Pivot - Elon's Ultimatum, Trump's Military Purge, and Amazon's 007 Deal

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss Elon's ultimatum to federal workers, his bizarre chainsaw-wielding appearance at CPAC, and the paternity lawsuit brought by a right-wing influencer. Then, Trump fires several high-ranking military leaders, and brings in podcaster and former Fox News personality Dan Bongino as Deputy FBI director. Plus, the markets try to rebound after a dramatic plunge, Amazon takes control of the James Bond franchise, and new polling shows nobody likes Mark Zuckerberg. 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

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it's about people and the possibilities technology can offer us. The future is built on ARM. You can discover more at arm.com slash discover. Okay, business leaders, are you here to play or are you playing to win? If you're in it to win, meet your next MVP. NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is your full business management system in one convenient suite.

With NetSuite, you're running your accounting, your finance, your HR, your e-commerce, and more, all from your online dashboard. Upgrade your playbook and make the switch to NetSuite, the number one cloud ERP. Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash Vox. netsuite.com slash Vox. Would you give up this podcast in order to serve the Trump administration? Oh, Kara, I wouldn't give up a goiter to serve in the Trump administration. Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, I'm exhausted, and not just by Elon Musk. What's up? What's going on? I moved my house. I was in an apartment. I'm sitting here in the empty apartment right now,

and moving sucks, Scott Galloway. So let me just give you a couple of pro tips on moving. Let your wife do it. The first is you leave town. Yeah. And the second is you give your partner, whoever's actually charged with moving, limitless funds, and just say,

please just accidentally let me know when it's all done and then I will find reason why my business trip ends. But no, you should not be involved in moving your A.E. I am so anal retentive, I have to. You don't understand, I have to wash everything. Let go, let it go. I can't, I can't, I can't. I literally was up all last night

because there's dust on everything. And I'm really, people don't realize this, but I'm highly anal retentive. And so everything has to go back the right way. Or I can't. I'm not sure that's gonna shock anybody, Kara. I can't speak if the glass isn't in the police. She's so easy going.

Well, we're not, and we know who we're not talking about. I hate it though, moving. I don't like the whole, like all the things. It makes me want to be a Buddhist. I'm like, I would like to let go of all things. I find as you get older, when you're younger you want to acquire shit and then as you get older you want to dispose of it.

You want to- You get rid of stuff. I'm like, what do I have this in multiple amounts like that kind of thing? I just vowed I wouldn't move again ever again. I'm just going to die and I've decided I'm dying in this house. Like this is where it's happening. You're leaving feet first? I don't know. I'm going to die and I've decided I'm dying in this house. Like this is where it's happening. You're leaving feed first?

I don't know. I'm going to slow, I've got to have a theory of getting rid of all my stuff. I've got 25 plus years essentially to get rid of everything. So I have to have a theory of getting rid of things in some fashion. I do it all the time. I love it. I love purging. They purge. Yeah. I love having a small number of things. And I like my happy place, if you will,

is my place in SoHo. And I have license to decorate as I want. And it's like a, you know, it's an angry, depressed, Northern European person who doesn't like stuff. And anything that comes in, anything that comes in, something has to go out. If anything comes in, something has to go out. If anything comes in, something has to leave.

And I don't want- Even guests? Yeah, I just don't want stuff. I think it feels really peaceful and nice when there's an absence of things. Yeah, yeah, it's still beautiful. It's still, you have nice things that are there, but I know what you mean.

Right now, for some reason, every time I move, I have an existential crisis. I'm like, this couch will be here after I die. Like I was saying. I did buy a couch. It was a nice couch. You'll come sit. Have you ever visited my house, do you think?

Unlikely. I have a nice guest room now. I like to stay somewhere where I can call and scream, where am I? Where's my room service? Where's my room service? Well, Claire would bring you breakfast, I suppose. That sounds nice.

I don't stay at friends' place. Even when I'm at family's, I stay in a hotel. You do? I don't, I wanna be able to stay up till four in the morning and watch cable and- You can do that. I have a TV in there. You can do whatever you want.

Yeah, no one needs to see me walking around at three in the morning. The lights on, as they say. Just remember the lights on, like Motel 6. Yeah, it's not me. As is for you Scott Galloway. Anyway, I moved my office into a new studio, which I built in my house. I moved the house and guess who's coming

to Washington to live. Lucky? Yes, indeed. That's right. We're moving her in a couple of weeks. You moved her into like the Four Seasons retirement home, right? Exactly, we will be.

So literally moving things around, including my mother. You think she'll appreciate it? I don't think so. I have nothing to say. Yeah, I think it's great that she's gonna be with you and I hope she's happy, I hope you're happy. I briefly considered moving her into your SoHo place and that you wouldn't know she was there, like in the back.

She might not know for a while. My building, I don't know if even notice, no one's ever there. No, it's the best building ever. It's like the ghost building, the zombie building. I won't even go up in the elevator if someone's getting in the elevator. I don't want to make eye contact. I want to know my neighbors. Interesting.

I don't want them to see the prostitutes I'm bringing in. I don't want any of that. I don't. Okay. I'm just like, don't make eye contact. I say hi to everybody. I say, come don't want any of that. I don't, I'm just like, don't make eye contact. I say hi to everybody. I say, come on over when Scott's here. Scott would love to have you over for cocktails.

Give the doorman a thousand bucks a year for hush money. They know what's going on. A little Michael Cohn payment. Yeah. A little, what happens on the second floor stays between the lobby and the third floor. Okay, all right. I have enjoyed staying there.

I'm gonna ask you one more favor to stay there, but I'm thinking of buying a place in New York so I can be near or closer to you. Well, we better go to four times a week. Your expenses are about to go up. Yeah, I know, it's true. It's true. So- Zipper-cruiter!

