they try and charge him. I mean, you want to talk about government overreach. And then anyways, but I don't I'm sorry. Back to Tesla, the robots give me a fucking break.

I mean, come on. That that is even more pie in the sky than a million self-driving Tesla taxis. That is just insane. And by the way, the robots they featured at that big event were being controlled by people 50 feet away. Yeah, same thing with self-driving, same thing with the self-driving.

So you wanna talk about Jazz Hands, but people were excited that he's back and focused on Tesla. That's right. So good for them. I have learned to stay away from this stock, but this is a company now that is underperforming Ford Motor by a long shot and yet trades at 70 times earnings and Ford trades at whatever 10.

So crazy town. I gotta tell you, he did the Cybertruck, guys. He did the Cybertruck. And talk about a disastrous car and the cost. When he could have been doing smaller cars, the way they were doing them in Japan, adorable ones. I bet they would have done a great job at those. And all the different, there's ones in Japan,

there's ones in China. Instead, he had to do his ridiculous, I have a small penis, cyber truck, and this is where we are. We'll see what he does. We'll see. Interesting to see if one last thing, Steve Bannon, who was at this conference, I was at yesterday, was noting,

and I can't believe I grew Steve Bannon on many things, but he said, we need an absolute detailed list of the fraud he found, a detailed and checked independently list of the fraud he found, a detailed and checked independently list of the fraud he found, and a detailed list of any data that he has touched so that we know if he took it anywhere. These two things, the data they've been collecting and coalescing around. What have these people done with the data? Steepanen is correct about this because it's going to show that very little was saved and we have to have an independent assessment, which we're not going to have until the end

of the Trump administration. But you know, I would agree with that. And we're not going to get that, but that's, that's, we'll see. We don't know what's going to happen to the stock because people have a thing with this guy, but he's definitely on a downward blunge, I think. Well, let's talk a little bit about Doge. He's claimed on stage he was going to find $2 trillion in savings. He's claimed $150 billion, which is obviously a lot less than $2 trillion.

And so far, it looks as if it's approximately, they claim, now they're saying $150 billion, it looks like it's more like $60 billion, and they can't even validate or confirm those savings. If you were to look at this as an audit of a $7 trillion company, the fact that they have gone in with full license in what I'll call incredible adjectives and embellishments and exaggerations around quote unquote fraud and waste, the US government has come out with literally the cleanest bill of health of any organization that would undergo this type of reckless audit. The auditors weren't there to give the cleanest bill of health of any organization that would undergo this type of reckless audit. The people, the auditors weren't there to give

them a clean bill of health. The auditors were there to try and make them look stupid and exaggerate inefficiencies. Right. And get rid of certain things, as I noted. Yeah. And every time they think they found something, or not every time, but most of the time they think they found fraud, waste or inefficiency, and they posted it, someone did a little bit of research on Google and said, actually, that's not accurate. You're exaggerating the savings or the waste or the fraud here.

And by the way, I don't think there's been a single case where they've said, there's fraud here and we're charging these people. So what entity, what organization in the world could you have this type of bias, aggressive, unbridled audit that's doing $700 billion a year in sales, much less $7 trillion, and get this clean bill of health? Although, I don't even think they did a very good job. Who knows what's there? I'm certain there's fraud all over the place, Medicaid and everything else, but they didn't even do it.

It looks like now do the Pentagon. It was all... A lot of this spending, we can't, it's already, it's stuff we can't touch. And that's the real problem, whether it's Medicare, whether it's defense spending, there's certain stuff that can't be touched, social security. And it's a bigger problem of, listen, at the heart, we shouldn't be, have these deficits,

these enormous deficits. We overspend, we have too many regulations, and that's a really good thing to attack. But this has just been a ridiculous jazz hands. This was nothing but a weapon of mass distraction. If the U.S. was a household, it makes $50,000 a year, it spends $70,000, and it has household debt of $370,000. And the bad news is that all of the kids in that house are gonna have to inherit that debt

even after mom and dad die. And we don't wanna have an adult conversation. The adult conversation is the following. Is a chainsaw. If you believe that fiscal responsibility means not spending $7 trillion and $5 trillion in tax revenue, all roads lead to the same place, folks. You either have to cut costs or cut spending,

or you have to raise taxes. And if you wanna cut spending, you have to go after one or all of three areas. And that's either entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense spending, or the interest rate, the interest on our debt. Those are the three, if you don't go after one or all of those things, you're not serious

about cutting our expenses. Or you have to acknowledge that the wealthiest in our society have figured out a way to weaponize the tax code and have an alternative minimum tax. The majority of very wealthy people pay very little in tax relative to their income or increase corporate taxes. And what's the answer, folks? All of the fucking above.

