Pivot - The White House UFC Fight, SpaceX’s Big Pop, and Fox’s Roku Deal

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Kara and Scott unpack the White House’s UFC spectacle, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery clearing a major merger hurdle, and SpaceX’s blockbuster public debut. Then, they discuss Fox buying Roku, the Trump administration’s latest clash with Anthropic, and state attorneys general investigating OpenAI.Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Oh, do we have a lot to talk about? Wow. But first off, where are you? I'm in New York.

No, I know that. You're at the Equinox Hotel? Oh, thanks for telling everybody. Yes. Well, I'm sorry. You're not that important. That's not a security risk. I get it.

A bunch of gay men are going to show. show up and ask for autographs? I'm going to tell everyone where you are you all the time. Please. I'm not that important. I try very hard not to say where you are. Yeah, find the nearest bar. Don't get hostile.

What did you go to the like? Did you finally go to that stupid UFC thing last night? I did not go. Oh, well, you have the energy of it. I came home early. I told you this to watch World Cup with my boys. Oh, good. It was a mistake.

It was a mistake. I got that. Yeah. But are you enjoying the World Cup any? Oh, it's fucking amazing. Netherlands and Japan was an amazing game. And I know you're very excited about this. I know.

I'm not. Victory over Paraguay, won nothing. Scotland has so much momentum. You heard it here first. I think they're going to beat either Morocco or Brazil. And if Scotland makes it to the quarters of the semis, I'm taking my kids to Boston and we're going to go see it. Oh, all right.

That sounds fun. Sounds like a good thing. It sounds very wholesome. And also the U.S. the U.S. had a big victory. They did. They did. So, anyways, I'm all about the World Cup. Well, good. Did you watch the Knicks or not? Did you care?

I hate to say it because, let me put this way, I'm super excited about New York. I fucked up leaving. I'd love to be in New York right now because I think the city is electric. Yeah, it is. I don't care that much about basketball. So I basically watched it on TikTok. It was a nice win, though. It was a nice win. It's great for the city. The city seems like everyone is really unified. It feels very, kind of demonstrates the power of sports. Yeah. Feels really good. You're there.

I am. I'm not going to be here. I'm going to meet you in Cannes, but I'm going early to Paris to with my kids. Can. Can. Whatever. Can. Anyway. That's right. We're going to be in the south of France together. We are, exactly. Are you bringing in the kids? Yes, I am. The little ones, not the big ones. You've got to learn how to travel. The point of travel is to escape the children. No, I like my kids. Let me get to the point. The Knicks. So it turns out I was sitting next to a

Nick all day during that Devil Wears Brata thing. I didn't recognize Carl Anthony Towns. I was sitting with Malti. I had no idea. He was so sweet when he was being interviewed. They're usually pretty easy to spot, especially in contrast to Kara Swisher. I know, but I just don't, I guess, but I just don't want to, like, I just didn't know. I knew he was a sports figure.

Anyway, he was sitting next to me all day. I look like such an idiot. But he was so, they were all so good. I don't usually watch basketball, but I have to say of all of them, I like basketball the best if I have to watch something. I thought it was very heartening. Everybody, everyone watching it from the streets and just New York, really. It makes me want to live here now, I have to say.

I shouldn't say that too loudly around Amanda. You do live there now. I know, but I mean full time. I was like, it's such a nice vibe. New York has such a great vibe. And in a contrast, the UFC really soiled itself with that idiot player saying that terrible thing about Michelle Obama. He's not a player. He's a fighter, but yeah.

Spider, whatever. That was weird. No doubt about it. It was unfortunate. Let me lay out what happened. and President Trump celebrated his 80th birthday ringside with this USC Freedom 250 where fighters compete in front of a crowd of 4,300, with the actual White House as a backdrop as a marketing thing.

There's a lot of marketing going on, whether it was Bud Light or whatever. Meta had, did something very laudable. They were giving these glasses to blind service members. I think their brand took a hit for being associated with it. Anyway, the guest list reads like a hoos hoops of power, tech, and money. Zuckerberg was there, who is a big fan. And this is the only thing I genuinely like about him. I'm glad he's committed to that, whatever.

Joe Rogan was there, as you said, Cabinet Secretary's Centers. Lindsay Graham looked very happy, surrounded by muscled men. Of course, Paramount CEO, David Ellison was in the audience as the event streamed exclusive behind a Paramount plus paywall. Nothing says the people like a paywall. We'll talk about that more in a minute because, you know, again, this one fighter grabbed and took this cheap shot at Michelle Obama, which is part of a conspiracy theory among the right,

and they seem to be obsessed with her and the Obama's. Now, UFC CEO Dana White later told Time magazine, everyone knows my position on free speech, but I hate that kind of nonsense. I don't think you need to defend free speech, Dana. It's just, can't you just say this is like horrible? Like, they always have to like find some dumb excuse. That's a, I think that was a good comment from him.

