Pivot - TACO Trade, Elon's DOGE Farewell, and AI Video Gone Wild

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss Trump's tariffs getting temporarily blocked, and why everyone is talking about TACO trade. Then, Elon bids farewell to DOGE, and Trump feuds with Harvard, Putin, and Tim Cook. Plus, Kara and Scott's experiment with Veo 3, Google's video generator, leads to hilarious and horrifying results. 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 at nymag.com/pivot. Help us plan for the future of Pivot by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠⁠⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Gray Area, what advice would Machiavelli have for politicians today? Even in a stable democracy, people are going to be fighting all the time about what kind of values do you want in there? Rich and poor, you know, how much should people get taxed? That's an eternal problem of democracy. And he says you need to have institutions where everyone can debate that and checks on people getting too powerful. Listen to the gray area with me, Sean Elling. New episodes every Monday available everywhere. This is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, the show about what happens when media and tech collide. And this week I'm talking to Katie Drummond, who runs Wired.

She's found a way to breathe new life into that publication by covering news. We started covering DOGE, like several stories a day, every single day. And after like a week, I sort of looked around and was like, where is everyone else? That's this week on Channels, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. on channels, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Support for this show comes from ServiceNow, who are enabling people to do more fulfilling work, the work they actually want to do. You know what people don't want to do?

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Hello, Scott. How's it going? It's good. I've been setting up my home gym. Actually, you know what I didn't, I'm trying to, I took a week off of alcohol and edibles.

Because I, and I found this research that is, I find accurate and it said that if you cut out alcohol and edibles from your life for just, for 21 days or more, you lose 60 percent of your will to live. Oh, I knew that's where that was going. Also, it's been a while. Hold on. I'm not stopping there.

My in-laws are staying with me. Oh, God. How's that going? You like that. They're wonderful. It's perfect because they don't speak very good English so we don't communicate. Nice. I'm convinced that your relationship with your in-laws starts to come off the tracks when you begin communicating. But something awkward happened over the weekend.

Uh-oh, I had left my computer out. Oh no. Is there a nudity involved? Yeah. My mother-in-law opened it and what did she see on my computer? No, no. What? Well, you can imagine. One guess. Porn. Porn. Yeah. But I had the perfect excuse. What?

I said, I get my weather from cockgobblers.com. Okay. I'm afraid this didn't happen. Okay. Cockgobblers. I mean, that is good branding. That is real. It's not. That signals awareness. It signals intent. It tells you what the product offering is.

I love that. Yeah, absolutely. I get my weather there. All right. Okay. Well, I'm going on a big absolutely. I love that. I get my weather there. All right, okay. Well, I'm going on a big trip. He's back. Okay, we're gonna try to move on from that. Okay, so I think you should start taking edibles again

immediately as soon as possible. Well, okay, well, okay. All right. You talked me into it. Okay, good. You talked me into it. Good, I'm thinking of starting to take edibles. I'm so tired, so much work.

Really? Yeah, I'm tired today. Yeah, but you're doing take edibles. I'm so tired, so much work. Really? Yeah. I'm tired today. Yeah, but you're doing this to yourself. I keep warning you. That's true. You're right. You're right. More of the house stuff. I was doing a lot of gardening. I have my gardeners here,

and we're gardening up a storm to create. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Two words, undocumented immigrants. They're not. They're two amazing gay guys from San Francisco, and they're very macho and also gay, so I have the most beautiful garden fault. Really? Yeah. They're two amazing gay guys from San Francisco, and they're very macho and also gay, so I have the most beautiful guard fault. Really?

Yeah, they're great. Yeah. I don't, unless... Gary and Michael. So why is that taking time if other people are doing it? I'm a huge believer in comparative advantage. I can do a small number of things very well, and everything else I outsource.

I like it. I like to scrub the pollen off of patio furniture. I don't know what to tell you. I love it. Oh yeah, you're kind of a, you like to clean. I like to scrub the pollen off of patio furniture. I don't know what to tell you. I love it. Oh yeah, you're kind of a, you like to clean. I like to clean and it's very satisfying. I organized my, I built myself a tool shed and I have organized it and I couldn't be more happy about that situation. Built myself a tool shed?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had, well I didn't build it. God, we could, we are literally a different species. I know. I have a tool shed. You built yourself a tool shed? I'm gonna show it to you when you come visit me, if you ever do. Are you handy? Yes, I'm very handy, yeah.

Saul always hands me things and says, fix it. Yeah, I'm the handy one. I'm the handy lesbian. Yeah, see, my kids cut out the hand it to me. They just look at me and say, fix it. And I'm not even sure what they're referring to. Or buy it. They're just, fix it. I'm upset, fix it. And I'm not even sure what they're referring to. Or buy it. They're just, fix it.

I'm upset, fix it. Fix it. No, I'm very handy. I bought myself an electric lawnmower, an electric blower, and an electric weed whacker, and of course my power washer. So I'm very happy now, but it takes a lot of time to get everything in place.

Yeah, you need to travel less. I actually am worried about you. You do need to travel much less. Oh, I haven't traveled in a while. I haven't traveled. This is the first big trip I'm taking in a while. And I'll see you in France. That's good.

I also think you need to spend some of your money and enjoy yourself and relax a little. I'm not a vacationer, Scott. Yeah, but you should start. I'll show you how. I'm really good at it. I don't like it. I never like vacations.

There's a lot of wonderful stuff out there. I like doing gardening. I like doing good at it. I don't like it. I never like vacations. There's a lot of wonderful stuff out there. I like doing gardening. I like doing, organizing my things. Can I give you a hint? Yeah, go ahead. One, don't take your kids, and two, travel to hotels, not to cities. Oh, well, I'm gonna be in San Francisco,

so I'll be at my beautiful home there, which I love too. That's not travel. I understand, but I'm happy. But I'm happy, I'm a homebody, because I'll tell you, my mom moved us around a lot. And so all my brothers and I have beautiful homes that we love, like very comfortable. And I don't mean stunning, enormous.

Because you inherited a lot of money, white woman? No, because we work hard. Oh, yeah, yeah. I work really hard. I actually- You do work hard. I just said that. You work too hard.

My brothers and I are very into our making lovely homes where we live and my younger brother just built a beautiful house that's off the grid, if you can believe it. Off the grid? Yeah, it's all, it's like one of those houses that can survive an apocalypse. Like he has energy, water. I gotta meet this guy.

You do, it's beautiful too. You would like it. It looks like a Four Seasons, it's gorgeous. It's up in Pennsylvania. I'm not going anywhere. I'll take him to, I'll take him to Shea Margot in New York. But I want to meet him. I've heard so much about him. He's really interesting. This house is gorgeous,

but it also has like electrical, like its own electrical thing. It's all kinds of stuff. And he's, anyway, he's got himself one of those carts that you drive around, those, those carts that you drive around across the land and stuff. Anyway. Yeah, I immediately liked Dr. Swisher. You liked lawyer Swisher.

You'd like lawyer Swisher very much. He's a lawyer. He took over the family coal business, right? Yes, he did, yeah. Good for him. Yeah, yeah. He's just, he's a, he's just, we're all stay at home people, which is interesting.

Anyway, because we were dragged all up. It's because you're all old. That's what happens when you get old. No, we were always like this. which is interesting. Anyway, because we were dragged all- It's because you're all old. That's what happens when you get old. No, we were always like this. No, I'm telling you, we were dragged. We were dragged from place to place. You get afraid.

Like, I saw some teenagers with a skateboard. They're criminals. Anyway, you didn't really show your mother-in-law porn, did you? I hope not. No, that's a lie. Okay. She is a lovely lady, as I recall. I clear my browsing history.

And I'm- Okay, now I'm all paranoid because I found out people actually listen to this thing and they get angry when I say stupid things about them that aren't true by the way. Oh, okay. My in-laws are, to be blessed with young competent in-laws, it's just- They are.

