Pivot - Elon's Big Loss, Trump's Stock Trades, and OpenAI vs. Apple

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Kara and Scott discuss Elon Musk losing the OpenAI trial — just as they predicted. Then, OpenAI gears up for its next battle: a potential legal fight with Apple over ChatGPT’s integration into Siri and iOS. Plus, Trump’s stock trades, new details about SpaceX’s IPO and governance, and Spencer Pratt’s rise in the L.A. mayoral race. 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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covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. And the problem is, folks, that's not when we need your testicles. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. So you finally put a picture of me on your wall of your New York studio. You know, I had it next to my bed, and I decided to put it in my office. A big one like that. Thank you for putting me up there. I appreciate it. It shows a commitment to our relationship that I worry about sometimes. I'll be honest with you.

I like keeping the other person a little bit on their heels. I feel that, yeah. Is that how you conduct relationships? Yeah. Yeah. And then they break up with me. Yeah. Well, that's probably how it's going to go here.

Yeah. There you go. going to go. Anyway. I saw a movie last night. I went and saw Ladies First with Rosamund Pike and Sasha Baron Cohen. Oh, was it good? Yeah, I was shocked how much I enjoyed it. It's a little cliche. It's a little, it's based on a French film. It felt like it should have been played in the 90s, but it's sort of an elegy to London. Oh. I think Sasha Baron Cohen is actually a very strong actor, and he's sort of a lead. He's sort of a leading man. He's actually quite handsome. And I think Rosamond Pike is one of the great talents.

She is. I've had a lot of Rosemann Pike. I went and saw her play on Friday. It's basically a one-woman show, and it's incredible. It's about a judge whose son is accused of rape and the conflict she goes through. I think she's an incredible talent. She is. I like her and Rebecca Ferguson.

Rican's is my favorite, that genre of actor. You know what I saw this weekend? Speaking of handsome people. sheep detective. Same more, I don't know. It's a movie called sheep detective. It's essentially, as my wife says,

Knives Out, but with sheep. And Julie Louise Dreyfus plays the principal sheep detective. But Hugh Jackman is in it. He plays a guy who's a shepherd. And there's a murder mystery.

And it's really good. It's shockingly good. He's very good, too, Hugh Jackman. Yeah. Anyway, it's about this bunch of sheep that solves a mystery. And Greg from Succession, I forget his name, was in there.

He plays the police person, and it's just delightful. It's a delight, and Emma Thompson is in it, and it's one fucking delightful movie about sheep detection. Yeah, I was out in the Cotswolds, and I ran into a guy who was carrying two sheep under each arm, and I said, you shearing? And he said, nope, going to fuck both of them myself. Oh, my God. I knew you'd come up with a sexual remark. Oh, my God. Anyway, I recommend it.

When is this other movie coming to the United States? Is it opened or not? Honest answers, I don't know. I've never heard of it. I like serious, Sasha Baron Cohen. Is he serious? Because I think he's quite a good. He plays an executive who comes back, who hits his head and comes back as a woman and deals with.

I mean, it's sort of the social commentary, I actually think feminists are going to hate it because it's the same kind of a man who's a cad goes through on a hero's journey. And he's deep down, he's a good guy and discovers he's a good guy. I think the story is somewhat a little bit passeh and trite now. Well, Mel Gibson was in that movie. Do you remember he hit his ad? Yeah, we had to wax and everything. But the chemistry between Sasha and Rosamund and the production values and also they just do such a hilarious job of all the little Easter eggs. Like, instead of five guys, it's five gals. Instead, it's Victor's Secret. It's like you realize every single ad is about essentially objectifying women or about or praising men. It's actually pretty clever. I wonder what happened if you hit your head, would you come back? You know what happened. I got concuss playing soccer. Is that what's still ongoing?

You're living it. I know. That would be an interesting movie. What do you call someone who transports cheap? What? Sex trafficker. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Do you know what I did this weekend? What did you do? Power washed everything from the winter, my whole death. And then I had a... Okay, now I got to tell a less. Joe. All right, go ahead. What do you call a lesbian dinosaur? What? It looks a lot of puss. Oh, wow. Wow, is that bad. You asked for it. You were just setting me up. I love my power washer so much. I got rid of all the

winter grit, and then I had a barbecue with my nice friend, Audie Kornish. You're so performative in your lesbianism. I love a power washer. I love it. I'm going to, I'm going to power wash you next time if you ever come my way. I could use it. Are you going to come to any of the property markets live tour? Yes, yes, I will come to at least one. Can I run on the stage naked and run off? You can absolutely run on the stage. I want you to answer a question or something, or we'll bring you out, or we'll do something fun. All right. Well, let's get straight to the breaking news of the day. Elon Musk just lost his high-stakes lawsuit against Sam Altman and Open AI, which alleged Open AI had violated a promise to remain a nonprofit after deliberating less than two hours,

which means they didn't get the free lunch. A federal jury ruled, unanimously, nine to zero, that Altman and Open Eye did not betray their nonprofit founding missions. There's a statute of limitations, technicality. But I think they're basically saying, Elon, you giant adult toddler, too bad. Scott, we've been saying this all along that this would happen. Check it out. I think this jury can't possibly side with them. I mean, ultimately, I don't think they proved anything. And it's a sort of he said he said kind of thing. And Elon's the most loathsome of the pair, right? By far. By the country. So I think Elon's made a spectacle of himself. If he wins, it would be something else. Like,

I'll tell you that. But I can't imagine the jury thinks this guy got the, got a short end of the stick, or that he's stupid and didn't know what was happening. The judge backed the verdict and dismissed all claims, including one against Microsoft. Both men are racing towards massive IPOs, with OpenAI valued at over $850 billion in SpaceX. He expected to go public very soon after merging with Musk's X-A.I., which has been pretty much of a failure in the AI department, possibly one of the reasons for this lawsuit. Thoughts? Look, as predicted, I thought this was an easy one. And I thought this was a Messiah complex and sellers regret, cosplaying a legal argument. The only thing that came out of this entire case was that Musk was fucking a board member in that she nor he disclosed

it after he had left. I mean... Well, if they did it that way, let's be, we don't know how it happened. Okay. All right. Okay. Allegedly. You're saying she was immaculate conception and just- I know because there was, let's not get into it, but they're romantically involved now. Okay.

Got it. Okay. Okay. This was a lawfare and this was, again, I am turning so, I think we now need alternative minimum taxes of 60 or 70% on anything over a billion dollars for an individual, because these individuals are under the impression that they are not subject to the standards of a Western society, decency, or the law. The fact that he would even bring this case. Nonsense. Waste of time. Is, okay, you don't have a legal argument, but I'm Elon Musk. And nonprofits.

are allowed to convert to for-profits. They do it all the time. He tried to convince them to become a for-profit that he would control. And when they said no, he left and started his own for-profit AI company, and then six years later decided to give up all ownership and governance of that now that was worth $850 billion, he wanted some of that or he wanted to at least slow it down for his failing LLM. We've made a lot of predictions. We get some wrong. This was a fucking layup. It was. I have to say, one of the things that people, look, first of all, it's a waste of our legal time. It's a waste of those nine jurors time. It was ridiculous. Let me tell you, all of them came off badly, right? Sam Altman doesn't look good. Shavad Zillis, the alleged person, girlfriend thing.

No, she is this a girlfriend, I guess. I don't know. I don't care. But Greg Brockman, the only person who came off like an adult is Satchinadella, who's the CEO of Microsoft, right? He looks like he did the right thing. He handled it well. All his texts are fine. The rest of them look like fucking babies and unhappy and just why are they in charge of our fate? Why are they so unhappy and so rich? All kinds of like weird dramas between them, personal dramas.

And it's a waste of our legal systems time. It's just ridiculous. The judge seemed perplexed as to what it was doing there. And again, it does come down to Elon Musk and sour grapes. He has the sourest grapes on the planet, even though he's about to become the richest person on the planet, right, in the history of the planet. The other thing is that both of them are sucking wind while Gemini and anthropic are lapping them, right? So all this waste of time and energy over companies that have problematic real problems. in their own thing. And it's just, the whole thing is just, I just, and I think the fault lies, of course, with Elon Musk who just can't, like, lose. He's a sore, he's a sore winner is what he is. I don't know what else, and he's a bad loser, essentially.

And, you know, do you think it'll affect their IPOs or positions in the overall AI race? Because I don't see anyone coming off well, except for Gemini and Anthropic in this deal, essentially. Well, Gemini Anthropic win by just pure virtue of the fact that this is a big distraction for a non-competitor, X-AI, and a real competitor, OpenAI. The only nuance I would add to your comments is one, there's a small fraction of people, us included, very small, that we're tracking the nuance and the details of the case.