I guess. It's the least he could do. But we disagree on this because I actually think, well, we're going to, I think the event was. a win for the White House. And distinct of that dumb moment, which will get a lot of play. But, look, I think that essentially, just the way Tucker Carlson is trying to shore up the Nick Fuentes Manosphere part of the party, there is still a large segment of America

that wants to embrace some form of masculinity and feels like it's been shoved aside. And I feel the same way about masculinity that David Frum feels about the border. and that is if progressives don't enforce the border fascist will, and if Democrats can't come up with some sort of symbolism or role models that demonstrate strength and service as masculinity, then the Republicans are filled that whole with violence and misogyny, which is exactly what they're doing. And unfortunately, it not only highlights this performative, weird,

dominant, misogynistic form of masculinity that is just, in my opinion, and absolutely the terrible role model for young men. It highlights to me that Democrats haven't been able to identify anything around an aspirational viewpoint around masculinity. I'm going to push back. Trump is down 10% among young men over the past few months. They're way down. It's not because of this event.

No, I'm just saying it's just I think this version, masculinity, you know what a better version? We're the NICs, the way they were. And I'm taking away the owner who I don't particularly like. But I thought they display, you know, a lot of, like, support of women. If you notice, there was a lot of mothers, there was a lot of sisters. There was a lot of... Agreed. They always talk about, you know, the guy, the main guy Brunson, was, you know, he gave up a big

pile of money to have other people on the team, include a cat, Carl. Anthony Count. Well, he wants a ring. He wants a ring. Of course. But it's like, it just shows, like, the difference of the watch parties was really rather significant. And so if you want a version of masculinity, that's a version of masculinity that is very important. very sporty, very masculine. It did a lot to heal the male loneliness epidemic. Have you seen people out in the street like that, men out in the street like that?

Absolutely love it. Yeah. I don't think there's any way to not highlight the Knicks, their players, New York, what have you. Again, look, I think that event and the pageantry and the flyover, and there's a large segment of America that likes that stuff. I like a flyover, by the way.

I'm not saying I don't like a flyer. I think there are ways into this that are very, very clear that you can support things. I think it's, this is Monica has in the Washington Post. I think she did a great job. And she also is a big supporter of MMA, by the way. She likes it. The problem isn't the fighting on the lawn. People who love the UFC have had to sit through decades of presidents

inviting poets and cellists and opera singers to the White House, and the turnabout is fair play. The problem with Sunday's broadcast wasn't the fighting. The problem was the tonally incoherent, emulsion of patriotism and bloodlust, history, and by this crap, an event happening for the people, but tucked behind a paramount paywall. I think that exactly, that's what it felt like. It felt like, and by the way, all the cheap seats, they were stuck in that one area of, they weren't at the White House, which was, this is what she also wrote,

what do we make of this other than, this is America, bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, advertising bud light and trucks in loud we trust, bring me a ring girl's dress skimply in sequenced stars and stripes, and are men with cauliflower ears and a bunch of sailors dancing to YMCA. I just, there was such an, I don't know, I do contrast these things. I also contrast the World Cup, too, which looks wonderful and diverse and interesting, and the crowds are, I don't know, it's just, there is a way to appeal, and I think Democrats should embrace it, but this was grotesque,

and the center of attention will be this idiot, this idiot who's had his head, hit too many times, making an incredibly misogynistic, it's racist, it's anti-trade, it's just like gross, and no man doing anything. That's what it is. That's what it is. Yeah, look, her comments, her assessment is really, I don't know, the reporter's commentary is really, really impressive. And I do agree the World Cup and the Knicks are better. Look, at the end of the day, just politically, Kara, it was a total distraction and occupied. the news cycle from the fact that we have a shitty memo of understanding on something actually a lot more important. We will get to that, yes.

So just from a distraction standpoint, I think it was a whim. If they hadn't had that event, the media would have been much more focused on something that has much larger implications from the world. And that is Donald Trump walked into a, you know, a car dealership demanding a Ferrari and is leaving with a Camry because he's figured out he has bad credit. That he's overpaying for. Yeah. that we're just giving them everything. At a minimum, it probably wasn't strategic planning the timing,

but I think that I think anything to distracts from this memo from understanding. Even if it's a terrible statement, I get it, I get it. Well, we've got a lot today. We're going to talk about that. The Trump administration, by the way, is fighting with Anthropic again,

and SpaceX, of course, went public. That seems like 100 years ago. But, you know, speaking of Paramount got Justice Department approval, the merger is just cleared a key hurdle. The DAJ says its review found the roughly $110 billion deal is unlikely to harm competition for consumers or consumers removing a major federal obstacle. The deal isn't done yet, though. The state attorney general, including California, is still reviewing the transaction and could challenge it.