Yeah, I need to, Louis is graduating NYU. I'm gonna need to stay there because I can't deal with the hotel. Oh, is that right? Okay. Yeah, I'll tell you. Send me the dates. Yeah, we'll have a big party. Or just show up.

They let everyone up anyways. They do, they're like, oh yeah. I'm not exaggerating. When I walk in there, we'll have a big party. Or just show up, they let everyone up anyways. They do, they're like, oh yeah. I'm not exaggerating, when I walk in there, the first thing I do is I go, hello? Cause there's a good chance someone's gonna go, oh, hey Scott, yeah, we got in last Thursday. Best hotel in New York. We brought our St. Bernard and my cousins, is that okay?

Best hotel in New York. And you know what's the only good thing about moving is I was blissfully not paying attention to news this weekend, which was horrible. Let me just say there was so much bad news that it was lovely not to be paying attention to it anyway when you're moving boxes. So we've got a lot to get to today, including Elon's chainsaw moment. You had some very funny threads about that, Scott Galloway.

And Trump installing another loyalist at the FBI. In fact, it just, it goes on anyway. And also this thing he did this week, Elon pulling yet another page out of his Twitter playbook, ordering federal employees, millions and millions of them to summarize their accomplishments for the week or face consequences. Federal workers receive emails over the weekend

with a subject line, what did you do last week? Elon warned on X that a failure to respond would be taken as a sign of resignation. He has no right to do so, by the way. Several agency heads are pushing back on the directive, including FBI Director Cash Patel, I can't believe I'm saying those words, who told employees to pause on responding to the email. I'm not sure it's a pushback or not, but I'm going to read five accomplishment lists that are making the rounds on social media because some of them are very funny. This one from a threads user gives us a look at Elon's possible list.

One took too much ketamine, two danced on stage with a chainsaw, three ignored my new baby mama, four laughed at my own bad joke, five neglected all of my children except the one I use as a human shield. He also neglected him. You saw pictures. He walked ahead him. If you saw pictures, he walked ahead of a four-year-old and sort of lost him for a second. We'll get to the chainsaw and baby mama stuff in a bit. But this one from Shannon on threads cuts to the chase. Dear Elon, five things I did last week. One to five, your mom. To Amy Klobuchar posted

her five weekly accomplishments, which included stood with Ukraine instead of Russia. The other senator from Minnesota, they're very sassy in Minnesota. Tina Smith seemed to be channeling Scott with her response to Elon. She posted, this is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk, except he isn't even a boss, he's just a dick. That's the new word for Elon for Democrats. So thoughts, and I want to know

the five things you accomplished last week. Well, a couple of things. One, and I want to know the five things you accomplished last week. Well, a couple of things. One, in this case, the messaging, and I was speaking to someone over the weekend about this, I don't think the Democrats, I don't think we get anywhere focusing on the injustice of all this. No, but I like the dick one.

But go ahead. Well, just I think you focus on the incompetence. There are a lot of people in America who have gotten an email or have been fired abruptly. And it's not, yeah, it's terrible. It happens, moderates right now, and a lot of people in the US like it because they think that government's gotten too big.

They think it's gotten out of control. And if they break a few eggs, fine, so be it. And these TikToks of someone in the National Forestry Service saying, I just lost my job unceremoniously. It's like, well, okay, that happened to my cousin, maybe happened to me. And I don't think that's how they should be messaging.

I think they should be messaging about the corruption, that okay, it just so happens that everyone in charge of overseeing the National Highway Safety Board, specifically around autonomous vehicles, or a large number of them have been fired, and those are the people directly overseeing Musk's attempt to perhaps put unsafe autonomous cars on the road.

And the fact that this is really just a misdirect from the following, they're talking about a $50 billion savings from Doge, but look over here, because what we don't want you to see is that we're talking about a $900 billion a year increase in the deficit, which is nothing but a tax on our children or our grandchildren such that Scott Galloway can have a tax cut. I put into AI my W-2 and then the latest proposed Trump tax cut, I'm going to save $950,000 a year if this thing goes

through. Meanwhile, they want to cut over $800 billion from Medicaid that children depend on. So yeah, DOJ, again, it's a fucking misdirect. Okay, it's a tragedy, I'm sorry, fine. But all it is is a misdirect from what they're planning to do, and that is give a bunch of money to really rich people. I am gonna push back a little bit.

I do think people have an experience that, I've noticed a lot of sympathy for these people. If you notice these meetings that Republicans are going to and there's widespread reporting on this, people are like, you're a fucking dick. Like why is he after he is getting very bad reviews and the way he's doing this, because everyone works in the office, you know, from the TV show, right, works in that place. And I don't think people enjoy the schadenfreude at all. I don't think they know it could come for them. They don't like when they have it.

I think it has actually a good point to point out the stupidity of it and the incompetence more than anything else. Like another dick move, dick boss move is a very good way to put it. The other thing is to point out the inaccuracy of everything. Another word for incompetence,

like we say 55 billion actually zero. Yeah, right. I think those are very good things. These people aren't even effective and they're damaging people. You can't go to your public park anymore. You can't do this, you can't do that. I think those are effective.

I think here's how government does work for you. That gets people in the mode of liking government. Wait, I did like that. I did like getting my check. I did like the parks working. I did like going to Yosemite or whatever it happens to be. I think you respond to people, I did like when I could buy eggs at the store, all those things.

I think adding on to, it's not just the stuff around his car, every single agency he has targeted are agencies the most, are agencies that have been investigating him, and that's an issue. And I think he's got a, his numbers in the polls are very bad, I would say very, very bad. And they may improve, but I don't quite know how they will. And they're trying really hard. The Trump people are trying, but it's not working particularly well, they

think, because he keeps doing these dick moves, essentially. I mean, for example, his appearance at CPAC, Elon wore his black MAGA hat sunglasses and at one point wielded a chainsaw on stage that was given to him by Argentina's president, Malay. His on stage interview was full of crazy stuff. Let's just listen to a clip. I am become meme. Yeah, pretty much. I'm just, I was living the meme.