Generally speaking, the majority of people will read this today, and it distills down to a very basic thing. Musk loss and Altman won. So I actually think Altman comes out of this as a winner. Fair. That's fair. Because the majority of us didn't listen to the testimony and just how petty and childish and weird these people are. So it's like they'll remember one thing about this. Oh, Musk lost and Altman won. And I don't, I think the prediction markets, I don't know what they were, at one point it had Musk at 50%, which was a great bet. But the thing I looked at was the secondary market. and I didn't see shares in OpenAI decline in value.

So I think this gives new, not new wind, but existing wind in the sales of the Open AI IPO. And also, I don't think it, to be fair, I don't think it hurts MUS IPO, because I think people are so intoxicated for many good reasons by the IPO of SpaceX. This was, and the most interesting thing I saw on the CNN article that we just pulled up was the judge almost appears to be wallpapering

over why they didn't dismiss it in the first place. Why did they even let this get the trial? Because the judge was saying that she, you know, one of the reasons I was thinking of dismissing, you're going to have legal scholars, look at this and go, how the fuck did this ever go to trial? Yeah, because of a technicality, because of statute of limitations, correct? Was that it? Yeah, well, statute of limitations. And also there is a certain And there is a certain benchmark for what actually proceeds to a jury trial. Yeah, a nuisance lawsuit. Yeah.

So, like, I think this will go down as, I don't want to call it a nothing burger, but something that was distracting for them, that people, the TMZ of the tech community, loves reading the testimony and all that. But at the end of the day, this is a speed bump, not even a speed bump, a bump for both firms, but the distillation is the following. Our court system still works. Musk lost, Altman won, but bigger picture, neither of their IPOs is threatened by this. Yeah, who the fuck cares is what I thought.

The whole thing was such a, like, I do think, I agree with you about the nuance. I think you're absolutely right. No one will remember that. But boy, did I get an insight to what a bunch of fucking babies these people are, really, truly. I thought that. And now I'm like, unconfirmed. Like a lot of the stuff, like that I had heard about Zillis not telling the board. about the pregnancy, the twins and stuff.

I heard that, and I was like, that can't be. And then it was. Like a lot of, and Greg Brockman's journal, and I know that's sort of like we're interested in it, or I am at least, but it does, like, really does. I was like, I thought they were babies, and indeed, in court, they were babies. Can I tell you about my pregnancy story, conflict?

No. What is? Do you want to bring this back to me? Are you pregnant with my baby? You don't want to bring it? Stranger things have happened. Okay, so you got to tell me you want the story first. I want the story.

Go ahead, really briefly, though. Scott briefly is an oxymoron. So I'm a professor. I'm just getting traction at Stern. It's like 2000, I should know this, 2007. I'm finally getting traction as a professor. And my dean calls me and says, I need you to come up right away.

And when the dean calls me and says, come up right away, it's either very good or very bad news. So I roll up there, and he goes, he goes, okay, so there's a rumor. And he goes, there's a second year who looks like she's about to give birth. I mean, she's clearly very, very pregnant, a second year student. And there's a rumor that you're the father. What? Yeah, true story. He goes, there's a rumor that you're the father.

And I go, well, I've got good news and bad news. And he literally put his head in his hands. He went, oh, fuck. And I said, the bad news is I am the father. And I said, the good news is we've been having sex for several years. We disclosed in her application that we were living together and in a relationship together. I was like, few. End of pivot.

We didn't tell anyone, especially students. And I didn't tell any of my colleagues. I just disclosed it when she was applying to the school. And, but yeah, that was. Oh, my God. I had knocked up a student who was walking around. Oh, no. Oh, God.

Okay. All right, on that note, I had a lovely pregnancy, and it was all in a... Open AI. Open AI. And then I went on to do the IPO of Red Envelope in a market cap of $108 million. Oh, God, that ended badly. Okay. It did end badly.

By the way, the legal stuff isn't over. Moving on to more Open AI legal news. The company is reportedly weighing possible legal action against Apple over how chat GPT has been integrated into devices and apps they were just waiting for this trial to end, and here we are. This deal that OpenAI thought would bring billions of dollars in subscriptions has not turned out that way. OpenI believes Apple failed to give ChatGPT prominent placement in Siri and iOS and didn't

significantly promote the integration. Apple has its own concerns about OpenAI, as they should. Questions around privacy and the companies push into hardware and devices, they did hire Johnny I, robotist's company. Another sign of the fraying relationship, Apple is planning to let users choose between multiple AI models, the way they do with search, even though they favor Google, including Gemini from Google and Claude from Anthropic across its software later this year. Maybe they'll sell the pole position to one of them, but supposedly it was supposed to be open AI. Thoughts here?

I don't know what the contract is, but it kind of goes to the notion that even one of the most powerful companies in AI, it's all about placement and distribution. Absolutely. Even going as far back as when I was running a strategy firm and we were working for Levi's, they initially decided they needed to go vertical because J.C. Pennies would put their own Arizona brand at the front. I mean, distribution just has so much power, right? And even something as powerful as OpenAI, if you put them at the bottom, they're not going to get as much. But I've said for a long time, I thought Apple was going to continue to be the arbiter and basically say, unless you pass a lot of money, we're not putting you at the top, especially a company like OpenAI.

But I don't know what the contract, I don't know if it's an actual, I don't know if it's an actual formal breach of contract, but I would argue that. Like the Disney Soros one that you had called out as possibly being a nothing burger. I just, I wonder, do you really want to piss off the premier means of distribution with the kind of access to cheap capital that Open AI has? And Sam Alman's a smart man, regardless of what you're saying. of them, I don't see, I would be trying to figure out a way to cut a deal similar to what Google did. We're going to pay a shit ton of money and we're going to be your default AI. So I don't, going after them legally, I don't, I don't. Maybe Apple doesn't want them to be default AI. Maybe Apple does have concerns about privacy. Do you know anything about the legal veracity of the case? I just

don't know. I mean, obviously the deal doesn't, like these, they struck all these very high profile deals, whether it was Disney, which became a nothing burger. It was an experiment and didn't really go anywhere. They, you know, they did a lot of like, the ta-ta kind of things, and this is the biggest one of them. And then they turned around and did the Johnny Ive thing, right, which has got a chap Tim Cook's ass,

like on some level, right? Even though it's going to be stepping down. And at the same time, they would have questions about what they want to do. Now, of course, Apple is a pay-to-play kind of company, too, by giving Google. Probably Google Maps are very good. Theirs were very good. There were other

players. They didn't give search to they gave search to Google because they paid them money. So they are, they will take your money. And Google certainly has issues around all manner of issues. So they sort of overlook those. So I don't know. I just, I feel like they'll be, I think letting people choose between the multiple models is the best way to go. I don't love this place, pay to play kind of stuff. Because it doesn't, it may give you a good version, but it doesn't give you necessarily the one you want. So it seems to me that people should be able to choose their AI. model, since Apple's not going to be deploying that themselves, you know, if you want to use

Claude, you should be able to use Claude and whoever may the best man win kind of thing. But that's hard to do because people don't really choose, do they? They just default use Google Maps or Google Search. I think they play on the inertia of consumers, and that is they essentially, basically, my understanding is with Google Search being the default on iOS, they make it easier for you to use Google Search than use Bing. Oh, it comes with it. You have to go deep into the thing to change it, like to any of them.

It's like six, it's like a lot of steps. I mean, this is a stream across all of big tech. Amazon, if you want to be in the golden buy box, you know, if you want to be top of search results, you have to pay. And the way they extract payment is that you have to use Amazon Media Group. You have to use their fulfillment. And then the algorithm slowly but surely puts you towards the top or deprioritizes you. And it's like having a store on Mars just because you're on Amazon unless you,

figure out a way to do pay-for-play. I've said for a long time, I think eventually it'll move from these companies getting paid by Apple to Apple extracting a lot of payments from them. What I think with OpenAI, though, they're now... Well, Google pays Apple for those things, right? They do get paid for maps. I thought Apple paid Google a billion dollars a year for access to a custom Gemini model. So Google pays Apple to be the default search, but yes, Apple is paying Google around a billion for Gemini, that will possibly switch. But in this case, they did this deal with Open AI, right, to make them the favored nation. At the time, they did it. We thought that was pretty smart of OpenA had to move in there on Gemini. And at the time, Claude was not that big a player,

right? So it was sort of a move on Gemini. And so, and here it didn't work out. And I bet Apple has all kinds of problems with their privacy issues and the sort of image around Sam, everything else. You know what I mean? Like, that's what it feels like to me. It's like it's a regretful link or something, and maybe they aren't doing what it takes. But a lawsuit is not great for open AI, I assume, correct or not? It doesn't matter for Apple.