David Ellison said the merger remains on track to close by September. He's got to because after that, a so-called ticking fee would kick in making the acquisition more expensive. European regulators are still weighing approval. What's interesting to me is that the Justice Department apparently shut down its investigation. Paramount's bid to buy Warner Brothers before career staffers even had a chance to weigh in. And those lawyers weren't just skeptical of the deal. They were actually leaning towards recommending the DOJ sue to block it, arguing that combining two of Hollywood's biggest studios would be bad for competition.

But with the Ellison's and Trump, the fix apparently was in. I think, you know, we'll get to the Roku deal, which actually Fox just bought Roku, But these mergers are just coming fast and furious. And I think no one was surprised by this. It's a question of if the states or the European Union can slow this thing down. But you were concerned with Netscape with higher prices. How do you feel at this moment? Netflix with our prices?

Yeah, the reality is if the economists I talk to say that it's hard to, it's hard to say these guys have a monopoly. When you look at the fact that the combined viewership still won't rival YouTube's, when you look at the revenue, it's nowhere near what the revenue is for, you know, the media companies, the tech media companies we talk about. So you can accuse them of overpaying. I did Chiland down my spine over the weekend when I read that Mark Thompson as being considered as kind of the manager they need to come in for CBS News. The only one. Actually, the others who they mentioned said, no, but go ahead. But it just, I have a sudden to send it chilled out of my spine. I'm like, what, the Ellis. on CNN. It's like, it hadn't fully dawned on me. But from a straight, from a straight regulatory standpoint, there was really no, in my opinion, valid reason to block it. And by the way, I've switched on that. I was worried about the consolidation of media. But when you include

competitors around watch time, revenues, there wasn't, there really wasn't an economic argument. Now, in terms of mergers, you're going to see a flurry of them because anyone who's thinking maybe we'd like to buy companies, they're like, let's do it while the doing is good. Because if you get a Democratic administration in there, you're going to have much more scrutiny around these murders. And, I mean, you already see it. You already see attorney general's AGs in blue states getting much more excised about this merger than the federal guys. but it's going through, and it'll be really interesting to see what kind of the first moves are or ramifications of this consolidated company. They've got that debt to deal with because, you know, I've just recently interviewed a whole bunch of big media company,

just because of that media people, and they're all like, this debt is fucking ridiculous. Most of them are very much focused on the debt and the math of the situation. I think they'll have to make enormous cuts. And, you know, a lot of the rest, speaking of distraction, a lot of the rest, it's a distraction. And with the CNN thing, well, you know my feelings on that. I'm leaving as soon as I can. So you're out. You're out of CNN.

Yes, yes. You've been trying to talk me into doing shit at CNN for 24 months. No. That was before. You're not listening to me. Do you invest in our relationship? I've been saying it publicly. Well, that's why lesbians have the highest rates of divorce because both of them are listening.

Yes. It's important that in relationship that the man not listen a lot. That is key to the survival. That is key to the survival of our relationship. There's a lot of shit that just runs right over my head. Let me try to outline it. I don't want to work for the Ellicents, and I don't want to work for their handpicked minions

because I think they're incompetent. That is what I've said over and over again. And I like, I love working with the people at CNN. And I very much like Mark Thompson, and I hope they put him in charge. I think he would do a great job. I just don't see any way that these people make good decisions, and I don't trust them.

That's it. I just don't want to work for tech people. You know, they're more than they can, you know, I don't know, there's just, I don't, I'm just not, I'm just, there's lots of places to go. I don't, like you, I think TV's great, but it's not that great, like, to put up with this shit. Like, I don't, that's one thing. I like, you know, I like making that series. I just, you know, I don't, except if I owned it, if they want to buy it, they can buy shit off me if they feel like it. But other, but I don't want to be, I don't want them to own something. You don't think, see, I would argue for Kara Swisher, if they gave. you an agreement to work at CNN and said, you know, like, we're just, this is the editor, this is who's in charge of your stories. Why wouldn't you, you don't think you'd be able to fashion an agreement? I don't think they would do that. I don't think they would do that. Like, if they would pay me every time a person I don't like talks to me, I guess. But no, at this

moment, no, not the way they're behaving right now. And this, by the way, this whole, like. Hello, Leslie Stahl, demand to stay because you'll protect CNN from these evil. I don't think I have that power to do it. Anyway, there's lots of other options, and I'm under contract with them until the end of the year, and I'm hoping they'll let me out early because I don't want to affiliate with them, that's all. I left Murdoch, too.