I'm just like, there's living the dream and there's living the meme and it's pretty much what's happening, you know? You're like, I think you're bigger. I mean, Doge started out as a meme, think about it. And now it's real. Isn't that crazy? It is. It is crazy.

But it's cool. No, he's crazy. That was, and they were all, he was laughing at his own jokes and they're like, and that guy who interviewed him was such a suck up was like, it was so awkward. Scott, as you said on Thres, this is like when your ketamine dealer finally gets back from Cabo. Ha ha ha. Thank God he's back. I know, I know.

So what did you, everyone talks about him being allegedly on drugs. That was some performance. He was on something. I think it's a far right echo chamber of people who mistake leadership for coarseness and cruelty and just general weirdness. I don't know, I think it brings down, I think him not having good polling,

he's in the political spectrum thing now, it matters. Polling matters to these people. And if you're getting pushback, if you're a congressperson in like Bemidji. Well, that's different, the rallies, I think we should all, anyone with a platform has a responsibility. I mean, let me back up, what to do. I think we should all, anyone with a platform has a responsibility.

Let me back up, what to do. A common tactic across in the GRU propaganda machine is blitzkrieg of information where so many things are coming at you, you don't know how to parse them, you feel helpless, you don't know where to start. However, you need to calm down and there's a few basic defense mechanisms

or a few means of counter punching one. Recognize you don't need to respond to every outrageous thing. You don't need to be emotional. Two, when you do respond, respond with experts and data. Try not to be overly emotional. And also, and this is the hard part, decide which punches you're gonna pick.

And that is pick one or two or maybe three issues and focus on those and highlight them. So for example, I am not focusing on this bullshit around DEI or Doge or transgender. Some people I think are passionate about it should focus on it. I believe the two most important things are the following. We have decided to surrender to Putin

and we have decided to essentially reconfigure the world order that has created more prosperity and peace and rights than any other 80 year period in history. And that is a very dangerous, stupid thing to do. And two, while everyone is focused on the $60 billion going to Ukraine or the $50 billion savings from Doge, that is not where they should be looking.

They should be looking at the $900 billion a year annual increase in the deficit. Surrender and deficit are the two things I'm gonna focus on. Be unemotional, you don't need to respond right away, bring experts, bring facts, and focus on the one or two issues that you wanna be a domain expert on.

Otherwise, you just come across as what they want. If you can be offended, you can be manipulated and you look weak. Don't be offended. Oh, I don't think people were offended. I think they were making great jokes. I mean, I don't know. You had a good joke.

That's, I don't know. People aren't offended by him as much as like, what a fucking tool, like mocking. We need to move from what I call being right to effective and figuring out a plan for counterpunch and then start talking about tactics. I think the Democrats right now, instead of talking about how a rage are, should be saying, oh, by the way,

we are shutting down the government. If you've decided that the government is so incompetent, if you don't want to deal with the government, if you don't want to deal with elected representatives, fine, we're going to go upstream of Elon Musk and we are going to shut down the government. It's coming. All right? And let's see what happens to the 10 year bond and the wealth of the 0.1%. We are not going to raise the debt limit. That is the message they should be sending right now. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.

Then I'll ignore Steve Bannon channeling his nemesis Elon doing the Nazi salute. What the fuck is with that? And they're claiming it's a Roman salute? What are they claiming? There's no Roman salute? There's no such thing. There's no such thing. It's a Nazi salute. Stop it. Stop it. I've deeply studied the Roman salute.

There's no such thing. It's the Nazi salute. Anyway, he's facing legal claims from right-wing influencer Ashley St. Clair, who were paternity and custody of their alleged child. St. Clair revealed her child's existence the next few weeks ago. I actually knew about it. I think I told you about it. And said, Elon was the father. Elon has yet to publicly acknowledge his paternity, but court documents say he

has done so in various written correspondences. Another kid, his daughter Vivian posted on threads, if I had a nickel for every time that I found out I had a new sibling, half sibling online, I'd have a few nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened six separate times. She's funny. She is really, really funny. If you want to talk about what's ailing our country right now, it's that young people under the age of 30

aren't doing as well as their parents were at 30 for the first time in our nation's history. And within that is a subset of people who are doing especially poorly, and it's young men. And the single point of failure for a young man coming off the tracks, becoming more prone to extremist content, becoming more polarized, becoming more likely to harm himself, and some more likely to become a really shitty citizen, it can all be reverse engineered to one thing, and that is the thing that our dear leader,

President Musk, is engaging in. And the one point of failure for young men is when they lose a male role model. This is more fundamental than technology. It is more fundamental than cutting costs. It is more fundamental than government services. At some point, character does matter. And the ground central, or the ground zero in my view, for character for a man, the very basic,

the A, Bs and Cs are, are you going to be involved in your offspring? And we're over here talking about Doge. Anyways, I found that to be the most offensive thing of the week. Interesting, it's interesting. I don't like him illegally raiding and wrecking government more than this.

I think this is his modus operandi with all these women. This is what he doesn't, he thinks he should spread his seed. This is what he thinks. This is one of his theories of existence. The most basic job of a man in a person is to look after your young. That's where it all starts. Well, he must pay for them, I guess, I don't know. And again, more, the strongest signal of, what is your job?

Your job is to produce loving, patriotic offspring, in my view. And the single point of failure, the strongest signal isn't whether these kids are gonna have money or not. The strongest signal is involvement of their parents. And if it's a boy, involvement of dad. And already he's being sued by two different people. Please don't say that.

Girls need their fathers too. Yeah, but actually, there's research around this and it's the following. Of all the single parent households in the US, four and five are headed by women. Girls in those homes have the similar outcomes in terms of college attendance, rates of self-harm, and rates of depression.