Well, the fear is amongst OpenAI, is hands Google's Gemini, the keys of the Apple universe. And that's the same keys they've possessed with search for two decades, right? And Apple roots a hysteria queries through its private cloud compute framework claiming user data is never stored or used to train Google's models. And Apple evaluated or claims they evaluated Open AI and Anthropic before choosing Google, I got to think there's 20 billion reasons why Apple wants to maintain a good relationship with Alphabet. Also, that could be a court case and then a future Democratic administration too, right? Like they're not,

they've already been in trouble for those deals. That's always been part of the thing. Well, that $20 billion accounts for about 20% of Apple's annual services revenue. So it's real. I mean, that is real. That's a very, that strikes me as the perfect relationship that fucks consumers. Yes, exactly. They'll get paid. Apple will be the payee here. They're not going to pay Google. Oh, no, no. They control the distribution. They control the interface. They control custody of the consumer. And it's the age-old argument of who's more important, the distribution of the manufacturer's brand. And there's always an argument. And then the companies that get really, really have extraordinary shareholder value, always either, reverse engineer into creating their own brands and controlling and taking advantage.

Everyone goes vertical at some point, or they forward integrate and start opening, you know, original Levi stores. They start opening their own stores. But in the case of Apple, they've done a great job of deciding what they're going to go vertical on and what they should just extract a lump of flesh for. And I would, again, I've said this before, I think Apple's smart move and as far as I can tell their strategy is to decide that around AI, they're going to be the toll booth and let whoever the highest bidder is be the default AI. It'll be questionable if they, as we talked about last week, about whether they do this with Siri, right?

Because Siri just sucks. Are they going to make Siri better or use someone else's? Siri has never been intuitive. I spend more time arguing with Siri than anything else. I think Oculus and Siri are arguably two of the worst brands in tech over the last 10 years. I think they've become total clichés for shit. that doesn't work or that doesn't live up to its potential. Because a lot of the AI interface is going to be talking, right?

Like, hey, like you're in Iron Man. So who does that? It'll be Scarly Johansson. It'll be her, right? Yeah, right. But who does, who is that company? Are they going to, is Apple going to default that or is that going to be their thing? Because I wish someone would do like a really deep dive into what happened with Siri,

why it's so bad and why it is under-resourced or, I don't even know, but it seems to me like that's going to be the real interface is the voice. But maybe not. I don't know. No, I think you're right. I think what I think where it's shaping up one of the big, the underappreciated or insights is that from a sensory perception, I think AI is going to be more about your ear canal than your cornea or your eyes. And that is truly seamless AI will be a function. And again, Apple will control the distribution.

with their AirPods. What you're saying is, what will the branded voice be, or will it be branded? I guess you'll have to say, hey, something to prompt it. Is it part of it? Who runs it? Who's the back? Anyway, I feel like there's a huge opportunity here for one of these AI companies, because that's what, you know, as if anyone who's done a chat bot like this, it's really, it's the, it's the way to communicate. It's much faster. You don't have to type things in. It's much better. Anyway, speaking of, you may not get there, because as these companies fight, Americans are pushing back on data center. powering all of it, especially the AI, according to New Gallup polling, seven in 10 Americans

oppose constructing data centers in their local area. That's, no, Trump just had new polling. He's down even further, but they don't like Trump. They don't like data centers. The opposition cuts across every major demographic and political group, although Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to strongly oppose these data centers, but Republicans don't like them either. Like, let's be clear. It's pretty interesting that it's something that's quite bipartisan. You know, a lot of people think this is going to be the biggest I do too when you hear from people, especially as Elon like runs roughshot over the Tennessee town with his methane engines or whatever, with these colossus. It just creates this feeling of,

I don't know what it is. It's like these rich fuckers are fucking with our environment now, right? And not to our benefit, essentially. But your thoughts on this. I think it's the same reason that all these commencement speakers got booed when they mentioned AI. I mean, first off, no one is using AI more than college students. And there's also some evidence that it's not the demand on the electricity or the environmental concerns that, I mean, some people will argue, quite frankly, that has been exaggerated. I would like to see the scientific evidence on that. But there's just no getting around it. what this represents is the following, whether you're booing Eric Schmidt or rallying against

a data center, Americans see their prices going up, and they're not participating in the wealth creation of AI. And it's just a proxy for income inequality that, okay, I hear about, you know, Anthropic is worth a trillion dollars. San Francisco real estate prices are booming, jet sales are booming. There are 28-year-olds who are lucky enough to get a job in coding at OpenAI, who are selling seven, ten, fifteen million dollars in stock. And I can't afford detergent. I can, I'm worried about food costs. And so when I hear a data center is going up 40 miles from me in Utah, I show up to the protest. Whether or not I see direct evidence of it hurting me or not, this is a way of saying, AI has become indicative of

income inequality. And so when anyone shows up at a commencement speech and starts lecturing them on AI where they hear about a data center, I think this is essentially a vessel of people just filling it. And I don't want to diminish their concerns. I think there are some real questions that need to be answered around these data centers. But I feel mostly this is a vessel for people's rage around. It seems like everyone is doing well, except for me. And that, America's giant bet on AI is paying off for a small group of people, and I'm not part of that group. Why not the companies themselves and why these – because I guess data centers are physical, right? They're here. They're there. They're – gives you somewhere to go protest.

It's also dystopian, right? They feel dystopian. They feel like they're probably not going to have a lot of people running them. It's not going to provide the jobs. They're going around local governments to try to, like, pay off people to put them in and the way others. there are worries about the energy costs that will go up in these areas. There's like some real things. And then there's the pollution aspect. And I think Elon's as usual been like the poster child for abuse of poor people, right? These are usually in poor areas. Also, I think it's just even beyond the worries about things. It's more of a creeping worry about what tech is.

Again, more villainous. We don't assume the best of these people ever, nor should we, that kind of thing. Well, the one being planned in Utah that's sort of been the lightning rod or kind of embodies this one, they have the wrong spokesperson. Kevin O'Leary has seen as someone who's not that empathetic, an old like guy who just doesn't, he does not appeal to this cohort. It's going to be two and a half times, the envisioned a data center is going to be two and

half times the size of Manhattan. They have not figured out a way to communicate the economic benefits. And you're right, this notion that, you're right, this notion that. you could turn the lights off on these things during the day because there's so few people working there. The bigger threat of my view, and of course we're not talking about this, but if you look at history, when we have spent more than 3% of GDP on any infrastructure buildout, whether it's the railroads where I think we got up to 10%, we did two big buildouts, whether it's the electrification, then the highways, remember the telco infrastructure buildout of the late 90s,

whenever we do that and go over above 3%, in three years there's a crash. because, and what might make this crash especially severe is that railroads need upgrading every 50 years, telco every 20 years, a data center is basically obsolete in four or five years. So I think there are, I think obviously you need to look at the environmental concerns, you need to look at energy costs, but I would imagine there's so much money on the line here that these companies and these city councils would be able to come to some sort of accommodation around how do we ensure the local populace does not see its electricity costs just go through the roof. One would imagine, and I know the Trump administration has been trying to do that, I think the hiring of Dina Powell was the reason for that is she's very, as president of META, I think that's probably

going to be a lot of her jobs, these data centers worldwide, by the way. It's not just, it's not just, it's also in the Mideast, it's also, because they want to have big data centers there, and they have much more control over their populace. But I do think it's sort of the last play of these governments not to put up with this. You know, it's a really, interesting dynamic of people who are sort of years ago, one of the Joe Kennedy, Jr., I think I've said this, came, I went to his office and he was talking about Amazon putting in a warehouse into his district. And he goes, well, this is probably good for people. I said, oh, no, it's not good. It's not going to be good for people. They're not here to help. They're here to help themselves.

I think people at their very core understand, as you were saying, that this is not for them. this is for others to benefit, and it's not to help them in any way. So why should we give up environmental stuff or more energy prices more than environmental? The curb or the retail story or the cover story is we're worried about environmental and demands on the grid. I think what's really going on here is this is just rage at income inequality. And big tech and the data center is the manifestation. You can see it. that we can see it and protest against it.