Yeah, which they're not going to do. They talked about it this week, Trump people, and then they just have been indicating no taxes on rich people. When we interviewed leader Jeffries, I think there's an opportunity for the Democrats to say, we're the adults in the room. We're going to have to means test Social Security,

move the age up. People like Kara Swisher and Scott Gallo, we should not get Social Security. have to means test Social Security, extend, move the age up. People like Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway should not get Social Security. It's called a Social Security tax, meaning you pay into it, it might not get it back. It might, it's for the better common good. It's not called the Social Security Pension Fund. We are going to have to figure out a way to get our medic, our medical costs from $13,000 a person down to $6,500. We're going to do that by lowering the age eligibility of Medicaid and Medicare, which do a great job, until we have nationalized healthcare. We're going to have to cut military spending at some point or make it more efficient.

We're going to have to announce that we are going to put $40 billion a year, $7,000 a year, and every baby's 401k that they don't have access to their 65 and announce that we are doing away with all social security in 65 years. Then in 30 years, interest rates will come down as people see a light at the end of the tunnel, we'll get to do away with this $1.3 trillion in growing tax on young people. But nobody wants to have a fucking serious conversation. Galloway is running for president. That's a really nice, I like all that. But the Democrats have an opportunity here because the reality is the swing voters in

every election that determines the president, it's not based on transgender rights. It's not based on Ukraine as much as important as those issues are. They don't swing elections. What swings elections is people in their 30s who are moderates who basically vote on who they think will give them the best prospects to establish economic security and have a reasonable life. And it swings back and forth.

It's a swing issue. And over the last 40 years, Democratic administrations have created 40 million jobs, Republicans have created 1 million. Democrats need to seize worthy adults in the room. We have to have an honest, hard conversation around our deficits and our fiscal and monetary policy because this is not sustainable.

And you know what? People will respect it. And then when I asked leader Jeffries, what they say is, well, at some point we're going to have that conversation. At some point tomorrow needs to be today. I think citizens are ready for this conversation. Yeah, I agree. I think you need to run for president.

As Ed said, apparently Ed was telling you, you should run for president. That's a very good, you should be more involved in politics, Scott. I think you should. Anyway, by the way, Tesla we think is in the crapper. By the way, I just want to acknowledge, I've been doing research. You blew my mind with the notion of a combined Tesla, XAI, and SpaceX.

I'm just like, that has totally blown my mind. It's good. As long as you attribute it to me. Just attribute it. I do, but the idea of him merging all of those companies, like I can't wrap my head around what that would mean. He's got to. It's the only move. And he would do it. That's the two things. Knowing him, I don't know him well anymore, but knowing him as I had known him, and it's the move. It's a jazz hands move of all time.

It'll be loud, noisy. It'll be, what a genius. Here's the last thing I'm gonna say about this. All you people that were slathering over Elon when he was visiting Congress and, we all love Doge. You don't all love Doge. The Republicans should be embarrassed for all the kiss-assery they did to this guy

and what he was doing, and abrogating their responsibilities as legislators. Just handing it over to this guy and saying you fix it was the most irresponsible thing and someday there is going to be a reckoning at some point and you were not going to be looking, you have not bathed yourself in any kind of glory, you bathed yourself in embarrassment and suck-up-ery. So that to me is really the lesson here. We'll see where it goes. But I see why Donald Trump did it.

The rest of you are grotesque. So is Donald Trump. But anyway, I'll note, alphabet earnings are coming after we record, so we don't know what's going to happen or anything they might say about the case that they've both case they've lost. But we'll discuss next week, because they're

really at a crossroads. Google certainly is. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come lost but we'll discuss next week because they're really at a crossroads Google certainly is. All right Scott let's go on a quick break we come back we'll talk about Trump trying to calm the markets down after his own comments created chaos. Support for today's show comes from Chevrolet. Whether it's a quick jaunt or a long journey no matter where you're going, the all-electric Equinox EV allows you to travel with confidence, comfort, and connectivity. Equinox EV comes equipped with a standard 17.7-inch diagonal color display touchscreen, making it the largest center screen among EVs in its class.