What you find with boys though, is that the moment there's no longer a male involved in their lives, the likelihood they'll be incarcerated, addicted to opiates, or engaged in self-harm dramatically increases. What it ends up is that while boys are physically stronger, they are mentally and emotionally much weaker than girls. Interesting.

So it is a bigger deal when the dad is not involved in the boy's life. What say we of the lesbians then? My kids, I think, are very well-intested. Well, I would argue, or there hasn't been as much research, but I think what they find is that the key is having two parents, and also, and this will get me shit, typically in gay relationships,

one person brings more masculine energy than the other. True? No, no, it's nonsense. That's nonsense. No. Well, illuminate me. It's just not true. There's various and different people, just like straight couples. Some of the ladies are more manly, I guess, in some fashion.

Do you think perhaps two parents, though, or two? Two parents, absolutely. Two loving parents, I think, are the critical part. And involvement of men, certainly, we've spent a lot of time making sure the boys, I did have that, have my brother, my son is fixated on you, as you know. And we think that's important. We think that's really important. But I would say it's two loving parents,

I think are the critical, if possible. And that's unfortunately not possible for a lot of people. And if not, then there's community stuff like churches or Boy Scouts, or well not Boy Scouts, it's gotten so pillory, but any of those kinds of things where they can have a feeling of community is critically important.

One of the quickest paths, I think, to a better country would be a recognition that the moment a boy loses access to a male role model, that the community and family need to move in and make sure there's men involved in that boy's life. And what's really unfortunate is that men aren't stepping up to the plate. So, and I say this all the time, if we want better men, we need to be better men. But to produce offspring, in my opinion, and not be involved in their lives,

it is such an ugly feature of a person. Well, it's part of his brand, right? The kids everywhere. I fuck everybody and leave babies in my way. This is his thing. This is his weird fucking thing. You're bringing into the world a child that has a tremendous disadvantage relative to other kids who are brought into loving households with either one or two women who decide to ensure

that there are men involved in this kid's life. And it creates a host of issues. As someone who has been asking themselves for a long time, why did my dad not decide to be involved in my life? And what it ends up is that it is harder and more damaging for boys to deal with this than girls. Yeah, that's true. Women just marry shitty men.

So, the women I know. Anyway, don't be a shitty father, man. Like Elon Musk, obviously, so obviously is. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's military purge and his latest hire. Support for Pivot comes from the NPR podcast, Tech Unheard. If you're a subscriber to this podcast, then you're probably curious about the businesses and minds behind technology shaping our future. ARM is one of those innovative tech leaders,

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Indeed.com slash vox ca. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Warning. I've got this condition where I don't feel pain. You're a superhero. Doing indeed is all you need. Scott we're back. Sox fell sharply last Friday with the Dow seeing its worst week since October and the S&P wiping out almost all of the gains since Trump took office. The downturn was fueled in part by a drop in consumer sentiment index, which fell to its

lowest level in more than a year. With consumers concerned about higher inflation, they're also worried about Trump's tariffs. As of the recording Monday morning, the S&P and 500 and Nasdaq were still down. There's also these government layoffs, which are going to have, they're the biggest bull air in the country. Warren Buffett's in cash, has gone into cash and he's not saying why. What do you make of the stock market situation? Well, just being a Warren Buffett, he has a metric which people look to, which has been a fairly reliable indicator of when the markets might be due for a correction. That is he looks at the market cap relative to the GDP.

And usually the average is around 100%. And when post-2009, it went down to 75%, indicating that stocks were cheap. And right now, I think upwards around of 190%. It's close to 200, yeah. It looks like things are really frothy. The hard part is, and the question is what to do. And my sense is, and what I tell people is, it is very hard to time the market.

It is very hard to time the markets because just when you think you're convinced markets are way too expensive, oftentimes they go up another 10 or 30%. And what I would say is it is very difficult to time the markets, just make sure you're diversified. And if you think, well, maybe I wanna put a little bit of cash on the sidelines to take advantage of opportunities,

that's one thing, but don't make the mistake I made. When Trump was elected in 2016, I thought, this guy's an idiot, he's gonna crash the economy. And I sold everything. And so I incurred a tax it appeared an enormous amount of taxes taking you know, 22.8% of any gains out. And then six months later, I realized that I'd acted out of emotion, the markets had screamed up and I had to I had to buy back in

with 78% of my capital at higher prices. So the lesson in terms of what to do is okay, you may want to take some cans off the table and move a little bit more into cash, but be clear, nobody can time the market. You just want to be diversified and stand for as long as possible. Yeah, I just don't look. I just don't look.

That's the right strategy. That's my don't look strategy. And every now and then when it seems insane, I sell a little bit. It's like sort of gambling, but I'm not much of a gambler in any case. Also President Trump announced on Sunday night that he's naming podcaster and former Fox News personality Dan Bongino as deputy FBI director.

Bongino is also a former Secret Service agent and NYPD officer. The role of deputy director does not require Senate confirmation, typically goes to a senior FBI agent. In his post on social, Trump noted Bongino is willing and prepared to give up his podcast in order to serve. I have, I have had backs and forth with him quite a bit when I wanted to interview him. Uh, he kept telling me how much bigger his podcast was than mine. It was very weird, but ultimately, uh, he was going to do it. And then of course, you know, wimped out as I expected, would you give up this

podcast in order to serve the Trump administration? Oh, Kara, I wouldn't give up a goiter to serve in the Trump administration. I mean. A goiter, when have you thought of the word goiter? Oh my God. That's my favorite word. That's a good word, goiter.

I don't like a goiter. Wouldn't that suck to have a goiter and not be able to do anything about it? Anyway, sorry. Just thinking I lived in goiter. Wouldn't that suck to have a goiter and not be able to do anything about it? Anyways, sorry. Just thinking I lived in medieval times. Yeah, or a goiter on your anus. Yeah. Yeah, no, I wouldn't.