We moved to Florida to be near them, and it was one of the best moves we ever made. They're really lovely people. Also, having grandparent, I did not witness that. I did not participate in that because all my grandparents passed away. The grandparent-grandkid relationship is just so incredible to watch. Absolutely. My grandmother was critical to my life, I have to say. She really was. She raised me in a lot of ways.

So anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Elon's farewell to Doge with his long fucking goodbye, the Trump taco trade and what happens when we tried Google's new AI video generator, Veo. But first, Donald Trump's terror strategy has been dealt a major blow. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that Trump overstepped his authority by using emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs, in fact, not bypassing Congress. The three-judge panel found that federal law did not grant Trump unbounded authority to tax imports from nearly every country around the world.

The White House plans to appeal, and the case is likely going to the Supreme Court. They're working hard over there. Tariffs on steel, aluminum, and a few other sectors are still in place, but they're imposed under a different law. This is going on, and let me just bring in taco trade. You've heard about taco trade. Taco, short for Trump, always chickens out, is a new acronym coined by a Financial Times columnist.

It describes a pattern where Trump rattles the markets with his tariff threats only to backpedal a few days later. Sending stocks surging, the latest example, Trump found 50 percent tariffs on EU goods last week hit pause on Sunday after a good call with European Commission president. And when the markets reopened Tuesday, the Dow jumped over 700 points and the S&P 500 saw its biggest gain in weeks. Trump doesn't like the taco terminology, mostly because he probably doesn't like tacos. Remember that whole thing with tacos he had going. His pissiness was on full display when asked about it on Wednesday. Let's listen.

And then I chicken out. I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set down to 100 and then down to another number. And I said, you have to open up your whole country. And because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tax tariff, and they called up and they said, please, let's meet right now. Please let's meet right now. And I said, OK, I'll give you till June 9th. I actually asked them, I said, what's the date? Because they weren't willing to meet. And

after I did what I did, they said, we'll meet any time you want. And we have an end date of July 9th. You call that chickening out? Oh, man, is he sensitive about that taco trade. So talk about the two things, the court ruling and then this taco trade, the idea that his unpredictability has become predictable or that- Well, I just have an adjacent thought. And the first is that there's a lot of sort of, quote unquote, conspiracy theory from the right

that there was this gigantic coverup of Biden's cognitive decline. First off, if it was a cover-up, it was the worst cover-up in history. They let him go debate and put his cognitive decline on full display. But it was no more a cover-up than the cover-up of Trump's cognitive decline right now. Did you see his speech at West Point?

I agree. I was really struck by it. So is this a cover-up? The guy is rambling about nonsense. Trophy-wise, sounded like one you might give, but go ahead. Are we in the midst of a coverup? Anyways, in terms of the taco trade, Trump, since the inauguration,

Trump administration officials have announced new or revised tariff policies more than 50 times. Wow. And I'm having trouble finding one deal. I mean, he talks about deals, announced a deal with the UK, but nothing was signed. It was an agreement to have further discussions. Right. He's saying it's helping them come to the table by his crazy moves, his wave or something, whatever he calls it.

This is how terrible a business person and negotiator Trump is. Trump puts a policy, a tariff of 145 percent, and then he admits himself, well, that was kind of high. And then he lowers it to 30 because the markets throw up. So essentially if he's a poker player, he shows up to the table with all this bravado and swagger. He goes all in. And then before he even sees what the other players say or do, he goes, I fold, I fold.

He negotiates against himself. Yeah, that's what it feels like. And nobody takes him seriously. But here's the real story in my view. This is nothing but a weapon of insider trading. And that is he can create volatility. He can take markets up for some of their biggest gains in history. When he takes these ridiculous trades off the table, he can take markets down

and the people around him are trading stocks like fucking crazy. Including you're going to find that some of his hedge fund buddies that he speaks to or tucks them in a bed at night, some of whom we talk a lot about are going to vastly outperform the index. Yeah. And even, even representatives, Marjorie Taylor Green, there was a whole bunch of them that were trading. Okay.

Let's talk about this. The fish rots from the head. The nation's top cop is the attorney general. Yeah. Pam Bondi. that we're trading. Okay, let's talk about this. The fish rots from the head. The nation's top cop is the attorney general. Yeah, Pam Bondi. Pam Bondi on April the 2nd sold somewhere between one and 5 million in Trump Media stock. Why April 2nd?

That was the same day the liberation day tariffs were announced. So we have the person supposedly ensuring the markets have rule of fair play is trading stocks. The day her boss announces tariffs that will take the markets down. She sells a ton of stocks and it is everywhere. There are state department officials, Michael Platts, staff director

and Congress sold around escalating. They are trading in and out of the market based on who knows what, when. Huge spike in options volume right before he makes these announcements, which means that people know something. And people hear this. I just want to try and connect the dots here.

People hear this and go, okay, there's always been grift. Speaker Pelosi, and go, okay, there's always been grift. Speaker Pelosi, Speaker Emeritus Pelosi, there's always been grift. So some people are getting richer, fine. What people fail to make the connection is the following. Is that when you buy same day options, because you know he's about to reduce the tariffs

and the markets are about to scream up, somebody is on the other side of the trade that doesn't have that insider information that is selling that person that option and is going to get taken to the laundry, is going to lose a shit ton of money. And the reason why, off a $27 trillion economy, we have a $50 trillion market cap stock market,

which gives companies the ability to raise money. It gives people the chance to save money for their retirements. It gives people incredible compensation upside if they get options. The reason why we have such incredibly deep pools of capital to create prosperity and risk aggressiveness, we have $5 million in risk capital for every startup. Europe has 1 million. Right. Is because people believe there's a rule of fair play and fair trade.

Now let's look at- And here is a grift. Let's look at Russia. Russia is 1 14th the size of our economy, 2 trillion, we're about 28 trillion. The total value of the Russian stock market is $80 billion because people don't trust it. People are like, unless you know Putin,

you don't know what's gonna happen. And there's so much insider trading and kleptocracy that the markets don't have any trust. So what do you have? You have essentially, even on a size adjusted basis, our stock market is 70 times the value of the Russian stock market, even ramping it up to adjust it for the difference in the size of the economy.

So when a bunch of people think I lost money and I'm not on the inside, I'm not going to participate in the markets. Yeah, I agree. That's a really fantastic take actually. I really, what's going on here? He's also doing it because he doesn't have a plan at the same time. And people are either he is in on the grift, right? Or he's so dumb and a bad business person, they're playing him and understanding.

It's rewarding his allies. He's rewarding his allies and also doing what he does, which is run businesses right into the ground, which is his, that seems to be the consistent part of his business career, is to run businesses into the ground. Which is his, that seems to be the consistent part of his business career is to run businesses into the ground in some fashion, with these sort of capricious things. The fact that he gets so angry about it was really revelatory.

It's like he knows exactly what he's doing. He's trying to put it off. It's really depressing when someone like Scott Besson says, oh, acting crazy is a strategy. I'm like, no, it's not. It's not as, I mean, maybe once, but you can't do it over and over and over again. And that's what he's doing. And so Europeans, he's like, oh, they came to the table because they made that threat.

I'm like, they probably waited until you did this. And then they're like, okay, now time to come to the table. But they are long, they are long gaming him so badly. It's really an astonishing thing. And he deserves every single insult he gets about how he's conducting these. The court thing, how do you feel like they just are just, all the courts, 96% of courts are against Donald Trump

on all these rulings, not just the tariff ones, but all of them, 96%. Okay, I'll talk about the courts, and I wanna give you just some more data here around the insider trading that has gone fucking out of control and is going to scare the shit out of capital to leave the US. People using markets. Okay.