This is not a new, fresh thing for Kara Swisher to flounce out and do better. No one cares, but it says something. I just want everyone to know. I'm absolutely a whore, an expensive whore. So Ellison's, you have my number. Oh, I heard about that. Let's not get into that issue. You have my number.

Yeah, they called you. I know that. I was defending you on that, by the way. I appreciate that. They had your number. You don't, we don't need TV at this point, honestly. We are TV, just with much better economics. It's just like a headache, and then I have to see them.

Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Fox is buying Roku. Support for today's show comes from ATIO, the AICRM. Every business has a CRM horror story. Too much admin, too little signal. never telling you what you actually need to know, how do teams know where to focus? The ones winning have it figured out. They're using Atio.

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Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. NetSuite.aI. slash pivot. Scott, we're back. Speaking of this, Fox Corporation is buying Roku in a $22 billion deal that could reshape how Americans watch TV. It's a big play for advertising-based television.

Just so, you know, Fox gets access to over 100 million households worldwide. Lots of people use this combining its live news, sports, and To Be streaming service with Roku's massive platform. The combined company would become the third largest player in U.S. television by share of viewing, putting real pressure on the likes of YouTube and Netflix. I've always liked Roku.

Roku will operate under the Fox umbrella with Roku founder, Anthony Wood, who's a really interesting person joining Fox's board in a subordinate role. That's interesting. Fox's shareholders own about 73% of the combined companies with Roku shareholders holding the remaining 27, and the deal still needs to sign off from both shareholder groups and regulators. It's interesting because they deliver all the networks into living rooms. It's almost like a cable company in a weird way.

I think I'm using my Roku in Brooklyn because I didn't want to get the cable bundle or something like that. I haven't hooked it up yet, but I've always liked Roku. I don't use it that much, but I thought Anthony did a nice job. And I'm just curious, he can't get any bigger, presumably is why he's selling. I think it's a great move. Something I didn't see coming in the moment I looked at it, I'm like, This makes all sorts of industrial logic. Who else could have bought Roku just before you move on from that?

Who else? Well, there's the obvious Warner Brothers Paramount. Yeah. Disney. I mean, this isn't, they have assets that are incredibly important. They have, I mean, they have a ton of first-party data. They have first-party data across 100 million households, which is a a really strategic asset. It gives Fox a direct viewer relationship that cable and broadcasts never

offered advertisers, right? So, because you have the cable company in the way. Fox projects 400 million and run rate cost synergies. They needed this. They needed this. It's a really savvy, bold move. It is. I thought, oh, my God, the lock this one is done as I thought. Yeah. What's interesting is they actually sold their shares in Roku at 58 bucks a share to fund their acquisition of Tubi, and now they're buying back in at 160. Fox will own roughly 73% of the combined company. Yeah. No, no, no.

But wait. I just said it, but they had had shares before? Yeah. So my understanding is that Fox actually, they had Roku shares in March of 2020, and they sold them at 58 bucks a share to fund their half a billion dollar to be acquisition. Yeah, which has been very helpful to them. So, look, this is a company that's making a big, bold bet, recognizing their core businesses and structural decline. I think it's really, like, I think the folks at Fox are really smart.

Yeah, this is a smart move. I thought that. I'm like, huh. But it is a big bet on advertising-based versions of this, right? Because Roku is averaging-based, and it's not subscription-based. But here's the thing. If you look at the trends, subscription has been eating into, subscription streaming has been eating into linear advertising. advertising-supported TV for the last 20 years.

In 2024, it stopped gaining share. It's like 50-50 right now. Too much, yeah. I mean, for example, I don't know if our listeners know this. They can watch Pivot or ProfG markets on Roku. It's available. We have a channel on Roku. Mm-hmm.

And it gets huge, huge viewership. Is it a significant revenue generator? There are total revenues around $4.7 billion. No, for you. For you. Oh, no. It's, we launched two months ago, but my attitude is if you look at enterprise value, just, and I try to be transparent about what we're trying to build a profitry markets

and what we're trying to build a pivot, if you're, the way you increase enterprise value and increase the multiple on your EBITDA is one by right now adding subscription revenue, which we're doing on substack, and two, having alternative distribution in different, differentiating your media mix or your revenue mix. So what starts small, I think we'll do 100 or 300 grand in revenue from Roku or advertising on Roku by serving all of our odds on Roku. But what you want is, if you ultimately think about enterprise value, it's a multiple of your profits and your growth.