No, I would not, would you? No, for all, no, oh, actually maybe I might and then I'll be in charge of the military and then I'll do the bad things that he doesn't want me to do and have a coup or something like that. This guy isn't qualified. He's not quite, like who's a cop, okay? And he was a secret service agent, but this is just a ridiculous circus, these people, and it's dangerous. At this point, I just want someone who's competent and can like do math. Can he, is he any of those? No, he's got a lot of, he's in a rage a lot.

Don't go watch the podcast on video if you want to feel good about our nation's FBI. That's all I got to say. He's a lot. We had a really interesting back and forth, but he's a lot, he's a lot, and in a way that I don't think is particularly good for law enforcement.

Anyway, he also, from hiring to firing, Trump fired the country's senior military officers at chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown, he also from hiring to firing, Trump fired the country's senior military officers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown late Friday night, Friday night purge. The move was part of a larger military purge with six Pentagon officials fired in total, including the chief of naval operations and top lawyers for the army, navy, and air force. Obviously, they're getting themselves in place. The official line from defense secretary Pete Hegseth is that they're putting in place new leadership to focus on deterring fighting and winning wars actually against the American people probably.

But in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, Hegseth shared a little more about dismissing these lawyers. Let's listen. Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don't exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything, anything that happens in their spots. He's such an idiot. God, he sounds like, what is roadblocks? I'm quite concerned about this, that they're

trying to put people in a place. The person they put in a place said he loved Trump, apparently, and wore a MAGA hat. This seems regular. And just for people who don't know right now what we're on here, we just voted with Russia, not to condemn Russia for the Ukraine invasion for the first time, which seems astonishing that we're doing that.

It just happened in the UN, and we are on Russia's side in the Ukraine fight at this point, or not condemning them for what they're doing. And this guy's in charge, and he, of course, didn't know, FYI, who started the war, Hegseth on one of the TV shows. He's so dumb but also dangerous. Yeah, this is like FDR saying, well what were those ships doing in Pearl Harbor? Blaming, this is. He called it complex when someone,

even a Fox person said, fair to say that Russia invaded Ukraine, he said it's complex. He didn't, it's complex. He didn't, he's- They poured over the border and they started shelling maternity wards and sending, I mean, Russia invaded Ukraine.

It's weird that we can't even have simple truths anymore. And it's interesting that all these things we took for granted, if you think about the post World War II Alliance or the operating system that's created more prosperity, more rights, more democracy, life expectancy, plummets and infant mortality, all of these things can be reverse engineered, I would argue, to this alliance between democracies that we largely had each other's backs, not only on this victory of moral clarity, but also this visionary investment in our former enemies,

specifically Japan and Germany. And the result has arguably been more prosperity in the last 80 years and more righteous rights or progress or humanity than the previous 800. And this didn't happen by accident. And so basically to move to, well, I have an idea. Let's have two spheres of influence between two kind of a true autocrat and a wannabe autocrat

and we'll carve up the world. And Europe sort of sitting there. I mean, I'm trying to think of what could go right. And when I think it go right, and I think it's going to happen, is I think people do underestimate Europe. go right, and I think it's going to happen, is I think people do underestimate Europe. France and Britain are still very strong military and nuclear powers with fantastic educational institutions. Germany is arguably one of the two or three strongest manufacturing,

has one of the strongest manufacturing industrial bases. And also, a positive of this is they are, I believe Europe is going to be a union again and is going to rise up and state more explicitly that we have your back. When I say your, I mean, Ukraine. So I think the silver lining here might be that I'm hoping Europe fills the void for the next three years and 11 months. Well, that's what they're hoping.

That's what the German, the new German Chancellor, or who's going to be the new German Chancellor said. I'm hoping we come out. I mean, I'm trying to move to what could go right, as opposed to everything around the sky is falling. And I think that Europe deciding to increase its military spending, decide that they need to be more unified, speak with a stronger singular,

put all their bullshit squabbling aside, maybe engage in BACSID. I think the UK absolutely needs to show more leadership and reintegrate back into the EU and show that, okay, if we can't count on America, that's fine. We're still arguably the largest economy in the world, as large as the US is. And we have Ukraine's back.

That things don't end well for Europe when we surrender to a murderous autocrat. Yeah, well, the US voted alongside North Korea, Belarus, and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries, so that was great. Oh my God, he's like a, what's, he's a useful idiot. I don't know what else to say. It's just, it's just astonishing. I mean, people, Ronald Reagan would be literally throttling him at this point. But look at what I don't get is my senior senator now, Secretary of State, Senator Marco Rubio, it's like,

who are you? And when I say it, I don't mean it like, who are you to do these things. But he kind of made his foreign policy chops being this cold warrior. And now he's saying he's complying and defending this ridiculous falsehood that Ukraine started the war. It's literally, who are you?

I don't, I do have any value whatsoever. Are there any values that are a red line for you whatsoever? What in the world are they thinking? I'd love to understand what he's actually thinking. You know, anyway, they're just clown, clown-aster clownish thing, and Marco Rubio's at the head of the parade. Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back.

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Let's get to some more headlines. Amazon has gained creative control over the James Bond franchise. A surprise. A tech giant will form a joint venture with Barbara Broccoli, who inherited control of Bond, and her brother, Michael G. Wilson, who remain co-owners, but they seem to have given up creative control. Amazon, that was a big deal when Amazon gained

the significant ownership as part of its purchase of MGM in 2021. Bond movies have made over $6 billion at the domestic box office. They have to replace Bond this year, by the way. I don't know if you care or not, but I do. I think it'll be interesting. I think they've been very consistently good,

the Bond movies, over the years. But I don't know who should play Bond from your perspective. I'd either go with Tom Hardy or Taylor Kitsch. Oh, really? Yeah. I think Idris Elba. He'd be very good. He's getting a little old though.