I feel for the most part, 80 to 90% of executive actions tariffs, EU tariffs, Apple tariffs, going after international students at Harvard, all of this they know will likely be swept away and these organizations will get injunctive relief and these things will not stand. I think it is, they're like, okay, what could get us kicked out of office? How we lose Congress is if Americans wake up and instead of focusing on international students that might be kicked out of Harvard, which will be turned over and we, the media clutches it's, it its progressive pearls for good reason. I realize it has larger implications, but folks, this is going to have no impact on anybody because

it's going to go away. Over the long term, it's bad. And I'll come back to why it's bad for our best, one of our biggest exports and that is education. But it is a distraction from what really impacts people. And this is my problem with the left is we get outraged and we're more interested with proving and grasping at social virtue, as opposed to actually focusing on what impacts the material and psychological wellbeing of millions of Americans. And this is what is going to impact tens of millions of Americans.

This big, beautiful tax bill is about to cut taxes for 5% of the wealthiest Americans and take away Medicaid for 8 million people and increase the deficit by almost 4 trillion, which will be a tax on tens of millions of young people. And by the way, it's going to disproportionately impact red states. So if we focus on that and say,

what is really impacting millions of people, we might actually take back control of Congress. But instead we go for, oh no, let's get outraged about Harvard. Okay, I get it. But they are purposely trying to misdirect us. Now in terms of these court cases, if he wants, he can make life really difficult

when essentially imposed tariffs in different ways, but it's not going to happen. I have made the same prediction over and over. In a year from now, two years from now, the tariff and global trade situation will look remarkably similar to the way it looked when he started. And his people will have grifted their way into insider trading.

Can I give you some more data just real quick? Sure, but we have to move on. But go ahead. Okay, go ahead. Okay, just because this insider trading thing, I don't think people realize what this does to the unbelievable, incredibly cheap capital and pools of capital that the US is- And the trust that people have in the markets, despite all the problems they've had. They've had insider trading issues. For 99% of our existence on this planet, people would never give money, sell something to strangers in a marketplace-

If they thought it was all insider, right. Trust in markets is literally the jet fuel of our, or one of the jet fuels of our prosperity. Okay, so this has been going on for a while. In this first term, Carl Icahn sold 31 million in steel related stocks the day before Trump announced steel tariffs in 2018. On March 30th, three days before Trump's initial tariff announcement, at least three hedge fund managers attended a private dinner in Mar-a-Lago

and all three dramatically increased their short positions in the 48 hours following that dinner. One of those funds, Blue Stone Capital, is run by a guy named Brian Shevlin, who was instrumental in the early days of Trump's media SPAC merger. Blue Stone Capital increased its short position in Tesla. Shorting Tesla, that's perfect.

By 300% or fourfold on April 1, one day, one day, Cara, before the tariff announcement that sent Tesla shares down 17%, and then the fund then closed most of its short positions on April 8th, right before Tesla rebounded 18% up on news of the tariff pause. So this guy either has a fucking crystal ball or a gut like we've never seen or investing,

or he is getting information from people at the very top about non-public information. So why would an average investor ever buy or sell Tesla stock when chances are someone on the other end knows more than I do? And we have an SEC who's not enforcing any of this. You know, as I told you, there's a lot of people outside of government following all of this and collecting all this information. If our government's not going to, there are technical people.

Even some podcasters. Yes. I'm keeping notes on all this shit. Yes, exactly. But they're keeping the actual transactions in case they try to do it. People with actual power. Power, yeah, exactly. Not yelling into TikTok.

They are going, this is, someday, they will probably run off with this money, but it is absolutely a grift. Yeah, exactly. Not yelling into TikTok? They will probably run off with this money, but it is absolutely a grift. And someone who understands the griftiness of it, Elon Musk has talked about it, is officially, he's using the term grift, but he's talking about the problem with deficits and tariffs.

Elon Musk is officially an ex-a special government employee posting on his social platform that the Doge mission will only strengthen over time, which means it will not. It's over. Must thank Trump for the opportunity to reuse wasteful spending. But only after throwing some shade at his former boss. Here's what he told CBS News.

By the way, the guy who hates old media is fucking all over old media these days. Let's go. I was like disappointed to see the massive spending bill frankly, which increases the budget deficit not just decrease it and it reminds the work that the Doge team is doing. I actually thought that when this big beautiful bill came along I mean like everything he's done on Doge gets wiped out in the first year. I think I think a bill can be can be can be big or it can be beautiful but I don't know if it could be both. My personal opinion.

Yeah, yucking it up with Elon. He's not the only one out there. DOE spokesman Katie Miller is following him. For those who don't know, she's married to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. By the way, there is a lot of very funny memes about this on the internet, but I'll let you go there and find out what they're insinuating. Elon, meanwhile, has ordered himself back into the offices of X, SpaceX, and Neuralink with mixed results.

The SpaceX Starship system exploded in a Tuesday test. It went further, but it's still, this is the third failed launch in a row. It did go further. This is what he does a lot of time. X crashed twice in one week, which must attribute to failover, redundancy, whatever that is, issues that need to be addressed. On the bright side, Musk says Tesla's been testing robotechs in the streets of Austin with no incidents and promises delivery to customers next month.

Meanwhile, Waymo does millions of these all the time. And Neuralink just raised $600 million at a $9 billion valuation, which is good for him. So a couple things. One is they have wiped out, they're sending up a, I think it's a rescission package of just $9 billion from Doge cuts that they may try to fix, but that's $9 billion in our multi-trillion-dollar promise that Musk made to us. I think he's been used as a chump by Trump in a lot of ways,

sort of a hand-wavy thing, and then Trump turns around and ruins the whole thing through a deficit. And I think Musk does understand that the deficit and the tariffs are a real problem. Whether he can bring back his businesses, that's an open question. He's certainly talented. Your thoughts, Scott?

Well, I'm glad you brought it up. It was a good week in the sense that Neuralink, which creates diversification for them, raised money at a nine, I thought it was seven, but you're saying it's nine billion, that's incredible. And also testament to his genius and vision to do things like that. We'll see how it pans out.

But yeah, I don't, you know, if you, the two seminal impacts of Doge are the following. It has almost no impact on the budget because if you look at it, essentially, what's happened here is he's also cut a ton of staff at the IRS and the estimates are that that will reduce their ability to collect what would have been

another $400 billion in revenue. So give him his word that it's $150 million in savings. That means that Doge is essentially taking the deficit up another quarter of a trillion dollars a year by virtue of these cuts. Nobody believes that 150 number, by the way. Most people think it's about 10 million. But anyways, I like what Mitch McConnell believes,

that the chocolate and peanut butter of our power around the world is a combination of hard and soft power. And he's essentially gutted our soft power by taking, I mean, that $75 million in USAID was just, when there's genocide in a nation, a bunch of people show up and try to hold people accountable such that it doesn't happen again.

And a lot of those people are Americans. When there is a war torn ravaged village town in Ukraine, a soup kitchen gets popped up and a lot of those people are Americans. And that just makes people think, oh, they're good guys. It's mostly Jose Andres, but now it's not the government. Well, but we do have all sorts of hospitals around the world that help kids with vaccines.

And I mean, there's just a ton of soft. It's the old Hershey bar American GI story, right? This idea. 100%. And that will have a long-term impact on our brand. Doge, it's gonna end up costing us more than it saves. And again, I go back to the same thing, Kara. It did its job.

It was a distraction from this administration's decision to blow up the deficit to give a tax cut to you and me. I mean, that's what Democrats should be focusing on right now. Yeah. I mean, it's been a failure for him also. At first, it sort of raised his wealth substantively, and it certainly got the regulators off his back, which was one of his goals, absolutely. He got him some Mars stuff that he wants, allegedly, you know, the Mars money.