But what increases the multiple is how enduring that revenue is, i.e. as much subscription revenue as possible, and also a diversified set of revenue streams. Right. Yeah, I see. So my attitude is, while it's been an effort to reform out our content and put it on Roku, it's absolutely worth it because what you want to say to a potential investor or acquire is look at all these different points of distribution and types of revenue mix that create a more, you know, a more enduring, a more enduring company. But just to get back to Roku, 4.7 billion in total net revenue, up 15 percent, you're over. year, platform revenue of $4.1 billion, that's up 18%, gross profit of $2 billion, up 15%.

Last year was their first gap profitable year. The company reported negative income of $80 million in Q4 a loan, so it's kind of hit that tipping point. Yeah. And again, sustainable. Over 100 million households have Roku at the end of 2025. And device hardware still runs at negative gross margin, but they sell hardware at a loss to capture platform users. I would argue that Roku is arguably the most important media company that people have never heard of. Now, let me just point to another person. Anjali sued, a young woman, Chief Executive Officer Tobey.

This is a free ad-supported streaming service they have. And she was the previous CEO of Vimeo. But she's expanded the user base. I think it's 100 million users. And it's the most watch-free TV streaming service. It's very quirky, and you can find all manner of stuff on there. But I think the two of them are very savvy. They're both incredibly smart.

Like, that's the thing. And I think one of the things, you know, Ockland Murdoch, I just think was born into his job. But these are two. One of the things I just interviewed Peter Ternan for my podcast today, another smart former Fox executives. One thing that Rupert's been good at is executives. Like, they're very sharp. and you should listen to the churning one because I think it was a great interview.

But, you know, just really smart executives, and this is the case. Anyway, very smart. You can also, by the way, watch us on YouTube. By the way, we're very promiscuous. The entire Scott and Kara are very promiscuous. Anyway, let's move on to the other one. We like this deal.

SpaceX, of course, this seems like 100 years ago, officially public. And as one, Scott Galway predicted, did it did indeed close up on its first day of trading, and you had said it was going to be about 20% and not more, which is interesting. It was a 19. something percent. Shares are at a high of 177 at the time this taping

after the company's public debut on Friday, making the current market cap 2.32 trillion. You thought it might be a scoge under two. Its first day on the market, over 500 million shares traded hands. A lot of movement here. Elon himself, of course, crossed the milestone, thanks to the pop, becoming the world's first trillionaire. there were some notable buyers, Gina Reinhardt, Australia's richest person, bought over a billion

stake in the company, and Kathy Wood's ARC investment bought more than $500 million for the stock. So go through if there's anything surprising there because venture, and also venture funding for U.S. space technology firms excluding SpaceX jumps $7.5 billion in 2025 from $2.5 billion in the previous years, probably we'll see if that goes anywhere because it's also a money, it can be a money furnace, as you, the word you use. but any thoughts on where it is right now? So I thought that the bankers and Musk and, look, I think the most significant thing here is that this,

we've never seen such engineered manufactured scarcity. There was tens of billions of dollars of demand for this IPO that has never existed for an IPO before. And then you combine it with the fact that unlike other IPOs that went public on the NASDAQ, It didn't have to float more than 10%. It only floated 5%. Yeah, very scarcity, as you said.

So you've just created manufacturer scarcity. Now, to be fair, it's up again today. So this has created a level of excitement in the market. I do think you have to highlight the positives here, and that is I never want to be someone that demonizes success. There are 14 new billionaires in Texas that you've never heard of. Those people will give money away. They will start new businesses.

Something that's uniquely American is that we continue to produce companies like this and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. It's going to create a lot of economic growth. You're going to see a surge in philanthropy from Berkeley to the University of Texas. It inspires a lot of people. There's a lot of positives here. And we're seeing venture funding increasing in space-related projects. So there's a lot to like here. You know, I don't like the manufactured scarcity

and the what I'll call the overlying narrative of sort of like the hero's journey here. And the numbers that certain businesses are not great. Yeah, look, from evaluation standpoint, and this is what Musk has always been able to do, is to create this narrative over numbers that's like no one else in history. So, but right now the stock is trading 30%

above the IPO price. And then he has also, again, and I go back to governance, there's all these different lockups. Like if you trade on a certain platform and you bought shares through direct share purchase on a certain platform, they technically don't have a lockup, but they, if they sell their shares, they can't trade on the platform before, which is like a soft lockup. There's certain criteria around when you can sell if the stock is up a certain amount, et cetera. To be fair, Elon's locked himself up. I doubt he's planning to sell.

He'll just borrow against his stock. But what they've effectively done, which you're not supposed to do, is they've created different classes of shares, which you're not supposed to do. So, again, I find that this is really inspiring and important and going to be great for economic growth on certain levels.