They need a younger Bond. I like the Kitsch. He'd be very good. He's getting a little old though. They need a younger Bond. I like the kitsch idea, that's not bad. He's a little too American, but actually Tom Hardy would be fantastic. I think he's really good. Tom Hardy, okay. All right. I'm going with Idris. Who do you like? Idris, I think he'd be really good.

I know he's older, you're right. He's older. Maybe who's a younger Idris? I don't know. They will probably pick an unknown who's in their 30s because what they want is they want someone who like Daniel Craig can go for five or six films. He was spectacular. I love all the Bonds. I think he's been spectacular. I don't know. Sean Connery remains the Bond. That's sentimental. No, it's not. I just watched them.

Daniel Craig is a better actor and brought more physicality to the role, I thought. I wanted to fuck Sean Connery, and that's not something I want to do. So I'm just saying. Roger Moore is pretty dreamy. He was until he got silly. I love Bond movies. I don't know if he was one of my things, Bond movies. I own them all.

I love them. What's your favorite? All of them. There's not one, you know, different parts of it. Some of them are pretty bad. I think Goldfinger for some reason I love because you know, Fort Knox, like stupid idiot. Elon Musk, go see the gold. What a fucking idiot he is.

Anyway, someone who people don't like even more, speaking of which, Democrats and Republicans are aligned on one thing, neither likes Zuckerberg. A Pew study of likeability of the meta CEO in Elon Musk found that 54% of US adults don't like Musk and 67% don't like Zuckerberg. Well, Musk's results falls on party lines with 85 percent of Democrats having unfavorable views and 73 percent of Republicans feeling favorable. I think that is falling. Mark Zuckerberg is a great uniter with both 60 percent of Republicans and

76 percent of Democrats hold unfavorable views. What is happening? What I don't get is why do they put themselves up for public perception? I understand that over time, the personification of a company is really important, but if I were Mark Zuckerberg, I would be like, okay. Shush, yeah. I'm not, I just don't have the skills.

I'm not likable. That's okay. And a lot of people realize that and say, I'm not a likable person. Most CEOs are like, well, that's actually not true. Most CEOs are likable. But I don't understand why it keeps person. Most CEOs are like, well, that's actually not true. Most CEOs are likable, but I don't understand why he keeps trying.

It feels like all this stuff around videos of him doing jujitsu and hunting. And it feels very like I desperately want to be liked. It's very thirsty. And if he just was in the background as this brilliant, he's arguably one of the most brilliant businessmen of the last 50 years, I think it would be better than if he was out there saying, okay, I need pictures of me hunting or fighting. They all think there are Steve Jobs who did it successfully, but he did it with class and grace, right? I don't know. I think they all think that. Like Bezos too. He's like, I'm like,

go home. Go home. Be with the kids. Go away. Like that kind of thing. Well, I think Tim Cook's done a really good job managing his brand. Yeah, but he's not around that much. Yeah, but when he's public, he's very manicured and he's very thoughtful about his statements. He has a very strong brand. He's very likable. Most of these guys do a very good job of, most of them, trying to come across as, Sacha and Adela is very likable.

And they, whenever you meet them- Don't say too much. The only time I've ever met these guys is at your conference. And they're all surrounded by PR people parsing every word and saying, "'Okay, here's your 10 minutes with this person.' And they're all surrounded by PR people parsing every word and saying, OK, here's your 10 minutes with this person.

And they're all very nice and friendly. And at the moment, if you ask them a question or it gets awkward, someone couriers them off. I think they think a lot about their public image and their perception. I think Brian Chesky is very good at managing his brand and coming across as likable. But the reality is in a constant media cycle

with social now, their public perception is pretty important. I know, but they should, Mark should stop threatening. He should stop showing up. He should stop pontificating. He's just bad at it. I agree. It's like you want to hear from the most annoying person

you know. Well, he needs another Sheryl Sandberg. He needs another heat shield to be more likeable. He had Sheryl, then he had Nick. The guy who's really done a great job of storytelling, although his book is this weird techno-libertarian book. Palantir guy. 100% Alex Karp.

He's an interesting fella. And going on Bill Maher, his kind of real time or videos of his earnings calls, his full embrace, wrapping himself in the flag. I think he's managed his brand really well. He's been aggressive, he's taken risks, and they've paid off, and the result is the company trades at like 90 times revenues. It's insanely overvalued, although it's dropped

about 20% in the last few trading days. I just like, Mark, nobody likes you. They just don't. They never have, not since the movie. And let me tell you, that attracts in real life, too, for people who don't know. Just like, I could not get away fast enough from Mark Zuckerberg. All right. Otherwise, we like the chains, Mark. We do like the chains. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll

be back for wins and fails. We're taking Vox Media Podcasts on the road and heading back to Austin for the South by Southwest Festival, March 8th through the 10th. What a thrill. Chicken fajitas, queso, strawberry margarita, extra shot of tequila. There you'll be able to see special live episodes of hit shows including our show, Pivot, Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel, A Touch More with Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, Not Just Football with Cam Hayward, and more presented by Smartsheet.

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That's voxmedia.com slash S-X-S-W. We talk about it in whispers. Hey, my name, I'm not gonna say it. I would like to remain anonymous if any of this is being used. Hi, um, I would like to stay anonymous. And my parents did recently buy me a house. We inquire about it gently. How can you afford this neighborhood or that school? My dad used to pay off my credit card every month up until recently.