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Just like that. Scott, we're back. It's another whiplash week on Wall Street. President Trump's attacks on the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, calling him a major loser and criticizing his policies rattled the market earlier this week, triggering a major sell-off of stocks and bonds. Trump later said he had no intention of firing Powell. By the way, he can't. It's very hard to do so. So it doesn't matter what he thinks. He also indicated some easing of terror of tension

with China. But as of Thursday morning, China is calling any reports of tariff talks, quote, baseless rumors directly aimed at Trump there, sending the Dow down briefly, although the S&P 500 has been staying steady. Once again, the markets seem to have spooked Trump, as they should. He met with CEOs of Target, Walmart and Home Depot on Monday. It was interesting Amazon wasn't there, but who reportedly warned about terrorists leading to price surges and empty shelves within weeks. A dozen states also sued to block Trump's tariff, arguing he doesn't have the authority to impose them. Even though he says he's not firing Powell, he's been undermining him. He's trying to blame, he's going to blame him for all this

with the attacks. He continues to act like he has some sort of control over this. Let's talk about that for a minute. Well, actually, let me go through everything. And with China, Trump said this week that tariffs on Chinese goods will come down substantially, but won't be zero and that the US, they weren't before. And the US and China are actively talking, which I said China denies. One White House senior official told the Wall Street Journal that China tariffs would likely get reduced roughly between 50 and 65 percent. Another Trump blink seems imminent. Again, Scott Bessent and Elon Musk got in a fight, I think it's sort of in our rearview

mirror, Scott Bessent won with the IRS pick. This kind of chaos is just insane, it seems. He's just shooting himself in the foot over and over again, and then pretending, declaring victory when he goes back on the stupid thing he did. Let's hear what you think about this, Scott Galloway. Well, the only two things you have to remember in a negotiation are not to make it emotional, not to have it be a win-lose, and to always show a credible willingness to walk away. This guy gets an F on each of those.

He's insulted them. His vice president has called them peasants. He makes it emotional. He pisses off people are human. If I'm a Canadian, I don't want to work with you. I'm willing to sacrifice my own economic prosperity. Travels down, everything's down. You wanna talk about, and I was thinking about it today, Bill Ackman, on an unrelated note,

Bill Ackman came out with this tweet that sent Hertz stock up 100% and he said, he'd been aggregating a stake for a long time, and he said that because of these tariffs, the value of Hertz's automobile fleet is, it's a $14 billion fleet or $12 billion fleet, the cost of cars is going to go up so much because of these tariffs, that it's an underappreciated asset in the sense that their Hertz fleet is now worth $1.2 billion more.

And I'm like, this is the ultimate interpretive dance. Because one, that's like saying my liver and my lungs are more valuable than they are to me. Well, I'm sort of fond of them. Like, how are you gonna harvest, unless Hertz announces it's selling its auto fleet, which they're not going to. And also they-

Well, they sell some of it. They do have a division that sells cars. Yeah, but they have a division that buys cars. Yes, that's correct. So it should be a net neutral, right? Actually a net negative because new cars will be more, those costs will be more than the increase in the value of the used cars you sell. And then the countervailing force

of this what I'll call gymnastics and interpretive dance to try and turn chicken shit into chicken salad is that the majority of the automobile rental market is based on tourism. And tourism is absolutely crashing. And let's just talk about reality here as we're trying to boost the manufacturing sector that employs 11 million people.

Has anyone noticed while we were sleeping that tourism is fucking crashing and also employs 12 million people? So all of this interpretive dance around these sycophants trying to either pump a stock they have an activist position in or trying to claim that this guy's playing 40 chess, just can't look at data.