I also believe that this entire sector is going to have, not a collapse, but a pretty serious drawdown when people after two or three earnings calls are forced to justify anything resembling a future that involves the kind of earnings built into this thing. Right. And then the rush to space technology firm, same thing. They're going to overinvest, which is normal, like I would assume, presumably. And quite frankly, that's one of the great things about America, because we overinvested in the Internet, and the technology survived and a lot of those companies came back, and that investment was good. But you didn't want to be one of the investors overinvesting initially. Choice.com, yeah. Yeah. So, but I say. somebody called me and I said this on pivot.

Someone called me and said, I have allocation. Should I take it? And I said, take it and trade out on the first trade. Although, if you buy it and trade out, you don't do as, most people don't do as well, except in certain cases, right? There were all these, like, really interesting statistics of buying and selling that were not good in the long run over time. It's just you've got to hit the exact right one or you lose money most of the time.

This was different because, so first off, trading out. trading you get short-term capital gains at a higher rate. So there's a lot of evidence that shows that just generally with investing, you're better off just buying and trying to never sell. It's just trading is a difficult game. I thought, and I said this, I said, they are going to manufacture a 20% pop. The bankers and everyone are figuring out a way to create a supply demand imbalance

that will exactly peg this at a 20% pop. What's impressive and punctures that theory is that it's up another 11% today. And the thing that, also just the thing that deserves a nod, is the best VC in the world is not Andreessen Horowitz or whoever initially funded SpaceX. Tiel, founders fund. Well, it's, in my opinion, it's Uncle Sam, and that SpaceX investors and the banks taking SpaceX public should remember that we would not be here today without grants from the federal government. In 2008, SpaceX was on the verge of bankruptcy and would likely have run out of money, if not for a grant from NASA. And the golden law...

Same thing with Tesla. And then the golden law of stupidity here, Trump is trying to cut NASA's funding by more than 20% this year. Same with MRI technology. Same with the government is one of the greatest investors of all time, if you could think about it that way. Best VC in history, whether it's medical research for our universities or electric charging stations, you know, and they would argue back, well, they're going to get their buy

They're going to get enormous return through tax revenues. The big debate this will stir is in America we've been talking about for decades now, what's dominated the conversation is how you create wealth. The conversation that is superseding that is what you should do with wealth once you have it. And so right now, Elon Musk could buy all of Manhattan, every building, every condo, every park with his, that's how much money he has right now. And whether or not this level of concentration of power, which comes in a capitalist society for money, presents a risk. And I'm of the mind that I think it's important that eventually, and I'm in favor of eventually having

trillionaires, but we should have guardrails over the power and progressive taxation, which we don't have right now. Can I just say one thing I'm going to push back on in that you've created all these rich people are going to give to charity. If you look at the statistics, I don't think they're going to be charitable. I don't think they're going to do good things. I just don't. I don't think this class, I don't think Elon Musk has had a very good record. So I just, I'm not expecting these people to be. I think they're going to be on an ongoing quest for more money and more power and more consolidation. So I'm not impressed with their charitable thoughts. And I'm glad they're creating jobs, but they would immediately cut you if they had to. I just don't think they have that.

You're talking about, okay, but I think we need to parse that, and that is, if you look at billionaires and their wives, the wives have hands down been more philanthropic. And it doesn't, and they quote unquote, billionaire masters of the universe have not acquitted themselves well on a lot of levels. But there's just no doubt this type of wealth creation event is going to result in a surge in philanthropy. It just does. Hopefully. Because that would be great. You're going to have a lot of people who wake up and have $20 million and think, I'm going to give $2 million to the local food bank, or I'm going to give $50,000.

I talk to, you know, I'm involved with the University of California. They're all revising their giving goals up for next year because of the IPOs coming down. And they have so many alumni. I'm not talking about Elon Musk, I think it would be you could make a credible argument that he's not the most philanthropic person. And I get that. And you can definitely make an argument that McKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates are more philanthropic than their husbands. But when you see these types of liquidity events, local philanthropies surge in terms of money.

That would be great. In terms of money. There's, look, there's, for all of SpaceX's problems and income inequality, there isn't a nation on Earth that wouldn't kill to have those problems. I would agree. I just think it's going to go into political activism in a way that could be deleterious to most of us. Oh, I, I. That's where it's going. It's not going to helping a kid.

Let's be clear. Elon Musk, in my view, can probably decide who the next president is. Yeah, that's correct. He spent $250 million and had influence on the election. Maybe he didn't decide it, but he had influence on it. What happens if he decides to put 2.5% of his net worth or $25 billion or 100 times what he spent last time. And also, to be fair, are we comfortable?