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and housing prices. We're talking through it on Today Explained, every weekday wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so here's the deal. Take a former world number one, that's me, Andy Roddick. Add in the journalist who knows everything about tennis and a producer who's still figuring out how to spell tennis, you get served with Andy Roddick, the weekly podcast where we break down the game we all love. We cover the biggest stories, talk to the sport's biggest stars, and highlight the people changing tennis in ways you might not even realize.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like to go first or shall I? You go first, Kara. Well, the German election, I think, you know, even though Europe is going to have to pull its own, put its shoulder into it, the conservative party won, but the ADF did. This is a fail, I guess. What's happening in Germany is young people, they're voting for, it's interesting because the left had a big surge. I'm going to read something from a friend of mine who's German, who gave me some insight, was showing me sort of the election

results by age. Young people really leaned into the left party 25% and 20% for the right party, which was interesting. So they're really going, the young people are going different directions, 18 to 24, versus the older people who stayed with the conservative party or the version of the Democrats. The Greens lost some ground. Obviously the version of Democrats called the SPD lost ground. The CDU will now form a government, but they have to get together with others. And this is what my friend wrote, As expected, young voters voting extreme, highly influenced by social media. Unclear how long it will take to build a government.

Schultz, the chancellor, did the Biden by not stepping down in time. Big questions about the transatlantic relationship. Metz is an old fashioned transatlanticist, but with supporting ADF, we'll see a baseline. It's great that 85% turnout, a very vivid democracy, but 20% voting for an anti-migrant pro-Russia party was worrisome. I thought that was, but she was saying social media leads them, the left and the right to support extremes. So I'm worried that Germany is a linchpin of Europe and they're really, as a chancellor knew possible chancellor said, are on their own in lots of ways.

So they have to get together. My win is the main governor who stood up to Trump, who was threatening her. I appeared this week at the governor's forum. Jared Polis had me in to talk about education, which was interesting to the group, and I met some very nice governors. But Maine Governor Janet Mills told President Trump, we'll see you in court during this exchange about around transgender athletes. He called her out specifically, and I think she's like, I'm going to run my state the way we have our rules. So he threatened defunding, etc. It just was kind of a gross thing, but I kind

of thought that was badass of her. And then secondly, just very close for the win, people don't know Roberta Flack just died. And I love Roberta Flack, I love Roberta Flack so much. And I think two songs, obviously, the most famous for her is the first time ever, I saw your face. I don't remember when that was, Scott, and Killing Me Softly with his song. And that's what I think of you when I listen to that song. That's right, we met at DLD. That's the first time, Roberta Flack.

Yeah, wow, good one, long life. Yeah, you know what really hurt the far right party in Germany was Vance and Muss endorsement. Yeah, it brought it down. What does that say about you when you make Nazis less likable? Anyway, the- Run by a lesbian.

Run by a lesbian. Oh, that's right. But they still got about 22%, right? 20, 20, a little bit over 20. Just where they thought. It didn't improve it or lessen it. It didn't increase it, for sure. So look, my win is Canada defeated USA Thursday

to win the first ever four nations faceoff hockey tournament, which capped what had become a heated and politically charged event, but it was just such an incredible spectacle of sports. And hockey, I went to hockey games with my son and my dad. And when you get on the ice, you just see these players. There's just no phoning it in.

It really is an incredible spectator sport and an overtime goal from Connor McDavid, who's arguably the best player in the league, sealed the 3-2 win for Canada at the TD Garden in Boston where ticket prices had just soared. And obviously this meant more than just a hockey tournament. And it's very strange to be rooting for another nation, but I think there are a lot of Americans rooting for Team Canada here. And I think a lot of us take for granted

what has been just arguably one of the great alliances in history or the great friendships. Do you realize the US-Canadian border is the largest undefended border in the world? What does that say about our relationship with them? In World War II, Canada entered the war two years before the US and trained over 130,000 Allied airmen. During the Iran hostage crisis, Canadian diplomats sheltered six American embassy staff and helped orchestrate their escape. If they had been caught doing this, they would have been hanged from cranes. After 9-11, Canada launched Operation Yellow Ribbon, accepting 224 diverted flights when US airspace closed, sheltering 33,000 stranded passengers. Canada has fought alongside the US in World War I, World War II, Korea, the Persian Gulf,

Kosovo, Afghanistan, and against ISIS. I mean, there's just so many, Canada is America's largest trading partner. They supply more energy to the US than any other country. The countries share critical supply chains in manufacturing, especially automotive. They consistently support US diplomatic initiatives internationally.

They coordinate on Arctic policy. They worked with the US Dominican. The Canadians are the good people. They support US positions on international organizations, including NATO and the UN. Deep people-to-people connections with extensive family ties across borders. My parents first came to Toronto, where I was conceived,

and then came to San Diego where I was born. They have shared values around democracy, human rights and free markets, cooperation on environmental protection of shared waterways and natural resources. And also just in case you needed any reminder, they are the best in the world at hockey. This game, Connor McDavid, arguably the best player in the league,

took this thing in sudden death overtime and you could hear a roar across Canada as the 11th province, the United States, basically lost in overtime. And it's a strange feeling, but Canada, it is insane that we would be, you don't treat when your neighbor is this good to you and just defaults to being your neighbor

and being a wonderful ally, you don't treat them this way. And this game was, I'll tell you, the sport occasionally gets it right. This was an outstanding, Team USA played exceptional. They were outstanding on the ice. And actually American hockey is now almost rivaling Canadian hockey, but this was an incredible event. I mean, it was one of those moments in sporting history

where it was about the game, but it wasn't about the game. And it was just an outstanding game. Anyways, my win is Team Canada in the Four Nations Face-off hockey tournament. My fail is this, what I'll call a, the surrender domino of big tech, and that is, it's easy to rationalize why Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos show up

and agreed to sit side by side such that the president can pony them around and say, see the most powerful wealthiest tech executives in the world like me, and then bully them into giving them a million dollars. But here's the problem. Okay, so you're protecting shareholder value, but when the three of them and Sam Altman do this, it makes it easier for someone like Linda Yacarino to start threatening a government retribution against IPG and Omnicom. She basically threatened to block the merger