So he got his Mars money, he got some regulators off, he lost a lot of money in terms of Tesla, and also his personal brand is decimated, I think. He certainly could get it back, I suppose, but he certainly not draped himself in glory in this effort at all. He looks, you know, one of the things about these tech people is they look a little godlike and now he looks like he has feet of clay, right? And you've seen parts of him that are a nuisance and irritating and weird. So it hasn't been, you know, this is stuff a lot of us who spent time with him have seen,

you know, his, like telling jokes like that and laughing at his own jokes and stuff like that. He seems odd and strange. And so I just feel like this has not been a plus for Elon Musk. He may bring it back. He may do other things. The question is whether he's going to return to politics or if he's had it with them. It felt like he a little bit kind of he had it. He kind of has enough of this and he realized he got taken by the world's most adept con man,

which is Donald Trump. 99.9% of the time, if you're on a board or you have a temptation to take a political stand as a corporation, the answer is no, you don't do it. And not only that, he not only bet one way, he went into politics, which is sort of a no-no, he bet the wrong way. Because three quarters, the people that he's endeared

himself to by taking a red pill stand, three quarters of them say they would never buy an EV. So it's just very unusual that he would decide to go into politics in a way that alienates his core market. Maybe it's some psychological problem he has. Please hate me. Hate me, please hate me. I don't know.

It's very strange. We'll see if he can recover. He's certainly a talented business person. He may have gotten data and information that he didn't have before. Who knows? I think that needs to be investigated, not just me, but Steve Bannon does.

What exactly did they download? Where is the data? What happened to it? I think there needs to be, at some point, a real look at what they did, what Doge has done. And we'll see if they continue, but without the engine and the threat of Elon Musk, I don't think it's going anywhere.

They will just smother it. I was feeling the need to try and bring some semblance of balance around Musk. I've thought for a long time, Waymo's just so far ahead, they'll never be able to catch them. And I did speak to an analyst around Tesla and said, Tesla does have some very real advantages around autonomous.

And that is they have more data. That's correct. Because they have a huge, they have hundreds of thousands of cars that have been in the market for a while and all of that is great data. And also the average cost of a Waymo car is almost a quarter of a million dollars.

Yeah, it's Jaguar and outfitting it. Yeah, it's outfitting it. It's just really expensive. And they say that the Tesla autonomous driving vehicle is gonna be substantially less expensive. Except that they may be sacrificing safety for that. There's all these debates over whether they have enough points of failure.

And look, he doesn't, he takes them off. This guy likes to go commando on a lot of stuff. Well, you bring up an interesting point because a lot of people say, regardless of what has happened in the markets or the perception of his brand, the Tesla brand has gone from the eighth most revered brand of the 93rd. I don't think I've ever seen a destruction like that. I don't even think that happened to Exxon with the Valdez. But you bring up an interesting point and that is a lot of people say, well, he's playing the long game, because all of the inspectors and all of the lawsuits

that were getting in the way of his regulation around autonomous or going after him for lawsuits or whatever have all just disappeared. So safety. So it still might've been, he might in fact be playing chess, who knows? Yeah, in his case, opposed to Donald Trump, who is eating the pieces, Musk does. That said, I would not get into Tesla right now. I think they don't have as many points of failure.

You know what I mean? He doesn't care about safety as much as others. And I just don't, I have talked to a lot of experts about how they're putting them out there. And they're just, I would rather have an extraordinarily safe, eventually it'll be looser, but not today, and I just don't trust them. I trust those Jaguars more than I would trust a Tesla. I don't get into Teslas because I don't like the men and I don't want to paint the fence with someone who I think is such a terrible role model for young men.

But on the safety point, I would get in a Tesla because I- I'm talking about an autonomous Tesla. Yeah, an autonomous Tesla, just because I think- Really? Yeah, because I think from a perception standpoint, I think if they have two or three crashes in their first month, they're pretty much an autonomous Tesla. Yeah, an autonomous Tesla, just because I think- Really? Yeah, because I think from a perception standpoint, I think if they have two or three crashes in their first month, they're pretty much out of business. I think just from a pure economic standpoint,

they gotta make sure this thing is pretty safe. He has a theory about what they need on those cars. It's very different from every other person I know. And they all are like, this is a risk you should not be taking. And it's not because they want me to ride in their cars. I'm going to send some people to you because it's really, he argues with the entire industry about how much...

We need test pilots and it's a dangerous job. Yes, you can get in them. I'm not getting in them forever, but I do not feel unsafe in a Waymo. I suspect I would feel unsafe. Do you know what I did about a year and a half ago? I went to the DMV and my son, who was barely driven a golf cart,

took a test saying that he understood the difference between a single yellow line and a double yellow line. And then they gave him a driver's permit and he was allowed to drive home. I mean, it was just like, God be with you. Here you go. Okay. I will get into Tesla rather than than drive near with your son.

I was at the DMV going, wait, he can drive right now? Yeah. And I said to her, I looked at her, I'm like, are you sure that's a good idea? He can drive right now? Oh, your son probably was like, dad. And on the way home, on a red light making a left, he pulled out into the intersection.

I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I stopped first. I'm like, you can't make a left turn. I don't, I. I think there's a lot of dangerous drivers. I think humans are much more dangerous than autonomous. I agree. You know what, I'd rather take a like.

Quick lucky story. She comes over to our place with her sister. They drove there, which is crazy. You've told this story. And after her kind of, you know, mildly offensive comments to me over and over, she leaves and you're giving her instructions to get to Palm Beach, which is north of where I live.

And first off, I'm horrified. I walk out and I see Lucky behind the wheel. I thought you were giving instructions to your aunt or whoever your niece, whoever that is, who is much younger than Lucky. She was like 90. Yeah, aunt, my aunt. I see Lucky behind the wheel.

And so I walk over and think, okay, Lucky, all you have to do, you come out of the driveway, you bang a right, got it, stop talking to me. Stop talking to me, right? Heads out, gates open, bangs the left. And I'm just- Without looking, without looking. And I'm like, she's gonna end up in Havana.

It's true. Can I just say, I didn't let my children drive with Lucky at any point. Oh, no. Never. She's like, why can't I drive them? I'm like, because I want them to live into the next century.

Yeah, no, she should not be driving. No. No. No. I have not gotten a car with Lucky for decades. It's a cover-up. You're engaging in a cover-up. This is one of the things she'd do. She'd throw us in the car and we never knew where we'd end up. This is why we stay home. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. Somebody else had a story of her leaving me behind in a store,

but that's another wonderful memory from childhood. So let's go wonderful memory from childhood. So let's go on a quick break when we come back, Trump's Many Feuds with Harvard, Putin, and Tim Cook. Support for Pivot comes from Atio. Atio is an AI native CRM built specifically for the next era of companies. It's extremely powerful, adapts your unique data structures and skills with any business model.

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That's why we're hoping you'll help us out by filling out a brief survey. Your feedback will help us figure out what's working, what's not, and how we can make Pivot even better. Scott, do you have anything to add? Yeah. Help us help you. Help me help you. Just visit Vox Media. I am out here every day eating shit for you, Kara. Help me help you.

Yes, I will be replacing Scott. Please send in those suggestions of who it should be. But now that Scott has stopped talking, just visit VoxMedia.com slash survey to give your feedback. That's voxmedia.com slash survey to give your feedback at voxmedia.com slash survey. Scott, we're back. I know you don't think it's important, but I do actually. And I think it's a real feud, the feud between Donald Trump and Harvard doesn't appear to be wrapping up anytime soon. Trump now says the schools should cap

international student enrollment at 15%. What is he telling people what to do? This follows last week's legal fight where a judge temporarily blocked the White House from revoking Harvard's ability to enroll international students. Trump is also moving to cancel remaining federal contracts with Harvard.