I think this is, I think whenever we get to these levels of income inequality, we have war, famine, a revolution. I would argue we have all three of those, but revolution always takes on a different complexion. I think what we have now is a series of small revolutions. And they're going after people they, generally speaking, big tech, old people, white people, rich people, okay, tell me you're involved in a data center without telling

me you're involved in a data center. Yeah, and Kevin O'Lear shows up with his multi-million dollars. I mean, he's literally the worst spokesperson in the world for this shit. Did he said that outfit he was wearing it? I was like, oh, my God, you literally look like the guy, you know, the monopoly man. That's what he looks like, Monopoly Man. Like, it just is not, I'm not a fan of Mr. Wonderful. Yeah, it's only a matter of days before you see AOC and Bernie Sanders at these sites

whipping people up into a friend. It'll be like, it'll be like the modern day equivalent of when Bob Barker used to go to animal shelters and just go crazy. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, we'll see where it goes. Now, speaking of this, which I think is getting people furious, too, and I do think this is, the new financial disclosures show Trump or his investment advisors made more than 3,700 stock trades in the first quarter of 2026 involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

The filings show major buys in companies like Nvidia, Boeing, Intel, Microsoft, and Oracle, many of which are directly affected by Trump administration policy decisions, as the FCC chairperson Anna Gomez calls billionaire buddy deals. In the case of Palantir, Trump made at least seven purchases of the stock, totaling as much as $530,000 in March, then just happened to praise the company on True Social after shares suffered their worst week in a year the following month. I mean, what does it actually take to have consequences here? And does it all end up with Trump or is he permanently changed what Americans will tolerate from president? Because this is like, there's a great, I literally feel like he's going to start taking milk money from kids, like at some point, if you remember that.

that expression. I just, this is like, is there anywhere he doesn't cheat and advantage himself in a way that's like really obvious grift, like obvious and really kind of upsetting grift? Well, I think you asked exactly the correct question of that is, what can be done about it? I'm just, I'm, I want to move past the Democrats indignation and constantly bitching about it, but no real ideas on how to stop it. And so let's set the table here to your point about a level of griff that is just absolutely unprecedented. He has executed more than 3,700 trades in the first quarter of 2026. He's doing 40 trades a day. By the way, throughout his life, it's not like he's someone addicted to trading on Robin Hood, and this is just him, you know,

Trump being Trumpy. He usually didn't make this many trades in a year. And all of a sudden, he has access to influence around these companies, and he's decided to start trading stocks. Trump bought $500,000 to a million in Nvidia stock one week before his Commerce Department approved Nvidia chip sales to China. He bought somewhere between $1 million the week before they announced a major deal with META. He bought Dell stock before he started carving up TikTok and giving it to wait for it, Michael Dell, the same with Oracle. And we have unfortunately relied on a series of norms that has resulted in every president since LBJ using a blind trust. Obama did index funds and treasury bills.

Everyone else has put their stuff into a blind trust. He claims his trust is blindish because his sons operated, who are the same people roaming around extracting a pound of flesh. And on the trips to China, just here to support dad. Give me a fucking break. So, look, insider trading or the veil or the appearance of insider trading has essentially defined Trump's second term. Just before Liberation Day,

more than a dozen government officials made well-timed stock sales. What a coincidence. So his meme coin hit a $27 billion market cap inauguration week with 58 anonymous wallets making over a billion dollars dumping it, while 800,000 retail investors lost $2 billion combined. 15 minutes before Trump announced in Ron P. Stocks,

500 million in oil futures and one and a half billion in S&P futures, traded hands. Calci trading? It's all, it's absolutely, so let's be clear, there appears to be an unprecedented pattern of information that seems to be only available from Trump, Trump, or people surrounding him engaging in what feels like either market manipulation or what could classically be defined as insider trading. And the damage there is it's not only a conflict of interest in skewing their decisions, it creates a lack of trust in the markets where people think, if I don't have insider information, I shouldn't buy stocks because the person buying or selling stock has more

information than me. And you start to see Russia, which has a total stock market value of what our stock market trades about every seven seconds. And you lose access to cheap capital and your whole economy starts to decline because companies can't find pools of capital that are formed based on a certain rule of law and fair play. The question is, okay, great, now what do we do about it? And this is where I think the Democrats, again, have fallen short. And that is where long on day, but we're short on ideas. And I believe that someone running for president should say, one of my first acts is I'm going to work with the following states AGs. I think there's been insider trading. I think they'll have to disgorge in a minimum their profits, including Democrats,

including Democrats who've engaged in insider trading. I think there has been wire fraud. I think there has been effectively what announced a defense concerns or violations of the emoluments clause. I'm going to go after cabinet members. I'm going to go after their sons to the letter of the law. And the key here is I'm going to do it with the following state AGs such that this legal action is not exempted or protected by a presidential pardon. But somebody needs to lay this shit out. We are caught. I mean. Well, Rahm Emanuel has. Others have. Several have. Let me be clear. Well, Rahm is the only one. He just laid it out in a piece of it. Rahm is the only one who's actually moved to the ideas part of,

if I worry we are going to be in for a rude awakening if we think we're going to win just based on indignance and hating Trump. It's got to be, all right, what are you going to do about it? And the way you get legitimacy here is one by saying, any Democrat that's engaged in this bullshit, which they have, we're going after as well. And also, don't think a presidential pardon is going to get you out of this, folks, because this comes down to incentives.

And until these people believe they could be subject to something on January 21st of 2028, or excuse me, 2029, they're going to continue to engage in it. Right, because these are easily, you know, these cases are much easier to win. There's digital proof everywhere. That's right. I have told you this, but there is a group of people technologists who are saving crypto things for later. Like so later when it happens, like when you can do something like this, they'll be proof. Yeah, they have prints on the trades. Yes, they have been watching it.

they've been collecting it and they're holding it. And so there's an ability to track this stuff, folks. And you're absolutely right. This is, this grift has got to be, they're not going to, some of them are gonna, look, Trump probably is gonna walk away. Let's be clear, unfortunately, getting our hands on him is gonna be pointless, anger-filled. Let biology take care of him.

Let him, he's old. Like, he is not gonna be gotten, but the sons of these people and the Lutniks of the world, all these people, it feels so dirty, like what's happening with Whitkoff and all these kids are like swanning around. I can tell you they're swanning around Washington and there is dumb and dumber doesn't even begin to describe them. And they are just, they're just on the make and it's grotesque.

It's just grotesque what's going on here. And let me tell you that people are mad about data centers, they're also taking advantage you everywhere else. And so how to fuck you is their, how to fuck you is their operating principle. And they can do it in a shortcut way without working at it. That's their favorite way. And so I agree with you. This is what any democratic person wants to come and talk to us.

We will give you a speech for you to do this. Anyway, we have to go on a quick break. When we come back, Elon Musk's plan to make sure no one can fire him from SpaceX, another monarchy. Support for this show comes from Vanta. If you're a business owner, you might have noticed that risk and regulation are on the rise. Customers now want proof of security before they commit and earning that trust is critical to closing deals. But the process can be expensive, complex, and time-intensive. Vanta says that's the challenge they're here to solve.

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The only way to get 20% off is to go to join Deleteme.com slash pivot and enter code pivot. That's join deleteme.com slash pivot code pivot. Scott, we're back with more news. SpaceX is expected to file for a. its IPO this week, which will be interesting. I'm excited for you to read it and tell me all about it. At a valuation of roughly $2 trillion aiming to go public June 12th on NASDAQ, we're also learning about more about the governance structure. No surprise. CEO Elon Musk would control a supermajority of Class B stock with 10 times the voting power of ordinary shares. This is not uncommon. Google

and other companies have this meta, things like, or a version of this. The perspective says Elon can only be removed by Class B shareholders and he will control the election and removal of direct. as long as he holds his stake. Investors are warned. This will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters. It's already in place right now, by the way, but come on. Of course he's going to do this. And there's yet another incentive for Elon if SpaceX reaches a $7.5 trillion valuation and it establishes a one million person colony on Mars he could receive up to $200 million in shares. Let's talk about the board membership, Scott, because you're, you're, you're, you're, You've been an investor.

You've been a board member. Elon defended on X writing. I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multi-planetarian, extending consciousness to the stars, not pandering to someone's bullshit quarterly earnings bonus. In other words, he doesn't want to have a public company, but he wants the benefits of a public company. Only thing I will say here, he truly does believe in this multi-planetary extending consciousness.