unless they advertise on the platform. It leads to Amazon paying Melania Trump in a rational number for her biography, thinking that we are now full kleptocrat. And the lack of separation of business and state is really not as important, but right up there with the importance of separation of church and state. Because in the 30s, Hitler basically said to corporations, if you support me and give me money, I'll bust the unions. And they became sort of intertwined until they lost sort of any difference. It is a key step to fascism,

is when corporations are bullying into supporting one group. And then unfortunately, because the other group decides to engage in fair play, the incentives are to support the autocrat. Yeah, can I add something? Just today, before we're on, Apple said it will create 20,000 jobs

and open a new manufacturing facility in Houston as part of more than $500 billion investment in the United States. They're opening this Texix plant, assembled servers previously manufactured outside the US, this is according to the Washington Post. They're expanding data center capacity, et cetera. Now, just so you're aware, this is part of a thing that they announced in 2021 where it would spend $430 billion and add 20,000 jobs in the United States over five years. So it's an overlap with the latest announcement. I'm not really clear, but it feels a lot. He met

with Trump last week and this is obviously a version of that, right? Whatever, we'll see. I understand the rationalization that, okay, this sucks, but your awe shocks, I hate to be here, but I got gotta be here. It's still cowardice. It might be lowercase cowardice, you might be able to justify it by saying, I'm a fiduciary for shareholders, but for the last 20 years, you have been claiming that you're a fiduciary for stakeholders.

And American rule of law and decency and democracy is what got you so fucking rich in the first place. And if business leaders who control two thirds of the economy don't step up and say enough, at the expense of their own pocketbooks, and quite frankly, their shareholders, we are going to be rolled over on this march to fascism. And at some point, I'd like to think

there's a business leader out there, I don't know if it's Jamie Dimon, I don't know if it's one of these tech leaders who stands up and says, no, this is, we are going to do what's right. We are not going to be bullied into supporting any political candidate. And if it hurts our shareholder values, so be it.

But what is the point, Tim Cook, of being a multi-billionaire and claiming to that privacy is a basic human right. Well, okay, how do you feel about democracy? Okay, Sam Altman, in your hush tones, worried about the safety of the world and concerned about AI. Well, are you concerned about America?

Because you are being used as a little fucking bitch and you are enabling it. At some point on his deathbed, Jeff Bezos is gonna go, I had all the yachts, I had all the thongs, was I an American? Is that thought perhaps gonna haunt you on your deathbed? Did I stand up?

Did I answer the call? Okay, maybe I would have been worth 90 billion instead of 120 billion, and maybe my shareholders would have been angry, but I think that's gonna be a really good look when you get towards the end, that you were the guy or one of the guys, and we're still looking for this guy

because let's be clear, they're all men. We're still waiting for one of them to stand up and say, I'm not going to be a brick in the fascist wall. And my guess is that is gonna play really well. History is gonna look on you and say, good for you. Yeah, it costs you 10 or 20 billion of your 100 billion in wealth. I think that's a really good trade right now.

But the corruption, the domino of cowardice here is in full speed and in full light of day in corporate America, especially among big tech. Who is going to step up here and say no? That's my speech. Thank you, I love it. I love the whole thing. Speech, sing it sister.

I like it. I like the whole thing. Anyway, I agree with Scott 100%. There are a bunch of wimps and please read my paperback coming out soon, a burn book where I add a chapter saying thus, what a bunch of, they have just, ugh, they're such selfish pricks. Selfish pricks and boss dicks, that's what they are. Everything has

come around to you, Scott Calloway. Dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks, as far as the eye can see. There you go. 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 to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT and all you Dan Bongino listeners, come on over to pivot and we'll serve you much better. Anyway, now that he's whatever he's doing. Elsewhere in the Scott and Kara universe,

I talk with comedian Ronnie Chang for the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher. Let's listen. You don't want to be an edgelord, Ronnie? No, I don't want to be an edgelord, no. I think that's, you know, and that's a real shame, right? I think a lot of comedy, I think what has happened is that there's been a lot of really funny, edgy comics

who've managed to find a niche on the internet. And I think unfortunately what has happened is that they've kind of inspired a lot of these copycat, like, people who watch what they do. And they, because when you're good at it, you make it look easy. And so you inspire all these kind of, quite frankly, untalented, like angry, edgelordy people who watch edgy comedy and they think, that they're doing.

They think, oh, that's what it is. I can do it. Comedy is just about saying the most fuck shit you could say in any given situation. But they miss the nuance and they miss the art and they miss the underlying ability. Yeah. Anyway, it was a great interview. He says, hi, Scott. He loves you.

Hi, no thanks, that's nice. He's a very thoughtful guy. He is, I'm having a lot more comics on because I just can't take any more shit. So I like- That's a good idea. You know what, they're great guests, they're really smart. That was a really amazing insight into what's happening. Higher propensity of depression also.

Yeah, I know. I'm having the big handsome. I'm trying to get, actually, I'm trying to get the big handsome guy and he has a book out called Lucky Loser. What big handsome guy? Oh, he's like a big handsome. He always wears Tommy Bahama.

He's dreamy. Oh, okay. All right, get him all on. Speaking of which, have you watched Reacher on Amazon? I love Reacher, of course. I love the original Tom Cruise movies and I watch it on Amazon, absolutely. But I'm so fascinated by what it says about America.

It used to be that the heroes were especially skilled or amazing fighters or super smart. Now it's just, I'm just so fucking big I can solve every problem. Yeah, I know, I know. Just with size. If you know what's out now, you know what comes out. Episode two came out today or last night.

I'll give you two hints, White and Lotus. Oh, yeah, I haven't, I gotta get into that. I know you love those guys. Oh, it's so good. Is it? Okay. Oh my God, it's so good. Anyway, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday.

Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Laura Neiman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her side engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severo and Dan Shulan. Nishant Kherwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from your magazine, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nrymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great rest of the week.