Also, back to Trump, he's been very emotional. I like that you turned Doug Blackman the way I had. Put to a head. It's like, I would describe the day he announced I had. But go ahead. He's been, well, it's hot. I mean, it's like, I would describe the day he announced that as remember when you'd go to interpret dance, you look at modern art and you're like, oh, you don't want, you want to be cool

and you want to say, oh, it's beautiful. And then you look at the next person, you're like, this makes no fucking sense. I mean, this is his announcement that they have this undervalued asset is really modern art slash interpretive. Also may I note, they have a lot of Teslas that nobody wants to rent. They did this whole, remember they have,

they have tons of Teslas they can't move. When's the last time you rent? It's a shitty business in structural decline. Agreed, but I'm just saying they did that whack deal. Every time they try to give me one, I'm like, no, I shall not. And apparently nobody wants to rent a Tesla. Anyways, it speaks to his brand, to Bill Ackman's brand,

that he puts out a tweet of an insane thesis that makes no sense if you actually look at the data. So thirsty. Well, the stock doubled. You gotta give it to him. The guy's brand clearly still means something in the market. But back to Trump.

Highly emotional, creating enemies and agitator where he doesn't need to that will only reduce our negotiating leverage when people will put their own ego now, like him, ahead of actual prosperity and fidelity to their stakeholders and to citizens and to their economy. And two, a credible willingness to walk away. He imposes a 145% tariff and then hours later says,

that the tariffs on Chinese goods will come down substantially but won't be zero. Then why the fuck did you go to 145%? This guy has, he is competing against people who are willing to starve millions of their own people and he thinks he's gonna intimidate them with 145. I meant, no, but they're gonna come down. They're gonna do, we're about to enter the stage

where they try to figure out a way to basically somehow put lipstick on a pig here They're gonna do, we're about to enter the stage where they try to figure out a way to basically somehow put lipstick on a pig here and call victory and stop all this nonsense. The tariffs are gonna be remarkably similar to what they were before all of this nonsense, but you're gonna have all these people trying to spin how it's some sort of great victory.

And then the deals, they're coming to me for deals. They're trying to kiss my ass, that whole thing. Oh, stop you sad pathetic. All we have done here is massively erode brand America. It's gone from freedom, generosity, military might, prosperity, risk aggressiveness, opportunity, rule of law to toxic uncertainty. And that brand does not command margins,

it commands negative margins. So what does he do? OK, look, first of all, Besant's trying to affect him, obviously, and he seems to have gained a bit of an upper hand against the two clowns, the clown show of Howard, whatever his name is, and Elon. And there was an altercation, a very loud altercation, between Beson and Musk

over IRS head, who which the Treasury Secretary should pick FYI, not Elon Musk. He was trying to pick a sycophant to take over the IRS, where our money comes from. And what would you do if you were Besson right now? Like what, besides leave, like immediately, what would you do? Well, he's kind of already done it. He clearly leaked that interaction

and he's saying, I'm on top and I've had it with this guy. Trump is scared. He's seen as, Becena's seen as like a sycophant but is potentially the guy in the Oval Office that will take stuff off his desk so he doesn't even see it, that he is sort of an adult in the room. He has a reputation versus Lutnick the oval office that will take stuff off his desk so he doesn't even see it, that he is sort of an adult in the room.

He has a reputation versus Lutnik that's just considered, a clown that is now engaged in full-scale corruption with his son starting a crypto company. Jesus Christ. I know the crypto stuff. Just when you thought this couldn't get any more corrupt, the set is seen as a very credible, and behind the scenes is basically saying, okay, I'm gonna do my best here.

I know this is fucking bat shit crazy. This is, we know where this goes. Blink, blink, blink, try and run Vaseline over the lens of incompetence here and pretend this is a victory. I never made this mistake, and I'm not gonna even. The tariffs are gonna be, look, remarkably similar to where they were before. And all that's happened is we've eroded our image around the world to the detriment of our.

So what would you do? You're sitting in the Oval Office, he has you in, you for some reason go, and he listens, he's listening to you. What would you say to Trump to do right now? If he would listen to me, I would immediately, I would pretend to have discussions, declare victory and leave, just like literally find a country that's willing to do something for you, come up with a bunch of fake reasons for why this was anything but what it was, which was insanely damaging,

and literally get back to the economy and try and repair as many of our alliances as possible. And go on the mother of all behind the scenes apology tours because this is gonna start showing up in earnings calls. I think China might say, oh, you wanna go back to where we were? Fuck you. You've been out banging hookers and doing blow

and ignoring our children. Now you've decided you wanna be married again? Sorry, boss. Sorry, I'll be at my sister's. You've been out banging hookers and doing blow and ignoring our children. Now you've decided you want to be married again? Sorry, boss. Sorry, I'll be at my sister's. That's a nice metaphor. Isn't it? Yeah, I like it.