This is not marketing on his behalf. He has a demented, loony idea that humanity will die, and he should be the god of Mars. So, and speaking of war. But your thoughts on this entire thing besides monarchy and godlike feelings that he has? Well, just a brief history of dual-class shareholder companies. They were originally invented by media companies

who claimed they wanted to pursue journalism without the vagaries. New York Times. Well, yeah, a bunch of them actually. A lot of them said, and there was some legitimacy there, these families said, we don't want someone who hates us to show up and start dictating editor.

control, so we want to maintain control. Whether you believe that or not, fine. But then the first tech company to do that was the Google guys. Google. They said, we want two classes of shares. And what's interesting is, in the late 90s, there was a rumor that Sequoia was trying to sell its shares in a private Google because they clashed,

they really clashed with Sergey and Larry, who demanded two classes of shares. And that was so unusual. And Sequoia's thought was, you're not going to be able to get public. You're not a newspaper company. You're not a journalism company. You're a tech company. And basically Google then everybody else has followed in Google's footsteps.

Now, to be fair to Musk, you know, when I went on the board of the New York Times and was the largest shareholder, all I really was was heckling from the cheap seats and effectively an advisory board because the family, which now gets 10 seats, and everybody else gets, five seats. So while you get some sort of representation, you really don't have, at the end of the day, the family decides what they're going to do over Thanksgiving dinner. The Ford family is the same way. They own very few shares, but they control the company. And tech has figured this out. So this is nothing new. And to be fair, most of the academic studies have shown that dual-class share companies have not vastly underperformed single-share companies. Yeah, I don't think that's the issue. It can't be fired. Oh, he's in charge. And, Ollie, that's.

But I mean, this is where the shit will get crazy, and I can't wait to read the S-1. You know, Adam Newman wanted his kids to inherit the company. And Musk is saying, but the reality is shareholders have a choice around whether they want to buy shares. And what you do with a tool class shareholder company is one, eventually you get a bad king. And two, you take out a premium of a possible takeover. And that is Warner Brothers Discovery. When AT&T spun Warner Brothers, they demanded a single class share stock, such that the company could be put into play.

And whenever a company is a single share class share company, it usually trades theoretically at a bit of a premium because someone could come in and buy it. So this is just you have to decide whether you believe in Musk and to be also just the market says, people are not only willing to put up a dual-class shareholder company, they're willing to buy at what are, errant, abnormal, extraordinary valuations

because of Musk's involvement. But this is these super voting shares started with media companies or newspaper companies then leaked into tech, and now almost everyone is doing it when they go public. Right. That I don't fault him on. Like, of course. And by the way, he's been running Tesla like that anyway

without having this kind of thing, right? It doesn't matter. The board has does whatever he wants. It's like it's a completely bought and paid for board, essentially. And so he gets that shares and he always threatens to leave and he throws a fit and it just didn't work at Open AI. That's what happened there. They're like, yeah, we'll be fine without you and they were for time. So I think this is not an unusual thing and you do have to realize he's not going to, he is a key man here.

It's just like one bad night in Austin and, you know, that's the problem with all this stuff. Or he loses interest like he's done at Tesla. Now, the shares have stayed up because it's a meme stock, but the company's not. not headed in the right. He's just lost interest in it. And is, you know, that's the problem you have here is these single monarchies. Same thing with Zuckerberg. He happens to be vibrant right now. But, boy, he made a series of idiototic move that would have gotten other people fired. And he won't be fired. And it is part of a mentality of I am the king, I am the God, that you have got to buy into. But it has enormous risk because it's all based on predicated on one person.

And sometimes that's good, but sometimes that's not so good. Like, I just feel like that buyer beware, essentially. You can do well. I think that Musk, I think there's no way to build a company like SpaceX or Tesla without having a ton of good people around them. The reason why the Messiah complex comes into effect in that is no one is allowed to get near. I'm pretty sure the fastest way to get fired at Tesla or SpaceX is to ever say anything out of mic. Only Elon is allowed to talk.

This is all about Elon. He's the genius. There is no Ruth Parrat. There is no Tim Armstrong. That's correct. There's no one else. Anyone's allowed. You're locked in the basement.

Can I just interject? When I wanted to interview Gwen Shotwell years and years ago at one of my code conferences, they said only Elon will speak to you. Like, I was like, what are you talking about? She's obviously doing an amazing job. Like, I really wanted to focus. No, no. It's all about Elon. Only Elon.

And I was like, I remember at the time being like, well, that's fucked up because she deserves, like, I want to hear from her. Anyway. But what I would suggest investors do when the S-1 comes out, and I'm going to spend some time on this, is not focus on the dual-class shareholder structure, but simple, basic boring stuff or the boring knitting evaluation. And that is the following. At some point, an amazing company is a shitty investment if it gets too expensive. And at some point, a shitty company is an amazing investment if it gets cheap enough. And let's just talk about valuation here. Google IPO trading at about 10 times trailing revenue.

And it was growing revenues 240% before the IPO. So 10 times revenue, growing 240% a year. Meta IPO at 28 times trailing revenue, growing revenues at 88% a year before the IPO. Saudi Aramco, five times trailing a year. revenue, growing revenue is 41% a year. SpaceX will IPO at 109 times trailing revenue, growing revenues at 20% a year. So, and to be clear, space is the ultimate addressable market. They have most the size of the Amazon, but it's going out at 10 times the valuation on a multiple basis as Google did with a tenth of the growth. And then if you just want to look at

valuations, Amazon went public at 900 million, Microsoft at 2.3 billion, Apple at 7 billion, and Google at 40 billion, and what, SpaceX is targeting 2 trillion? So all I have to say is, is SpaceX an amazing company, or is it massively overvalued? The answer is yes. Yes. Yeah, well, we'll see, and you can still do well. Okay, moving on very quickly, Louisiana, Senator Bill Cassie, lost his Republican primary after President Trump targeted him in retaliation for voting to convict him in his impeachment trial five years ago. Trump backed Representative Julia Letlow, who finished ahead with about 45 percent of the vote on true social Trump celebrated the law saying that Cassidy's disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now part of legend and it's nice to see that his

political career is over. Cassidy took a swipe at Trump during his concession speech. So let's listen to a clip. And when you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn't turn out the way you wanted to. But you don't pout, you don't whine, you don't claim the election was stolen, you don't find a reason why, you don't manufacture some excuse, you thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you've had that privilege. So interestingly, also just in related stories, Supreme Court blocked an effort to revive Democratic Back Virginia congressional map. that could have flipped several GOP House seats.

The map had been approved by voters, but struck down by Virginia Supreme Court. And Supreme Court did not give a reason for denying the emergency appeal in the order. They usually don't meddle with Supreme Courts, really is what I'm told. So there's some worry that Democrats should worry about the political environment.

Others feel no, that it's not the case, that it was a good thing to have, but not a must have. I mean, this Cassidy thing is interesting because suddenly, again, like Tom Tillis, he's found his balls. And he does have until January to do something about it. He's the one that backed RFK, and even though he knew better, he did a lot. He voted yes for Pete Hegseth.

Shouldn't have done it. Now can be regretful of it. I know Tillis took a really big slap at Heggseth this week. These two could make trouble for Trump until January, quite a bit of trouble. But, you know, as Tillis did with around the Fed chairman vote. So what do you think about this? I mean, democracy is democracy, and Trump has power in these states. So thoughts about what?

both things. I'm torn because I understand I'm sympathetic to the notion that you can't do good if you don't get elected. And this is no longer the Republican Party. It's MAGA. It puts these people in a very difficult position. I also think there's some legitimacy to the argument that Bill Cassidy should lose his medical license because to be, well, he was the swing vote. I know that. I couldn't believe it. They got R of K. I mean, I've said this before. No one is doing more damage abroad than Secretary Hagseth, no one is doing more damage to children domestically than RFK Jr. Measles is on the rise. I know, you too.

I mean, it's repulsive. He's a murderer. So, and this is the doctor. He took a Hippocratic oath. And he confirmed a guy he knew was creating fear and insecurity around our medical, our great medical institutions and around and demonizing vaccines. vaccines. And he's a fucking doctor. I mean, so I want to feel some glee here, but here's the problem. It was good to have a doctor on many of these panels. He was about as reasonable as they came.

The person that's probably going to replace him is going to be worse. So this is just one of those things. It's like shavings of shit on a shit salad. And it's fun to be gleeful about it and say, Senator Cassidy, you're, you know, the only thing I know that's going to come of this is, oh my God, wait and see the testicles that this senator is suddenly about to find he has. Yeah, he just did. Just watch him on Bill Maher. All of a sudden, he's going to turn into a truth teller. I can't wait to see what he says about RFK now. And the problem is, folks, that's not when we need your testicles. That's correct. That doesn't, that's not when we need you to be a leader. So I just think this is, you look left, you look right, and this is shit avenue.

because he was a reasonable guy, you do need medical professionals on these panels to say, okay, one of us is a doctor, everyone else shut the fuck up. I think that training does pay off. I believe in expertise. I believe in credentials. I believe in peer-reviewed research.