It's not just Harvard, the administration is now considering social media vetting for all foreign students. So free speech, hello. And is halting student visa interviews. In the meantime, Secretary Marco Rubio, what a chode he's become, also says the U.S. will aggressively work to revoke the visas of Chinese students. Ah, crazy.

He's also accusing Russian President Putin of playing with fire after Russia recently ramped up attacks on Ukraine, launching its largest drone and missile attack of the war so far. In the post-untruth social, Trump also exclaimed that Putin has gone completely crazy. But despite up-floating sanctions on Russia over the weekend, Trump now says he's holding off because he thinks, taco, he's close to a deal and doesn't want to screw it up. Taco, Trump said he was going to resolve this conflict on day one. It's not day one anymore. And he bragged about his relation with Putin.

So that's something. And lastly, it's not the only one. He's still got Tim Cook in his crosshairs of Apple, threatening a 25% tariffs on iPhones made outside the U.S. The move comes in the wake of Cook reportedly buffing the White House's invitation to join Trump on his recent Middle East trip that all the others went along on, all the other tech moguls. There is also Financial Times report that Apple contractor Foxconn is preparing to spend

$1.5 billion on a new plant in India. And problems for Apple are piling up in addition to these tariffs. Cook is also juggling legal battles, global regulators, and a rising AI competition. There's a book out by Patrick, I think it's Matt Meyer talking about how much money. McGee, yeah. I had him on the pod. Spending in, has created the Chinese tech sector essentially, and they train them up. So let's start with all these things.

I know you think they're distractions, but I think he's quite committed to this Harvard thing. Either he didn't get in or something is going on here, but he seems obsessed with controlling the amount of foreign students that enter the United States too, and Harvard is proxy for doing that at this moment. Look, if you look at, there's few people that have added more economic value than graduates,

foreign graduates of our elite institutions. That's correct. 70% of graduate students in AI research in the US are international students. And over half of America's startup companies valued at at least one billion. So over half of our unicorns have at least one immigrant founder.

So let's even go beyond that. Let's just go short term. I have said the term we should use for international students is there are cash cows. They pay full freight. They're not eligible for a lot of financial aid, unless they're PhD students who are the brightest people

in the world who we bring in and we actually pay. And who we want here. At the first day of class at NYU, at business school, I say get to know the international students because they're rich kids. They're the richest kids in El Salvador and Brazil. Get to know them. They like to party.

They're fun and they're really rich. And when you go and hang in El Salvador and Brazil get to know them. They like to party, they're fun, and they're really rich. And when you go and hang out in Brazil, you want to know them. It's got to be. By the way, America does a small number of things really well. Hands down, we're the best in tech and software. I don't even know what the export volume is of that.

I tried to figure it out this morning, I couldn't figure it out. We make the best weapons in the world. We sell about 300 billion, 350 billion, about 30 of a trillion dollars, we export weapons around the world, right? Violence and death are fantastic businesses for us, are the ability to deliver them

and we have the best military industrial complex in the world. We make the best media in the world and we ship, the total export volume or business of our movies and TV. So all the money we make from Fantastic Four and Frozen and Big Bang Theory and The White Lotus, that is we get $40 billion in revenue from exporting our TV shows and our movie, we get $43 billion from the tuition and the economic value of international students who come here to buy our education.

So US education is really a bigger US export than movies or TV shows. And if you wanna raise tuition on domestic students, just take away the full freight, high margin cashflow of international students. I'm not even talking about the brain drain. Right, the money we get from them. It's, we make so much coin from international students.

Because why? It's the ultimate luxury item. What's the ultimate signal of your success if you live in China or South Korea or Singapore? Your kid gets in and attends an elite American university. Going to Harvard. Of the 100 best brands, we own like 70 or 80 of them. So it's great for his, why is he doing the Harvard thing

and then Russia next? I think Russia just tickles his censors. I think a lot of his far right supporters love this. But why attack Putin and then come back on it? Cause he's being played by Putin. I don't know what he is thinking on the, I mean, that you want to talk about somebody makes

absolutely no sense. You know, Putin's bombing cities. I don't like what he's doing. He's sending missiles in the city. Okay. You realize he's been doing that's sending missiles in the city. Okay. You realize he's been doing that for two and a half years, right? Nothing. No, I don't know if he got personally incensed or I don't know what's going on there.

It's, it's a sclerotic impossible. And Marco Rubio has to be the clown behind this elephant cleaning up his shit, trying to make some sort of sense of our nonsensical foreign policy. He's being played. He's been, I think it occurs to him and he's mentioned it. Maybe he's been playing me. Yes, he has, sir. Been playing him. I think, look, for Russia right now, the war is its economy. It's now it's not going to pull very quickly away from it because they don't

got nothing else. And they got this war. And Putin has created Russia as a military economy now with this war and he hasn't won. And so they're in a world of hurt to get out of this and create a dynamic society. And so war is their best choice right now in a lot of ways. So not gonna be easy for them to pull themselves out of this situation.

Putin's life depends on it. Depends on it. I mean, we think that he has total control. There's a out of this situation. Putin's life depends on it. Depends on it. I mean, we think that he has total control. There's a lot of other people. If Putin loses face in Ukraine, we're going to find out he's going to fall out of a window. He cannot not win, and the economy is now based on it. And Trump is being played like a fiddle.

And this going back and forth publicly is so embarrassing. Same thing. It's the same thing as the tariffs. It's the same stupidity that got us Trump steaks or the casinos. He's just not very good at business. The cook one is really particularly strange. And it all is about feelings. It's all about feels, it feels like.

He has a point that Apple has created a very robust technology economy in China over the many, many years, 50 billion, something like that, and not in the United States. But there were reasons for them doing that, obviously, to save money to do it at a cheaper amount. Where do you think Apple is at this moment on the outs, for sure? 05.00 It's so fascinating. You referenced that book by, I think it's Patrick McGee, and he really opened my eyes. So Apple has upscaled and trained 25 million Chinese. That's amazing.

Think about that. They've upscaled the population of California. And Patrick's thesis, and I thought it was a fascinating one, is that essentially Apple's investment in upscaling of their tech sector has given rise to Xiaomi and Huawei. Basically, that the Chinese who are very smart and play the long game have an IP flow that is one way.

At the same time, now that Cook is trying to move manufacturing from China to India, China is getting in the way of that flow and not issuing visas to Chinese employees who Apple wants to send to India to set up manufacturing capacity there. Also the notion that I said, I used that stat that that analyst used, I think it was Dan Ives,

that phone produced in the US would be $3,500. And he said, it might as well be a million. We're not capable of it. There are a thousand parts in every iPhone that make a million phones a day. So that's a billion distinct parts. It was easier for Oppenheimer and the Army and these universities to get to splitting the atom

than it would be for us to get to producing all of the iPhones. We just couldn't do it. Yeah, so what is happening with it? How will this affect, you know, they have their legal issues, of course, with the government right now in terms of cases and all kinds of stuff. But this falling out, I mean, this appeasement that Tim did, I never thought would work.

There's no appeasing Trump. There's no appeasing this guy. He's endlessly thirsty. And I think I did talk to Maggie Haberman over on my podcast this week, and he was genuinely angry that Tim didn't go. Like genuinely angry. Strange. Well, he takes these slides personally, but the market, the market is starting

to respond to the taco trade and that is the juices coming out of it. Because if you look at Apple, I mean, if he did what he said he's going to do, it would seriously diminish the most profitable product in history and Apple stock would take a pretty big hit. Apple's off, I mean, it's down 15% in the last six months, but that's off an enormous high. Right. And it's still up in the last 12 months.

So I think- What would you do if you were Tim? Be nice, stay out of his way, and put out fake press releases. Still. That says, oh, we're investing in a, you know, because of the great work of President Trump. It depends.