Anyways, speaking for a friend. Yeah, I think, I don't know. I think the Chinese and the Europeans are now like, huh, what a life without these obnoxious Americans. 100%. Like, hey, I think a divorce sounds great. Like, I'm sure that's what they're thinking. Do you know what I mean?

Like. My tennis pro is texting me. Wait a minute. Just a minute here. My tennis pro is texting. My friends are going to St. Barthes. That sounds pretty good. He needs to.

Ugh, what an idiot. What a fucking idiot. I mean, the thing is, if he did a couple of things, all his stupid followers would, would like clap, clap like the students. Yeah, they'll, they'll, they'll pretend that it was genius and 40 chest. If he did a couple of things, all his stupid followers would like clap, clap like the students they are. Yeah, they'll pretend that it was genius and 40 chest. So move to that part of the program as soon as possible. You literally have to put the fire out here.

You have to put the fire out. But I don't know if he's- He wants to, he's been listening to Wall Street. Wall Street is the one that speaks with the truth. The adult in the room is the tenure. We've been saying that. I'm glad Besant is there, but I do think the raft of them, I think we're on the cusp of a few of them being fired.

Yeah, let me should go. What a thirsty clown he is. Most of them should go, but I think he's gonna try and blame a lot of this on incompetence and saying, I got some bad information, these folks did the wrong thing, I've moved them out, he's gonna throw a bunch of them

as a, you know, into the volcano, if you will. Right, yeah, yeah. But they're certainly not gonna tax the rich. Look, a step back from the wrong direction is a step in the right direction. So if you were really advising the guy, you'd say as elegantly, as gracefully, and as respectfully as possible, you need to stop this shit really, really quickly.

And behind the scenes, say, call Prime Minister Carney and say, congratulations, and by the way, you're a fantastic friend. A lot of this was posturing. I want to apologize to you personally. What can we do that makes this better for both of us? All he needs is affirmation. It's so sad.

It's such a sad, sad state at this age in his life that this is all he needs. But here we are. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. At Miele, our partner is the planet. Our appliances use less water and energy and are tested to last the equivalent of 20 years of use. That's the ultimate form of sustainability. I'm Nelson Fresco, President and CEO of Miele Canada. Until June 30th, every purchase of a Miele dishwasher or laundry machine supports the preservation and restoration of Canadian forests

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I've just been to Specsavers and upgraded my lenses to extra thin and light with 50% off. Now, what else can I upgrade? My cat? Meow. Pfft. Wow. My scooter?

Pfft. Oh, yeah. Get 50% off lens upgrades in the Specsavers Spring Sale. Hey, I can upgrade my kids. You chill, Mom. I'll load the dishwasher. Awesome. Exclusions apply.

See Specsavers.ca for details. Offer ends soon. OK, Scott, let's hear your predictions. You've kind of let loose a few during the show here. Pick some good ones. This is always dangerous, but I'm going to do it anyways. Alphabet's reporting, we're talking about Thursday,

Alphabet's reporting at the end of the day. I think rumors of Alphabet's struggles have been greatly exaggerated. I still think while ChatGPT is ascending dramatically and does present an existential threat to search, struggles have been greatly exaggerated. I still think while chat GPT is ascending dramatically and does present an existential threat to search, YouTube is just an absolute juggernaut. And you talk about Waymo,

I just think this company is so well run and Google continues to be the largest toll booth in the history of mankind. I think that they're going to beat and I think they're gonna have, I think they're gonna beat expectations this afternoon because I think some of those expectations have been beaten down. And then another one, I think in the next 12 to 24 months, we're going to see a spin prophylactically in Big Tech for the first time. And then I will-