I believe in science. And so should America. We need more doctors, I think, in Congress. The person who replaces him, and he must be pissed off because, quite frankly, while they're saying he came in third, he actually barely lost because he got 25.

The other candidate who was anti-Trump or not a Trumpie got 28. So if he had just gotten 28 or 29, he might have won in the general. I got to be honest. So you know what I'm so excited to see? What? Oh, my God. He's going after Village Idiot, Lauren Bobert. Oh, he's going after Lauren Boehbert.

And I just want to say, I'm going to host a fundraiser for Bobert, and it's going to be whoever wins, she has to go on a date with your 17-year-old son. I think she is the best date for a high school. Oh, my God. She'll let you grope her. I'm going to, she's raped. She goes to Beetlejuice. All right.

Where were you when I was 17, Representative Bobert? No, you didn't say anything about the Democratic thing in Virginia briefly because we got to move on. But I said this last week. We're hoping that redistricting is beat by vibes. I just don't think there's any way to polish this. This is bad for Democrats. Yeah, I think he can't deny polling. Polling is polling and everywhere it happens.

You've got to win by winning the votes. That's the way you've got to do it. Well, but I take the other side of that. If you gerrymander enough, you can win, you can win more than you deserve. I still think it's an overwhelming. It's going to be a train. I hope you're right. All right.

We'll see. We'll see. And by the way, another talking point, Pete or ROM, this is my grid. I took a grid. it's my eight-year-old did it. You know, Pete has little kids. He drew eight lines, exactly equidestined horizontally, and he put it on top of the U.S. map,

and this is what I'm going to propose for congressional districts. I'm going to de-gerrymander the United States. I think that is a great talking point right now. Yep, that's another good one. Let's go on a quick break. We come back, the reality star in the L.A. mayoral race. Behind every F-35 jet is a Canadian company, horizontal tails built in Winnipeg,

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Scott, we're back with more news. This one, oh my God. You could have run for mayor of Los Angeles at this point. Spencer Pratt, formerly a reality show of the Hills, and a generally awful person is unexpectedly emerging as a contender in the Los Angeles mayor's race. I'm not so clear he's going to win, but he's got the mo. Despite his lack of political experience,

Pratt has gained traction through viral social media campaigning and support from figures like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, of course, Elon Musk. Pratt has built his campaign. around frustration with the cost of living and the city's response to wildfires which destroyed his own home. A lot of reporting by Harvey Levin

has shown most of the stuff he's saying to be nonsense. Thank God for TMZ at this point. He's signed up, of course, an unscripted series following his bid to be mayor and going into mayor, of course, because this is all the scam with Spencer Pratt.

And elsewhere in California politics, which seems insane at this particular juncture, California gubernatorial candidate, Tom Steyer is under investigation after his campaign paid influencers to post favorable content without clearly disclosing it was sponsored. California law requires paid political content to include disclaimers, as it should. And state regulations are now looking into whether those rules were violated. Both Democratic and Republican groups reported spent millions of this type of endorsement over the past few campaign cycles. It's very, it's propaganda.

So reality stars, influencers, of course it's California. Spencer fucking Pratt. Like, what in the fuckety fuck? And a lot of people donate to him, by the way, don't live in Los Angeles. But that's neither here nor there. Thoughts? I had a friend called me and asked me to have him on the Raging Moderates Pod. And like a reality TV star, he lost his house in the Palisades.

He's very good on camera. He understands social media. He's got a lot of momentum. He's running against what I think is a weak candidate and a frustrated populace. L.A. has become a little bit like I would describe it as Cape Town. There are some areas of Cape Town. I think this is the nicest place in the world. And then if you venture a few minutes outside of them, it gets really ugly, really fast.

And the homeless problem, you know, I think it's fair for people to say, I'm paying some of the highest taxes in the nation, and I have to walk this way to my kids to school so they don't see a homeless man masturbating or shitting in the streets. That, you can understand the amount of bureaucracy trying to deal with the fires. a lot of people don't like the way the fire is right for somebody to challenge Karen Mayor Bass. Where I land on the following is the following. Spencer Bratt, embraced Alex Jones, is said 9-11 was an inside job and brought up doubt about Sandy Hook. Go fuck yourself. I would vote

for anyone over someone who has embracing Alex Jones disqualifies you to run the one as one of the great cities in the world. So this guy is evidence, again, of revolution and people so angry and so upset. I hope, and it's also evidence of just how hard it is to find reasonably competent people to run for office. Like Rick Caruso was supposed to challenge her. Yeah, Rick would have been great. I'm trying to get my friend Jamie Patrickoff to run. He's nice. He loves L.A. He has the money, which is important. He's pragmatic. He's a business person. None of these people want to put their family or themselves through this bullshit. Also, somebody has to

to come in and take on many of the special interest groups, including unions, including entrenched Democrats. And it is a, a lot of people will say, people really thought will go, L.A., like California, has become nearly ungovernable. And that is the special interest groups are so entrenched and so hard to overcome. There's so much bureaucracy. It is so hard to find talented people to try and do this. Everybody wants theirs. And that it's become a very difficult, but Spencer Pratt. I know. It's just amazing that some people are backing the this guy. This guy, and by the way, I'm not kidding about Harvey Levin. He actually showed how much he was living at the Bel Air Hotel and was pretending to, anyway, look, there's frustration over

everything. A lot of the stuff that he's talking about is not the responsibility of Bass, but there's anger at Bass about how she handled that. No question. There's anger and frustration about homelessness. There's anger and frustration. But your choice is not to go with Spencer fucking Pratt, by the way, who's just one con after another. It really is. He really is. And lie and con after another. There's another council member who's also showing some,

some, a little bit, not momentum, but some numbers, who had backed Bass and now is running against Bass. Probably should, I hate to say this, but probably strike some sort of deal with Bass stepped down. Yeah, yeah. She will probably win.

Bass will, because there's no people, no Latinos or black people are voting for Spencer Bratt. And it's all outside money. It's all people who have, like, very little. interest in it, but he is articulating in anger, even if he's the worst vessel possibly. Well, that's how we got Trump. That's exactly right. But this guy makes Trump look like a genius. Like, let me just say, this is not even close. It would be such an embarrassment for this

to happen. In San Francisco, you get Daniel Lurie, someone who's a really, who's doing a good job. And by the way, I still don't think Lennon Breed did the worst job of all. It just was she had a lot of stuff that got piled up on top of her and didn't have the tools, because of different legal things that got passed later that you couldn't deal with the homeless issue there, but now Lurie can. You need someone like Lurie, like find someone like that, like who is gonna be like,

maybe a little more centrist than the left wants, maybe a little not as conservative as others want, right? Someone who's gonna try to solve problems and at least make an attempt to do so. And instead, this laughable, like, con man is the person you're picking and full of con. It will be a disaster for Los Angeles.

It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth. And if they could be, now, Los Angeles, compared to San Francisco, is a quantum level of difficulty of running. It just is, like, let's be clear. And, but this is not what you want. I think Bass has started to acknowledge the problems. He's just saying all the right things. It's likely she'll win, but the momentum for this fucking clown, especially, let me tell you, anyone who calls me from Los Angeles and several have, that say they're looking at them, looking at them, we are no longer friends. Like, sorry. Just sorry. But the reason they're looking

at them, quite frankly, you're being very generous to Mayor Bass. Right. I am. I agree. I think she's just has not been great, but this is the choice you have, right? This is the... Fair enough. But there's a couple takeaways here. Mayor Lurie and Democrats, especially Democrats, in executive roles, not legislative roles. There's a difference. Governor and mayor, it's an executive agree. And what Mayor Lurie is doing in every Democratic mayor needs to take a note out of this page book and governor, because if Democratic governors and mayors can't figure out a way to not make their cities come across as shitholes, it is going to be very hard for them to run. They've got to show they have the ability to say no to special interest groups and be about

blocking and tackling such that they focus on quality of life issues. And what Mayor Lurie has done that is so impressive is if you ask him about Israel, if you ask him about Ukraine, If you ask him even about a national issue, bodily autonomy, that doesn't directly affect right now, San Franciscans who have access to family planning, he says, I'm not going to talk about it. That's not why I'm here. Every mayor and governor in the United States thinks that their mayoral or their governorship is a kickoff campaign for them to run for president. Yeah, I agree. Get the subways to run on fucking time. Figure out the way the trash gets picked up. Figure out a way to strike a deal with the unions if you're dealing with that such that they make good. livings, but it's not, they're not making $180,000 a year for their 40 years in retirement.