Does Tim wanna be totally focused on shareholder value or on the rights afforded him as an American? I mean, it depends who you're calling on. If it's calling on his fiduciary obligation to shareholders, he should just kiss his ass, put out a bunch of fake faux press releases, stay out of his way, and what do you know, Trump will move on to the next red dot that angers him.

And the cult of iOS will be fine. It's like a cat. If Tim Cook recognizes that the reason I'm a billionaire, the reason why if I want to marry a woman or a man, I can do that because America has had the foresight and the rule of law to afford to give people rights, or if I want to continue to access the deepest pools of capital in the world,

if I wanna have a society where I am fairly safe, if I wanna have a society where I am fairly safe, if I want to have a society where someone can't wake up and come take all my shit just because they don't like who I am, then he should, in my view, take a stand and say, this is an American company and what is going on here is un-American. Nobody has done that. I don't want to put that pressure on Tim Cook because nobody has done that. He is going to be a billionaire the rest of his life.

The question is at the end of his life, does he want to be known as an American hero? And most of these CEOs, and I understand it, have decided my job is just to stay out of the angry child's way until he gets mad at somebody else and go about my business. You know who could do that? An owner of a company, a Zuckerberg. Someone who has full control is the only one who can do that, is the only one who has the ability. Tim is not the owner of Apple.

The shareholders are, right? And so it's got to be that guy, whoever that guy is. There's a Zuckerberg, controls his company. Very few companies are controlled. I guess Snapchat, nobody cares. It'd be very hard for Apple to all of a sudden get high and mighty about American patriotism when they've essentially outsourced their entire supply chain with China and upskilled China.

So shareholders will win. The company that has the ripest opportunity here to wrap themselves in the flag through the lens of sport and immigrants is Nike. And their stock has been kicked in the nuts so badly, they don't have a whole lot to lose. That is the right, the ripest opportunity and branding right now would be for Nike,

not even to mention Trump's name, but to talk about American immigrants who have excelled, built the world of sport and competition and rule of fair play. When you're on it, when you're on a field, you have to have rule of fair play. And they also have the creative resources. They are known as risk takers.

Go Nike, just do it, just do it. The majority of their business comes from young people who are more progressive and don't want to be part of a fucking fascist state. Anyways, Nike, get on it. All right, last quick, quick, quick, quick. Harvard, what should they do? Well, they've already-

Many people, there was a New York Times piece saying they've got to, they're gonna get hit hard by this, even if Trump is wrong. Get rid of, because of the... All the things he's doing is very damaging to Harvard. They were like, they may not win this fight with him until he goes away, which is inevitable. I don't, I don't see, I think Harvard has so many,

in a weird way, I'd go long, Harvard. I think Harvard comes out of the stronger. Maybe so. I think Harvard was developing such an awful reputation for the definition of elitism and how progressivism, when it goes out of control, can accidentally turn into racism. And I think them standing up, if you think about it,

what I'm urging Nike to do, Harvard's been the first important organization to actually stand up and say, fuck you. And they're winning in the courts. They have a lot of powerful alumni. They have the capital. Yeah, you're right. It cleans them out. It clean, it starches them white.

That's correct. And it starch their hat white. I never thought I'd be wearing a Harvard t-shirt. I wore one at the 92nd Y a month ago when I was on with Jess. You like to slap those Harvard people-shirt. I wore one at the 92nd Y a month ago when I was on with Jess. You like to slap those Harvard people a lot. You like to run around Harvard yard and slap them.

When you have a $54 billion endowment and you decide to let in the number of students at a good Starbucks service, you're not a public servant, you're a fucking Chanel. Oh, there he's back, he's back. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back, Trump drives deeper into crypto, if possible.

quick break when we come back, Trump drives deeper into crypto if possible. I'm Claire Parker. And I'm Ashley Hamilton. And this week we're discussing Hilaria Baldwin. Why does she have so many kids? She will not answer that question for you in a way that you want it answered, but she will respond to every single thing ever written about her in a tabloid in a deeply cryptic way. She's taking on the tough questions like does ADD make you speak with a Spanish accent? Does an older man guarantee

happiness in a marriage? We talked to Eliza McClam and Julia Hava from Binch-Topia podcast. They are Hilaria Baldwin experts and they dove deep with us on Hilaria's latest memoir, Manual Not Included. You can listen to new episodes of Celebrity Memorable Club every Tuesday on Amazon Music. In President Trump's second term, we've seen a lot of news about tariffs. Chinese imports into the U.S. now face a 30% tariff down. About Congress. The one big beautiful bill enshrines into law and funds President Trump's promises. About Elon Musk and Doge. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

Those are the loud stories of the Trump administration. There's a quieter story though. President Trump's obsession with critical minerals. We believe it's possible to extract enormous amounts of critical minerals and rare earths, which you know we need for technology and high technology in the process. In South Africa, Ukraine, China, Greenland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the ocean, what exactly is going on right now on Today Explained every weekday afternoon. Scott, we're back.

President Trump's romance with cryptocurrency is getting more serious. Early this week, the administration killed Biden-era guidance against using crypto in 401k plans. Oh my fucking God. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of True Social, announced raising $2.5 billion to invest in Bitcoin, a Michael Seller move, and listening with JD Vance told a crowd in a keynote address at Bitcoin 2025 conference. I'm here today to say loud and clear with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House. In our administration, we understand the full potential of the digital assets industry, not just as an investment, not just as a flashy technology, but as a symbol and driver of

personal liberty for all our citizens. Also, grift. He left out grift. The president's crypto holdings now reported represent around 40% of his net worth or approximately $2.9 billion. Scott, you had a rant where you called the crypto dealings in Trump's first hundred days, the greatest grift in our history of our economy. And now it is a divisive issue for Democrats. Some want to support the Genius Act, which regulates stablecoin. Others say it supports Trump's grift in our history of our economy, and now it is a divisive issue for Democrats. Some want to support the Genius Act,

which regulates stablecoin. Others say it supports Trump's grift. What do they do here? Public companies are leaning into crypto as well, not just through social. There are reportedly 114 publicly listed companies that own Bitcoin up from 89 at the beginning of April. What do you think about also the reports

that big US banks are having internal discussions about expanding into cryptocurrencies? Look, they're smart. One of the genius moves of the Trump campaign was recognizing that this was not going to be a referendum on women's rights. It was a referendum on struggling young men. I'd still hold to that. And I think the evidence is everywhere. That's who showed up, was young men and the people worried about them

that swung the selection in terms of the people who pivoted hardest from blue to red. And the easiest way to signal that was to go Joe Rogan, embrace Musk, and also really embrace crypto, which has this almost like testosterone smell to it. It's so male. Ew. And- What is testosterone testosterone smell and is that your perfume?

I don't know what it smells like. I'll tell you later when I inject it in my ass. But actually I don't think it has a smell. I don't think it has a smell. I don't want to think about that. Smells like victory in the morning. Okay. Anyways, that's right.

I think they're smart to embrace the crypto. We should have scratch and sniff on this podcast. Go ahead, sorry. I think they're smart to embrace the crypto. We should have scratch and sniff on this podcast. Go ahead, sorry. I think they're smart to embrace the crypto community. I think financial services innovation is a good idea. I am fine. I'm a no coiner. I was on the board of a company

that was the leading hardware wallet. It feels to me that the Democrats screwed up by not at least being more clear about what the regulation is so people could actually do something with it. Do make a business of it. And I think Trump has leveraged beautifully the crypto community. And also it's the perfect vehicle for a griff because there's no records. I mean, people say you can track it, but I don't, I mean, my sense is when a guy

launches a meme coin the Friday before is anuration, and it runs to 70 billion. Now, like I said, he's made a billion dollars a month since he's had this thing. I think they're smart to embrace it. I also think a lot of small and medium-sized investors are probably going to lose a lot of money. What I tell people is if you want to take 2, 3, 5 percent of your net worth and put it in Bitcoin,

I wouldn't do any of these other coins. There is a genius to Bitcoin because it has established a credible sense of scarcity because people do believe the technology will result in that they will stop mining at 21 million coins. I do think that's actually a very elegant way of creating a currency that has more veracity than a fiat currency, which everyone has failed at throughout history. The other coins I see as just like, that's just Vegas. But I think he's smart to embrace the community. I think it's working for them. Yeah, I think it has to become something more

than just like a speculative instrument, like that it's useful in some fashion. And there's all kinds of companies working at that. For Trump, it's a casino, this is a casino kind of mentality that he's got around it. And a fee, getting fees, most of the money he's made has been in fees of the transactions.