And he deserves credit. One of the things that he doesn't get enough credit for is he has turned off Starlink for Russia. And it has put Russia at a severe disadvantage to Ukraine. And I think that is a wonderful thing and he deserves credit for it. Having said that. Except if tomorrow he changes his mind. Well, that's exactly right. Having said that is should that power reside,

in a private citizen that has no government or electoral oversight. No. But the, look, it's a ton of economic growth. The banks made a shit ton of money. You have a lot of people. 4,000 people became millionaires on Friday. I get it. I hope they're better at it.

I just think, I'm not even, Musk is one thing, but I'm worried about others that aren't quite so broad. I just like, I always, whenever I see a box, I think the U-L-L-I-N-E, I don't know how to pronounce it, but they're like huge givers. They're crazy right-wing causes. And so I just am like, oh, God, the boxes, the this, that. Anyway, I just hope that they are charitable.

The citizen-denied problem. Yeah, I hope that they're charitable. That's what I hope. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back. We'll talk about the Trump administration coming for Anthropic yet again. Support for the show comes from Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute.

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that I was being stalked. I discovered a lot of inaccuracies also at the same time, and I found an enormous amount of information about my life for dozens of years. So if you've ever thought I should really be doing somebody to protect myself from stalkers, scammers, and hackers, but you're not sure what. Here's what you do. Go to join delete me.com slash pivot and enter the code pivot. You get 20% off Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online.

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That's join deleteme.com slash pivot code pivot. Hassam Piker has blown up in recent years. After the 2024 election, the popular leftist Twitch streamer became a go-to voice for the Democratic Party. But Pikers glow up has angered a section of Democrats who are growing louder in voice. Hassan Piker is anti-American. He is big.

He's anti-Semitic, and he is deeply misogynistic. So in March, a Democratic group called Third Way published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal's opinion section saying, quote, Democrats are too cozy with Hassan Piker. He is such an extremist that it will only do damage to Democrats and hurt their chances of beating right-wing populism. Now, Piker is controversial, no doubt. But is he toxic? I don't think this helps Republicans at all. I think, as a matter of like, Third Way's brand of politics. politics has helped Republicans. Their attitude has been to constantly concede on culture or issues to the Republican Party and never focus on economic populism.

I'm a Sted Hearnton. And this is America Actually. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Scott, we're back with more news. Anthropic had 90 minutes to take down its most powerful models, mythos, and fable, which is mythos, but the public version of it on Friday at the request of the government who cited a national security threat, the Trump administration issued, order barring all foreign nationals from having access, including Anthropics' own non-U.S.

employees, including a lot of them at the top, essentially forcing the company to take it offline. The decision was probably made after a conversation with Amazon's Andy Jassie, who told officials researchers and his company got fable to provide information to be used in cyber attacks. Anthropic sent staff to Washington to meet with the White House, which should try to fix the dispute. I'm sorry. I just think they're waiting for an excuse here to get Anthropic. I think maybe Jassy might have said this.

But the minute they could, they jumped on Anthropic. And of course, Anthropics making the argument that every other model can do this, too. And they're just cherry-picking. By the way, the company is also being sued for its $200 a month AI plans with consumers alleging it oversold the usage allowance as it offered. So that's that. And then, by the way, a coalition of state's attorney generals have opened an investigation into Open AI. The company was served with a subpoena seeking documents. related to its activities and impact on users, including activity related to minors and seniors

handling of health data and company policies earlier this month. Florida became the first date to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, alleging the two knowingly released an unsafe product. That's an interesting. This is a separate thing, but this anthropic attack by the White House is really interesting. Of course, they were just waiting for something to come at them, as usual. David Sachs just lies in wait. Yeah, I had mixed emotions here because I think it's a good thing.

I'd like to think that the government's involvement in acting crisply around the threats of AI is overdue. So I applaud the government moving in crisply and saying, we need to shut this down until we understand it better. I applaud that the problem is I don't trust these people. I don't know what their motivations are. I don't know if they're generally concerned about the well-being. No, the answer is no. Or if this is just politically motivated trying to shut down one company

because you have political donors at the other. And supposedly, I just got off, I just had Ian Bremmer on the pod talking about Iran. He said at the G7 meeting, the shutdown of Anthropic was a bigger topic than the memo of understanding in Iran because if you're a foreign company

and you've deeply integrated Anthropic into your workflow, and all of a sudden it's turned off. It's like, okay, does this mean the government has a kill switch for AI that when whoever it is is angry at them just turns it off? So this is, again, this all comes down

to the same fucking thing. You don't trust these people. And why isn't there a congressional, like that everybody has to live by it? What does Andy Jassy have a conversation? I'd like to hear from Andy fucking Jassy right now. Now, what did he say? What is he, like, why did he, he's, they're an investor anthropic, by the way, so I'm not sure I even trust that story.