Pick one, pick one. We'll each pick one. I say YouTube. Well, maybe the advertising. I think it's the ad business for YouTube. I'm sorry, ad business for Alphabet. We would like YouTube, but it's probably the ad business. And then the most interesting one, and this is, I'm putting words in your mouth or taking your words and I will credit you. Tesla right now has, I think it's like a $750 billion

market cap, right? And when you think about, if you, when you're essentially, when you're doing acquisitions or mergers, you wanna do them when you're stock, it's, it's 806 billion. You wanna do mergers when you have a really strong valuation

because you end up, Steve Case sold AOL when he knew there was no way it was going to be worth a fraction of that in a matter of months or years. So that's when you sell your company. The problem is no one will buy Tesla for $805 billion except XAI, right, or SpaceX. And so your idea is so interesting because what he could try to do is say, okay, jazz hands will only last so long. At some point people start saying,

okay, enough is enough here folks. That $800 billion market cap is gonna come way down. So the idea of taking a large revenue base which you get from an automobile company, putting on top of it the impression and the valuation of AI with the data set of X and also maybe some of the gross and the valuation of AI with the data set of X and also maybe some of the gross and RIS and unbelievable clueless of SpaceX,

which would, that would be a lot. Maybe it keeps that independent. But I think your idea is really insightful that the way to maintain that ridiculous $800 billion valuation is to cash it in now and he'll have, maintain a huge stake and potentially do kind of one, one that's going to 0.5 plus one plus one equals four or five.

I think you're right. I think there's going to be, I think Tesla is going to be folded in to another or merged. And then they're an AI company or an AI company that makes robots. Yeah, I just, I love that. Because when you said it, the moment you said it, I thought, oh, that would be really fucking smart

from a shareholder perspective. Yeah, it makes sense. It's also like him. It's very like him. He's hiding things. Very bold. And he has control of his board. Right, yeah. He doesn't care.

He'll tell the board, this is what we're doing. He's not scared of shareholder lawsuits. I wonder if he'll take it private then. There's not a lot of revenue in any of these things. Can't take it private. No one will fund it. Yeah, that's right. There's not a lot of revenue.

Well, you know, I don't think the Starlink part, I mean, SpaceX is part of it. They have, they don't, my guess, they don't make that much money. They probably, and they've been hurt themselves, but I think they're very expensive to run that thing. And I'd love to actually see the numbers from that. If someone wants to send them to me, I'd love to see them.

I don't think they're wildly profitable by any stretch of the imagination, but you know. And finally, Kara, the prediction, the geopolitical prediction. So Donald Trump is having a huge impact globally, including what leaders are elected or not elected, but it wasn't the impact he thought he was going to have in the Canadian elections for prime minister. My prediction is that Mark Carney of the Liberal Party is going prevail. And that is after overcoming a 25 point deficit

coming into the year. And why is the Liberal Party gonna prevail here? Donald Trump, he has so pissed off Canada and the Conservative Party nominee for prime minister is aligned with Trump and considered a more Trumpian candidate. And boy, has Canada turned off Trump. So in sum, Trump has elected, in my opinion, or will elect, Prime Minister Mark Carney

of the Liberal Party and has swung the Canadian elections 25 points because of how repellent they find Donald Trump and the Conservative Party has been contaminated by Trump. So he is getting world leaders elected, just not the world leaders that everyone had anticipated or certainly not the ones he had hoped for. In sum, I think the underdog here, Mark Carney is about to be the next Prime Minister of Canada solely because of the unpopularity of our American president.

Do you have a prediction? I don't. I don't. I predict I'm going to go to White House correspondent dinner parties this weekend. Oh, I was going to go, but I'm not in town. Why not? I got asked by a friend of yours to be their date, and I was really excited. She's totally cool. I won't say who it is.

A friend of mine asked you to be their date? Well, a friend of ours. Oh, yeah. You should have. Oh, I know who it is, but. A friend of mine asked you to be there too? Well, a friend of ours. Oh, yeah. You should have. Oh, I know who it is. You should have come. Emily Ratajkowski. Just saying. It's not Emily Ratajkowski. Yeah, there's a bunch. There's every single media comes like Axios is having something, Substack and White Agents are having.

It looks like so much fun. Substack, yeah. You've been, right? The parties are fun. I hate to say it. I'd love to go. I don't go to the event itself ever, but there's like NBCs having a party The parties are fun. I hate to say it. Parties are fun. I'd love to go. I don't go to the event itself ever, but there's like NBCs having a party after the French embassy. Ooh, the NBC party.

No, it's fun. It's fun. I love that French embassy. It's so ridiculous. It's so like end times kind of partying kind of stuff. The NBC party. Will David Hasselhoff or Courtney Cox be there? I was wrong. I don't want to go. You have literally said nothing that sounds remotely fun. Let me think. Oh, UTA has a really cool party. It's really fun. Oh, I had that. You just take Erythrum and Myosin. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. UTA? No, they're fun. They're fun. They're fun parties. They are indeed fun parties. And my friend Tammy had it as the famous White House correspondent, Snow Brunch. I'm convinced Tammy's running the CIA.