Well, the current income, they made over 300 million fees so far. Right, yeah. And then the value of it is the, and it's not traceable in some ways. And so it's a perfect sort of bribery, grift, flash, scam kind of thing, which he's very familiar with. That said, you're right, the Biden administration didn't really lean in.

They had the SEC head who was openly hostile. I think these people got activated politically, and they should have been because they needed to defend themselves. And they took out Sherrod Brown in Ohio, for sure. Like, they targeted a lot of things. And so they really got organized in ways that Trump helped facilitate and were able to do that. And I think they will remain political. But at some point though, there has to be safety around it. If you put a lot of Bitcoin in these 401ks and they get destroyed through scammery, it's

going to be a real problem. But Bitcoin is, or crypto, just going meta is a bit of a, whenever you have these levels of income inequality, you have war, famine, or revolution. I think it's a form of revolution, because I think young people have decided if you're gonna continue to bail out the markets, such as the incumbent stay wealthy. Can't buy a house.

And I never get disruption, I can never buy a house or stocks on sale, like you guys have gotten to do time after time every seven years of the recession, I'm going to create my own asset class. Yep, absolutely. And I get it. I can empathize and understand it. It's like, great, Scott, you had your time in the sun to buy Netflix at 11 bucks a share,

but now that you and your other seniors voting yourself more money and using my credit card to bail your ass out every time the economy gets rough and I have an opportunity to buy in inexpensively, fuck that, I'm not going to play your game. I'm going to invent my own asset class. Yeah. And they have become very politicized. And so it's up to the Democrats to not be... Don't cut your nose to spite your face kind of thing, I think, is a play here. Trump is griffed in this thing, but you can't not lean into it just because he's doing that.

You come after him later if you have to. But you can't, a lot of them are, we can't do it because Trump will grift more. He's going to grift no matter what. No matter what, he will find a way to grift. And we can't make policy based on, you need to lean into those Democrats in a way that's safe and good for consumers and good for young people and not worry about the Trump part until later. That's my feeling. Anyway, one more quick break.

When we come back, is Google's new AI video tool a studio killer? Okay, Scott, a story we didn't get to chat about last week is Google's launch of Vio3, which is a video generator that creates full video with audio. Its main competition is OpenAI Sora, but the key distinction is VO3 is supposed to be able to incorporate audio. And that includes dialogue between characters as well as animal sounds, the main buzz about it on the internet as well. Will this replace movie studios? Some of this stuff is pretty impressive to look at. And will this flood the news media with misinformation?

Oddly enough, I interviewed Jesse Armstrong, who is the creator of Succession for his new movie that's coming out this week called Mountainhead. And this is one of the plot points in it, is a social media company with a sort of a Musk Zuckerberg character who runs a company called Tram that floods, puts out tools like this and causes worldwide destruction. In any case, you talked a lot about this during the writers strike,

and we're going to talk a little bit about it by stuff that we made too, but quick thoughts. I think it goes after commercials first and quick hits where if you're selling stuff on Facebook or Shopify and you need just a 30-second kind of competent elegant looking, I think it'll start there. It'll start moving its way up. I just see it similar to what CGI did in terms of reducing the cost of special effects. It'll start to move its way up. It'll just lower the cost of the means of production. It'll be especially hard on certain people, but I still think as someone who has a limited, but increasing amount of exposure to the industry, the way I see

it is we're at, we outsource their shitty manufacturing jobs overseas, but the real value add in the higher paying jobs are in design, distribution, product marketing, all that good stuff back here. I think this is kind of the same thing. And that is, I don't wanna say the low value work, but things like, you know, lighting and sound and extras. You know, the people that, Tom Cruise is gonna be very aggressive and smart

about predicting his own IP and his own likeness. Mm-hmm. The, what I have seen with, and we talked about this before, whenever I write, I use AI to brainstorm and to, when I say I don't like this paragraph, what additional data could be out there. But when I try and write stuff with just AI,

it's very anodyne, it lacks all sex appeal, it's all chip, no salsa. I still think that- For the boring stuff, it's very anodyne, it lacks all sex appeal, it's all chip, no salsa. I still think that- For the boring stuff, it works. For press releases, things like that, like commercials are showing up. I think you're absolutely right. For simple legal agreements.

By the way, the document you signed with Vox, I generated on AI. Yeah, good to know. Oh no, what did we give away? I was sick of dealing with my lawyers who were like going back and forth with Vox lawyers to run up our bills and I'm like, fuck it. I just produced, and by the way,

I didn't even run it by our lawyers. I just said, I sent it to Vox. I'm like, sign this and we're gonna sign it. Oh, good to know. Thanks for telling me. I'm flexing. Okay, flex. But yeah, I think it's gonna go after some of the, it's gonna lower the means of production.

Did you give away our liver or kidneys at all in the agreement? Did AI suddenly do that? Just one. We have two. Okay. Just one. Plus, you don't want to give away my liver. You really don't want to give away my liver. So it's my liver that's going.

There you go. It's in excellent shape. All right. You're absolutely right. I think this is something I discussed with Armstrong who's just a brilliant person. He was like, I'm not really sure what to think. I've seen some of this and it's very impressive. I'm like, but it's not you, Jesse Armstrong. Like you can't make, for the untalented, it will be a problem.

For, or the stuff that's anodyne, as you said, it will be a problem. And there's a lot of people like that, right? There's a lot of people who make sort of the boring scut work that are going out. Okay, now for our personal experience on doing this. We had our video producer Kevin mess around with it and he said he's not too worried about his job just yet. We just hired him, I hope not. Here are his initial findings. VO3 automatically puts makeup on Kara but not Scott. It crashed and failed to

generate video an aggravating number of times and people are complaining online about its audio failures as well. And what VO3 can do frighteningly well is generate videos of fake people. For example, this AI newscast we asked it to create. Scott Galloway has broken the record for most dick jokes told in a podcast. The competition was extremely stiff. That was good. That's it. I was waiting. That wasn't a real person.

I was showing the video to someone and like, who is that person? I'm like, that person doesn't exist. They were attracted to the person. It was a fake newscaster reading a very realistic but unconfirmed story that the competition was stiff. I don't think the competition is stiff at all. When prompted to use images of real people like me and Scott, it failed to generate audio and came up with some less than ideal results. Here's what we got with the prompt, Kara and Scott podcasting on Mars. What we're seeing here is Karen Scott, Kara with a lot of makeup on.

And Scott, why don't you describe it? Oh, you look like, what's that scoop neck shirt you've got on? I'm more handsome than that guy, aren't I, Kara? I think so. And I have a third hand. I have a third hand. At least I got the Panerai right.

Yeah, you don't look like you. Yeah, no, that's not me. That guy looks like he knocks on your door and says, law mandates that I notify you I've moved in next door. All right, here's what we've got with the prompt, Kara and Scott. As bodybuilders, Scott, describe the situation

as we're watching it, please. Oh, hello. Oh my God, that does look like you. That does look like you. Describe. It's us as bodybuilders, and the faces are actually quite accurate. Jeez, this is so disturbing. This looks like the beginning of the most disturbing cinemax.