Stop talking about national and international issues. No one gives up what you think. Run the city. And that is exactly what Mayor Lurie's doing. And he's very popular. And he's getting a lot of support. And he's getting shit done. And he's making hard decisions around homelessness and around municipal transportation. The other thing I want to say that'll be Tom Steyer has basically been accused. of astroturfing. I mean, that's effectively what it is. You're paying for people who endorse you, who don't disclose their endorsement.

Okay, so is everyone else. Right, right, I get it. When Mom Doni was running, and I said anything about the mayoral race, hundreds of comments from bots, you're going to tell me they somehow weren't connected to money and his campaign? No, it's a part of modern political life.

And so if Tom Steyer does an astroturf, then good for him and he's going to lose. This is now the world we live in. Unless the platforms figure out an airtight way to get rid of anonymous accounts, and unless they start going after agencies that claim to be PR and comms firms, you are, let me go further. You're absolutely right. You're stupid not to astro turf back because everyone's doing it to you. It is.

It's just that there's got to be a way to solve this because it's such, like, it's so noisy. The platforms have to do it. No, absolutely. It's so noisy, we can't hear what people are saying. In this case, it looks like, probably Bacera looks like he's surging ahead at this point. But that whole California race has been insane. Like all of them got to, someone needs to knock heads there, but no one could knock heads anymore, right? So it's sort of a race to be an influencer or something or some version of cheap and dirty. And that's a real shame. It really is. You know, California is an important state and should be governed by serious people. Both as cities are important. cities. They've led the way on innovation, whether they have troubles now, that's a different issue. But, you know, it's taking governance as a joke. And that's the real ugliness of the Trump administration, creating everything like a grift and a joke. Tap into anger. Great social media. You know.

He's playing you, folks. And, you know, you're going to have to, I wish there was an alternative to Bass that was serious. And I, you know, I get why you would want to be behind it. But this, you're doing this, there's something wrong with you, there's something real wrong with you. Anyway, we'll see what happens. We'll see. He may just fade just because he seems like such a village idiot, but we'll see.

And if he wins, watch out fucking below. I've watched some of his stuff. I'll give him that, I think he's actually, he's got some of that Trump charisma. He does. He's got some of that. That's why he was a successful reality. And outrage, tapping in it.

Again, this all comes back to the same thing. People are getting 110 notifications on their phone that everyone's making bank and has a hot boyfriend or girlfriend except them. Everyone feels as if they're falling behind. And when you're falling behind and you're angry, chaos is your preferred candidate. That's correct. You're absolutely right. Anyway, well, we'll see what happens there.

I don't be interested. Don't have Spencer Pratt on if you don't mind. You can, but you have to whack his shit out of him. No, Jess said, if we do that, we have to have Mayor Bass on. I'm like, I don't, I'm not going to platform anyone who said 9-11, is it was an inside job and is shared the stage with Alex Jones. And other than saying, my heart goes out to the victims of Sandy Hook, that's just disqualifying. I'm doing a lot of virtue signaling right now, but those are red lines.

Those are red lines from me. Those are good virtues, I would say. They're not virtue signaling. It's virtues. They're virtuous. Those are good virtues. There are some good virtues these days. Anyway, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails. Complex and unprecedented, the Spanish authorities are calling it. Before the disembarko, asymptomatikas. Passengers who'd been stuck aboard the Hanta or maybe Hanta virus-stricken Dutch cruise ship disembarked in the Canary Islands this weekend, prompting the highest stakes game of where are they now since maybe COVID. Some of the evacuees, American and French, have since tested positive for the virus. And yet public health officials seem remarkably calm.

have one individual who was taken to the biocontainment unit early, early this morning, and we assessed that individual. They are doing well. Possibly because this is not the one to freak out over. Today, explain drops every weekday afternoon. Okay, so today, we're driving to Southern New Jersey. And heading to a data center. A couple weeks ago, I read a story in NJ.com.

And it was all about how there's a data center going up in Cumberland County. the poorest county in New Jersey that's receiving some community pushback. And this immediately got my attention because data centers are going up all across the country. I feel like we should be hearing politicians talk more about this, but we haven't really heard a consensus. Are data centers really a necessary evil? Let's find out. This is technology we've never seen before. Right. Experiment.

We're an experiment down here. And we're the guinea pigs. Right. And where the guinea pigs are. Exactly. Exactly. One thing that happens in this country is there's no planning for the future. Is it benefiting people or is it benefiting the elite and the money that's going into their pockets?

This is not about abstract politics. It's about people's everyday lives. That's this week on America Actually. This week on criminal, a man leaves his girlfriend at the top of a mountain. He's charged with her death. And then at the trial, his ex-girlfriend testifies that the same thing had happened to her too. She screamed, she felt dizzy, and at that moment she realized she was completely alone,

Thomas apparently left her. On our other show, This Is Love, a story of another couple on a mountain. There's no ledges, there's... You're trapped. I had confidence that there's no way this many things can go wrong in a row. You can listen to both episodes right now

on Criminal and This Is Love, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, let's do some wins and fails. Should I go first? You go first. Okay. I'm going to put it as a win and a fail on both. Now, I love Stephen Colbert, right?

I love him. I think he's really funny. I think he's going to have an enormous career after he leaves. I think they're overdoing it on the goodbye tour. I have to say it plays, I hate to agree with people, but it's like. It's like a woman's birthday party that turns into a Jubilee coronation for two fucking years. I just feel like, come on. Leave already.

We get it, leave. And it's also like, it's the five white guys. I was like, you're not making yourself feel like, I get it. I'm pissed myself about the parent to takeover. I am too. But I'm not going to like go on about it. That said, what I did love is when they bring Letterman back, who I love when he's mad. Like I love a Letterman anger, and I think it's really funny.

And that was sort of his brand, sort of dyspeptic anger. And they threw the furniture, and then they threw the melons, and they threw the the birthday cake off the roof. I thought that was so funny and just exactly all I needed. So that was my win and fail at the same time. And when he says, good night and good luck, motherfuckers, that made me laugh hysterically. Like, do it in humor, but it's getting, like, it's getting a little much. I, God, I can't believe. Megan Kelly said it's a version of this, and I hate to agree with her, and I love Stephen Colbert. And I think he's got, I think they're not telling the truth about what happened here.

I do know that these shows are declining, and this is the way it goes. They could have done a lot of other things. But just stick with the funny, and we all know you got fucked. Like, I get it. But just go on and do great things. That's what I would say. I just am feeling a little bit like, okay, boys, you know, there are lots of people that get fucked. So let's do something about it, as you say.

All right, you're win and fail. People are going to be mad at me, but I love Stephen Colbert anyway. Well, I have a fail and a prediction. And, okay, so my fail is Nicholas Christoff and what I believe is a breakdown in standards at the New York Times. And his piece on Palestinian prisoners, I think, is my fail. And not because the subject isn't serious and not because it's an important issue. I believe that our military operations in Western societies and democracies need to be held to a higher standard. and whether it's a second strike on a boat, not a Navy vessel with survivors and not giving them quarter or the abuse of Palestinian prisoners,

I think that the IDF should be held to a higher standard than any military in the Middle East. So it's not that it's not an important issue. But there's a line in the piece suggesting that dogs were trained to rape prisoners. That's an extraordinary claim. and extraordinary claims require a level of evidence that was not met here, not vibes, not hearsay, not someone said. If you're going to publish something that incendiary, you need airtight sourcing,

multiple corroborated on the record confirmations, or clear documentation, and is someone who has a background or experience with Belgian Malinwas and has come very close to adopting a canine dog, the notion that a dog can be trained to physically rape somebody, it's just fucking ridiculous. And I feel that they're not informing the public. They're injecting a narrative accelerant

into one of the most volatile conflicts on the planet. And here's the bigger problem. When legacy media outlets, especially one that has the prestige, the reputation, the talent of the New York time runs with claims like that that aren't bulletproofed, they're not risking being wrong. They're risking a further erosion

and trust in everything else. else that's true. And they hand ammunition to people who want to dismiss all reporting as bias or fabricated. And this isn't, I'm trying not to take sides here. I think this is about standards. War is where truth goes to die on both sides, which means journalism needs to be really disciplined. And if you lower the bar because the story aligns with your priors, you're no longer doing journalism, you're doing advocacy with a byline.