She's running the CIA. She's so quiet, and then she'll pop up and be like, the president of Gabon wants to meet with you to talk about a shipping lane deal. And I'm like, what the fuck? Who is this woman? She's great. She has a famous brunch that's really fun.

That's really fun, actually. Where did she get all her power? She's everywhere. She's everywhere. I couldn't get my visa done. I couldn't get my passport. She's like, give me five minutes. All of a sudden, the ambassador to Britain is calling me and sending me a car with my passport.

It's like, who is this woman? Tammy Hadid is the queen of White House correspondence weekend. She is. Michael Clayton. She's a total fixer. Seriously. She's also lovely. May I say she brings the best toys to my children. And went to Pitt.

Went to the University of Pittsburgh. She did. She's from Pittsburgh. She was in Pittsburgh this weekend. She's the best. We love that Tammy Haddad. Anyway, so I wish you were here. We'd have a good time.

I met Tammy Haddad before I met you. We were doing a conference together. I don't think I'd ever met you. Or I'd met you for a podcast, but we went to, I think it was South by Southwest, but I showed up and this woman came up to me and she was so nice and so on my face. I'm like, who is this very friendly woman?

And I said, and I saw, I saw, it was so adorable and the back was in a makeup room. There was this little adorable boy asleep on the couch and I'm like, I should probably pregame with Kara and I go, where is she? And she goes, and then they pointed to the little boy. You were sleeping on the couch. And I'm like, I should probably pregame with Kara and they go, where is she? And she goes, and then they pointed at the little boy. You were sleeping on the couch. You look like a nine-year-old boy.

It was so loud. I'm like, she can sleep here? And that was one of my first images of you where you were just on a couch sleeping with hundreds of people around you. I love to sleep. Like grabbing some. I'm such a good sleeper. You're like Winston Churchill.

I can sleep anywhere. It's so true. Anyway, Tammy, that's great. And she's very tall and she's got this great shock of white hair on, she's fantastic. She's a fantastic lady. Anyway, Tammy, good luck this weekend. I will see you at the party.

We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call eight five five five one pivot I also are in the Scott and Kerry universe this week on profg markets Scott who's on a tear Spoke with Ryan Peterson the founder and CEO of flexport who is was he replaced someone that he brought in from Amazon It's a leader in global supply chain management about the impact of terrorists. What a great person to tap. Let's listen.

If they don't change anything in this 145% duty sticks on China, it'll take out like mass bankruptcies. You're talking like 80% of small business that buys from China will just die and millions of employees will go, you know, as a, we'll be unemployed. I mean, it's sort of why I'm like, they obviously have to back off the trade. Like, that can't be that they just do that. I don't believe that they're that crazy. That's a great idea to do an interview there, Scott.

That's great. I love supply chain stuff. I invested, one of my best investments of the last few years was I invested in a company called Zero 100, which was supply chain research. I think if you look at every- You like dull investments. That's where you make your big bucks, isn't it? Dullish. Quick lesson, quick lesson.

When you're thinking about how to allocate and invest your most precious assets, your financial capital, and even more precious, your human capital, it's very easy. ROI on the X side of the scale, sex appeal on the X axis. It essentially, the sexier the business, the lower the ROI.

If someone wants you to invest in a members club downtown for artists and creatives, on the x-axis, it essentially, the sexier the business, the lower the ROI. If someone wants you to invest in a members club downtown for artists and creatives, join the club, do not invest. If someone wants you to invest in software as a service for scheduling healthcare maintenance workers, if it sounds so fucking awful, you wouldn't wanna work there, that's where you write a check because anything that's sexy is over-invested

which drives down returns. The less sexy, the more return on your invested capital. Also think about that in terms of your career. If you're going for something sexy, you better get bright green lights that you're in the top 1%. Otherwise find something boring. And this is what creates passion, mastery,

artisanship, and be able to take care of your kids and your parents. I love that Scott. So don't invest in Scott Galloway because he's dead sexy. Hello ladies. Okay, that's the show. Hello.

Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her taught engineer this episode, Jim Mackle edited the video.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Ms. Severio and Dan Shalon. Nishak Kherwa is Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.