It's like from that movie, Stanley Kubrick, with Malcolm McDowell, the really disturbing one about. Clockwork Orange. Yeah, Clockwork Orange. You know when they basically want to turn him off violence and sex and they force his eyes open and they show him. This would literally turn. Watching this, do not watch this folks. This will turn you off any physical encounter with anyone for a long time.

This is so rattling. Get him back. Kara and Scott is body building. This is so rattling. All right, here's what we got with the prompt, Kara and Scott getting married, okay. What we're gonna watch here is, let's see it. Seventh circle of hell.

Oh, that's nice. Oh, that's nice. It's nice. Holding hands or walking down the aisle. Oh, oh no, no. Oh my God. No, no, no, they're kissing. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Oh, no, stop. It looks like Stanley Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Oh, no, stop.

It looks like Stanley Tucci and Marlo Thomas. Oh my God. And by the way, I'm a good foot taller than you. That is just unrealistic. Look at me, thrilled to be married to you, a very heavy version of me. Oh my God. They make me a lot fatter in anyway, okay.

Okay, we'll post these on our social media accounts later today, but we are unimpressed. George Clooney doesn't have anything to worry about right now is what we have to say. Well, no, he'll be able, I do think that, but again, it'll be more of a transfer of wealth from the entrance to the incumbents because the incumbents that already have established

their IP will be able to scale it. A guy like Jesse Armstrong is gonna make a lot more money because he's gonna get to produce three things a year, not one. And because he has already established brand equity, he'll, it's like a really good lawyer, I think is gonna make more money because they'll be able to scale themselves faster

by outsourcing the 80% of the document. And then have the creative part, yeah. But I think that the entrants are just gonna have a really tough time because there's gonna be less training, fewer jobs at the lower and mid levels that really teach you about creative and filmmaking But I think that the entrants are just going to have a really tough time because there's going to be less training, fewer jobs at the lower and mid levels that really teach you about creative and filmmaking and give you an opportunity to shine and rise up. It's just going to be, I think the incumbents are just going to get wealthier and wealthier.

I would agree. One of the things I was talking to Jesse about was like, what if you put all of your work in succession? They could make more seasons of succession eventually. They will be without your input. He's like, well, we have those rights and the contracts. I said, but do you? It'll be interesting to see what happens. For example, I would love more episodes of the West Wing and they're not going to make them, but they could.

If they jammed all the West Wings in there, they could possibly make a pretty decent thing. I have the feeling they will be able to. Well, that's a really interesting thought because it ends up that HBO owns the IP to the White Lotus. Yeah. And that was, I think, $100 or $200 million, I don't want to call it a mistake, for the original producers.

Now, they still make a lot of money because they want that incredible talent back to make seasons four, five, and six. But if at some point it's no longer worth the $150 million in production for that season, they might say, well, we'll spend three million and we'll use new characters and we'll do seasons five, six, seven, and eight and squeeze, and then it makes it even harder for new entrants to break in.

I can't figure out, does it help, does it make it less expensive? So- It could help the studios, or whoever owns the IP, whoever owns the IP, whoever owns the IP of the original IP. And there's gotta be a lot of it. So you could make more all kinds of shows like Happy Days.

Lots of, there's lots of shows that went on for 10 seasons and that you could possibly, it could write them. It could write them, it could. Anyway, so we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind or go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week on the latest episode of Prof G Markets, Scott spoke with Aswath DeMotarin, professor of finance at NYU's Stern School of Business. Aswath shared his take on the recent tariff

turmoil and what he's watching with the next round of earnings. Let's listen. This is going to be a contest between market resilience and economic resilience as to whether in fact the markets are overestimating the resilience of the economy. And that's what the actual numbers are going to deliver is maybe the economy and markets are a lot more resilient than we gave them credit for. In which case, we'll come out of this year just like we came out of 2020 and 2022 with much less damage than we thought would be created by what we saw happening on the ground. That's interesting. He's so smart. And by the way, an Indian immigrant who got his PhD at UCLA. That's interesting. He's so smart. By the way, an Indian immigrant who got his PhD at UCLA.

That's correct. Is arguably one of the 10 best instructors in America. Right. I know. That is a kid training young Americans. So much value. Okay. But yeah, let's go after those folks. Yeah. Well, the good thing Barron's at NYU. Scott, before we go, you have a quick fail.

Trump is claiming, you know, one of the things Trump's calling for or claiming that America would benefit if they were, Harvard reduced the number of international students, it would open up more seats for domestic students. I do think there is some truth to that, that we need to expand freshman seats for Americans. There's great university systems like the University of California do take their commitment to native Californians really seriously. 83% of the University of North Carolina seats

are reserved for graduates from North Carolina high schools. I do think University of Wisconsin is living up to its mission. But if he was really serious though, it's all such bullshit because also in this big beautiful bill, he's talking about gutting Pell grants. And that is he wants to cut Pell grants by about 67 billion through 2034, reducing grants to low income students by more

than one fifth from 2027 through 2034. And really it's more like one half when you take inflation into account and more than half of Pell students would have their aid reduced in some way. I'm not exaggerating, Kara. There's a lot of things that led me to being here and having the wonderful life I lead. One of them is Pell grants. I didn't know that.

I got Pell grants because my mother was a secretary. We were considered in the lowest core tile of income earning households. Every summer I had to save $2,300 at least, work and save $2,300 because I knew I would get a Pell Grant for 13 to $1,800 and I could go back for my next year at UCLA. So- Wow, I didn't realize you were a Pell grantee.

The reason I got through UCLA was because of Pell Grants. And by the way, Cal State System in California is the largest grantor of Pell Grant, D. The reason I got through UCLA was because of Pell Grants. And by the way, the Cal State system in California is the largest grantor of Pell Grants. Pell Grants, in my opinion, and I'm biased here, is where all affirmative action needs to go, and that is affirmative action should be based on color, should be based on green, specifically the economic situation you face.

And without Pell Grants, without affirmative action, I'm a beneficiary of affirmative action, it's called Pell Grants, without affirmative action, I'm a beneficiary of affirmative action, it's called Pell Grants. And these things are a lifesaver for those of us who just wouldn't have had access to college. Gives you that extra amount of money that you don't, that will give you the chance to excel. Wouldn't have graduated from UCLA.

I just wouldn't, I couldn't have done it. It also gives you the relief that you don't have to work, you know, slinging burgers. Well, and it's a grant, it's not a loan. I don't have to worry about, okay, with my philosophy degree and 150 grand in student debt, am I gonna be, is this worth it? These are like, okay, the fastest way for us

to level up America, full stop, is to put more money in the pockets of people who don't have money. That's correct. It's not complex, folks. Yep. All right. And Pellgrants figured that out. We need to save Pellgrants, a really important program. I'm going to give a quick positive one,

was Go See Mountainhead by Jesse Armstrong. I'm curious what you think about it. It's really crazy, but it's- Mountainhead. Mountainhead. It's an HBO show that's going up, a Max show that's going up on- I get that in Aspen every year at the Summer Solstice. Oh, stop it. I knew you'd say that. Anyway.

Mountainhead. Steve Carell is starring in it. It's really good. Anyway, and it's by Jesse Armstrong, who's fantastic. There's so many good lines in it that it's crazy. One line, I'll do one line. They were in nature. They're up in Utah essentially. They look around and the guy who plays Mark Zuckerberg slash Elon's characters goes, ''Oh my God, it's so beautiful.

You could fuck it.'' I just thought it was the best line ever. That's exactly how they look at nature and think. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out.

Today's show is produced by Lara Neyman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Kevin Oliver, and Corinne Ruff. Ernie Intertotte, I'm sure you knew this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Severo, and Dan Chalon, Nishak Kherwa, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.