And I think that these abuses, the ones that can be proven, get discounted because the media couldn't resist the most shocking version of the story. This reminds me of all those stories about child soldiers. They really upset people for the right reason. You take something innocent and talk about killing. Taking dogs and combining it with rape. It just, I read it and I thought, this is just over the fucking top for the New York Times. Well, can I just, I'm not going to push back because I think there's a lot of controversy.

on the story, that it was in the opinion section, that in this case, it probably, the New York Times reporters on the scene should have written a follow-up story or something to talk about this. Now, Christoph is known as an excellent journalist, has done amazing work. Not just that, not just because he won the Pulitzer Prize,

but like amazing work on all sorts of abuses across the world. And he's been accurate, as a very good reporter too. But this was an opinion section piece, as you know. And the New York Times has been very supportive of him, but I think in this case, this should have been also reported because of the nature of it. You've got to have like extensive reporting on this, even if it, because it's so incendiary. And I think probably I don't know what happened and they need to talk about it. But the New York Times is backing his reporting. The question is, should they do more reporting, right?

And if this was the same allegations on the Israeli side, has been, I mean, on the Hamas side, of the same sexual abuses, same thing, right? Like, allegations, same thing. And so that's what's important here is to do as, I think you double report stuff like this, triple report and quadruper report. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out because the Times has been backing him on this stuff. and he is citing a lot of UN stuff. He's citing a lot of reports on the scene. He's citing a lot of stuff. But it requires extra, extra reporting. As much as, you know, that may seem offensive to some,

I think I do agree with you here. They've got to really button it up in a way that because of the incendiary nature and where it is at the same time, even if you have a side and you feel like, you know, that war does result in terrible abuses. of the citizenry. Yeah, I'm going to defer to you on journalistic standards. I just read it and thought, I have trouble.

This seemed so unbelievable that it required more than more evidence and better reporting than I felt was evident in the article. And then on something that is so important in terms of how we in the West, and I do consider to Israel, Israel is an ally and part of the West, the standards they should be held to are really important and deserve, they deserve scrutiny. I mean, I get it, people who, and when people claim I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm anti-Israel, I say to them, you know, I can relate to that because I don't like Netanyahu, but I care so much about Israel that I would like to see Netanyahu voted out of office because I don't think they have acquitted themselves well in

terms of many of the ways they have approached this conflict. I get it. But when you reduce the veracity of your reporting on this key issue and other ones by, as someone, I don't feel like I have domain expertise around how prisoners are treated. I have some domain expertise around dogs, quite frankly. And I just thought, okay, I have, I can't even, this is unimaginable for me, for someone who has spent a lot of time around Belgian Malinouaz for them to say that. And then I'm like, where's the evidence, where the proof, where's the double, the corroboration, the further investigation, and it wasn't there. And I thought, it reminded. me of when you see those just unthinkable pictures. At the end of the war, Americans were really

horrified by what they saw in concentration camps. They were almost as horrified by the Germans enlisting 14-year-olds and sending them to the front lines because you took children, something innocent, and you collided it with something heinous, killing other people. And this reeked of that to me. Let's find the most innocent creatures in the world, dogs. And let's combine it with rape. Well, let me just read that just for this for people to know. We'll see where it zeroes out, but I'm assuming they're going to do further reporting would be my guess internally. And there's a lot of people saying they're going to, they're going to retract it. This is, Christoph has said this is not true. This is the, this was the quote that the New York

Times gave, just so we have it. There is no truth to this at all. Nicholas Christoph is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has reported on sexual violence for decades and is widely regarded is one of the best, the world's best on ground reporters documenting and bearing witness to sexual abuse experienced by women and men in war and conflict zones. He traveled to the region to report firsthand on the stories of Palestinians who suffered abuse. And this article collects accounts of the victim's own words backed by independent studies. So we'll see, this has another chapter happening because they're getting such pushback, and including from Netanyahu. So I, I do hate to say, like, you have to do extra reporting on certain topics, but I think there's,

you have to anticipate, even if it's Netanyahu or whoever it happens to be and have everything locked up tight. I would agree with you on that. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. I thought that was a productive conversation. I appreciate it. Yes, no problem. So, uh, people are going to be mad anyway, no matter what, but there's no talking about this without everyone going to their corner. Yeah. Yeah. And, and getting very upset. And I understand that. Um, look, my, this is, I'm not supposed to do a prediction, but I couldn't help it. It just struck me as fairly obvious. You're going to see an invasion of some of the islands off the coast of China. Well, let me back up. Basically, my prediction is Kinmen and Matsu Islands are going to be invaded in the next 24 months

are seized. And you're going to have what by the Chinese. Yeah, you'll probably have an economic blockade, you can't have, I don't think an amphibious assault of Taiwan is feasible. And I think China after seeing what's happened in Ukraine and Iran, and the fact there isn't a single person in the Chinese military who has any combat experience, I don't think they want to get. An amphibious landing in Taiwan is unthinkable. However, the straits of Taiwan are where 50% of all shipping goes through. I think a soft economic blockade is coming for the following reasons. A show went down my spine when on Air Force One, Trump was asked if he would support and defend Taiwan, and he said, I'm not going to let anybody know that. What is clear to me, and the fact pattern is just so obvious

here, is that Trump is concerned with one thing, and that is becoming the wealthiest man in the world. And I believe he sold out Taiwan in a private meeting at that summit. And evidence of that was for the first time an American president has said, well, I'm not going to say anything about how I feel about America's continued support of Taiwan. And it's not only turning our back on a Democratic ally, but the basic counterbalances amongst between U.S. CNAIL relations is the following. They control 90% of the processing of rare earth materials. We control 90% of the most advanced chips because of our tight relations. ship with Taiwan. If China gets access to those Taiwanese chips, which is another reason they wouldn't do an amphibious invasion because they don't want to destroy those factories, but if they use their economic cloud to do what is effectively a soft creeping takeover of Taiwan and we're not there to support them, China has won.

100%. It's the move. It's the move. If you were them, it's the move. And I think Trump, I don't think Trump gives a shit about geopolitics. the decline of U.S. negotiating leverage. I think he cares about... U.S. consumers, he doesn't care about it. I think he cares about one thing. I think she, if I were she, I would have said the following. You know, you realize I'm super interested in your coin. And with just a fraction of our budget,

I can use offshore accounts to take the Trump coin. I think I can get it worth... Here's my math guy here. I think I can get it worth to be $200,000, billion because price discovery is at the margins. I think I can take it there within, say, 90 days, six months before your presidency ends, and then you'll have 90 days to divest of your holdings. And by the way, is there any way you can move out Ohio-class submarines from all the straits of Taiwan? And by the way, I think economic reintegration of Taiwan into the great nation of China

would make sense without any bloodshed. What do you think? I think that conversation is already happened, and I think evidence of it was what he said on Air Force One. Yeah, he's in. And again, another talking point for a Democrat, we will back Taiwan economically and militarily, if necessary, because chips are the future. Don't get backed into a corner about threatening another forever war, say chips are the future folks, and Taiwan is an amazing ally of ours. And the only reason that we have control over 90% of what is the new oil in an information economy, and that's chips, we cannot let Taiwan go to the Chinese. Make an economic argument, not a military argument.

You know what I would do on top of that? I would make Jensen Wan move to Taiwan, see how he feels about that, like, with the Chinese block it. Like, let's have some, these, this selling chips to the Chinese is such a mistake. It is such an advantage we have. I love this prediction. Scott, you should be mayor of a lot of. Los Angeles. That's what you should run. I'd run on the in and out ticket, in an outburger ticket. Yeah, we could run. Hollywood Bowl. Top advisor and speech writer.

Oh, I can. I'm in. I'm in. Okay. Anyway, Scott, that is really smart. That is a really, you're absolutely right. That's exactly how they're going to do it. And Trump has sold out a critical, critical part of our security. And calling David Sanger, by the way, can I just, just last thing?

David Sanger, speaking of great New York Times reporters, is one of the top reporters in this area. calling me a traitor is one of the more, there's so many heinous things Trump says, but just absolutely, as I always say, every accusation is a confession. He's the traitor. Anyway, 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. Just submit a question for the show. We'll call 85551. Pivot. Okay, that's the show. Thank you for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

We'll be back on Friday. Today's show was produced by LeraName and Zoe Mar. Marcus Taylor Griffin and Todd Wiseman. Ernie and Retiret, I introduced this episode. Thanks also to Gibros, Missouvera, and Danj, Janj,ilandash, Khoraz, Box Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. I will see you on Thursday.