I don't even know if I trust the Jassy part of the story. I'd like him to speak out publicly about it. But yeah, I agree. I don't trust these fuckers, and I think they're doing it to kneecap Dario because he's been a nuisance for that. Yeah, he's not their chosen. He's the one that said no on self-healing, or, you know, on weapons or privacy violations. So he's on their shit list. And, you know, I love the idea.

but Dario Anthropic would say, perhaps correctly, that these same jail breaks are things that the reason why they shut down are available on other models. Again, they're not a perfect company. I get that they're being sued for over allowances. I just think there's going to be they are in the front and they are not going along with this administration, so you're going to see all manner of nonsense attacking them.

And some of it, you know, I don't think they're perfect. I don't think, you know, I think he can be a little bit, you know, righteous, but at least it's righteous for the right things. on some level. And I just think this is, as I said, this is not about national security. This is about a beef and a rumble between different Silicon Valley interests that it seems to be. We need a panel or a regulatory body that's bipartisan with experts, economists, philosophers who say, okay, maybe it shouldn't take 10 years to release an AI model for the public, similar to the way it does for drugs. but we need 30 days in an institution or an agency represented by the briefs Congress that says,

okay, before you release anything, it's got to go through this 30, 60, 90 day screening where we bang the shit out of it. And everyone is subject to the same regulatory approval. And that kind of regulatory certainty is good for the economy. It's good for companies. They want to know what rules they're playing by. They don't want to have to think, Jesus Christ, I've got to go to a fucking UFC fight or fear that they're going to turn off my, you know, my next version of this product.

But supposedly it's created chaos abroad because a lot of companies... Sure is, yeah. And even defense departments and NATO members decide to use Anthropic into their scenario planning or to figure out when to turn off and on power that runs into hospitals. And all of a sudden they've got to go, okay, you mean one guy based on criteria we can't figure out, has, again, a kill switch on an important technology. And there is... To me, if you read David Sachs' stupid excuse,

is he's such a pompous ass. And I just trust none of this. They do not care about all of us. They care about this Silicon Valley beep. And you can feel like the hand of others here. It's just you don't trust them. Like you said, I think you put your nose on it. Now, what's more serious are these lawsuits, you know,

in terms of how good their product is and whether it's accurate or not. I just, you know, that's to me. where some of the real issues are going to come with all these companies, all the social media companies, everybody else. It's impact, whether it's data centers or minors or bad health stuff or bad data, but unsafe products is actually where I think the action is. This is also, I think this is headed one way, and that is it'll probably result in the administration,

putting all sorts of restrictions on Chinese open weight models, trying to come into the U.S. and disrupt what is becoming an increasingly difficult case to justify the ROI on these token expenditures. And so this is, this is, again, going to take on its own sort of terra feel and geopolitical. It helps a company like Mistral out of France, who is not subject to the same things, although supposedly that's inferior technology. I'll be very curious. I wouldn't be surprised at all if all of a sudden Trump decides these Chinese, that American firms can't use these open weight models coming out of China. But this is the next big, political football, I think, is who and how gets to use American AI firms and what AI models are

allowed into the U.S. I do think these safety things are building with parents and everyone else. I just do. I think that, as you said, the brand AI has gotten so many hits. It's almost like this idiot who got hit in the head and said racist and misogynistic things at the UFC fight. It just is getting, it is getting a bad rep. And there's going to be legal implications, I think, because I think people are upset and angry. And it's not, as Mr. Wonderful says, about his data centers, the Chinese fault.

It's your own. All right. Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. The U.S. and Iran say they've agreed on terms to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. You already see oil prices from a high of $126 a barrel down to about $80 a barrel today. That's a lot of progress. The war, of course, drove up the price of gas.

and other essentials and has led to some ugly polling for President Trump. 61% of adults polled by NPR, PBS, and Marist disapprove of his handling of the economy. His handling in a certain light makes sense. His priority was preventing Iran from getting nukes. But Trump's messaging was unusual, unusual for a president. Last month, the reporter asked Trump, to what extent was he thinking about Americans' finances when he negotiated with Iran? I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody.

What's he doing? Coming up on today, explained from Vox. I'm Seth Matlins. My new show, Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing, explores how every decision a company makes, not just the marketing ones, but the HR, IR, pricing, org design, and planning ones. The ones most don't consider marketing at all contribute to either creating value or destroying it. Each week, I sit down with CMOs, CEOs, founders, cultural thinkers, the people building, breaking, and reimagining how businesses grow or don't.

for conversations about what creates value and what destroys it. It's a business show. It's a marketing show. Creator destroys the show that argues. They've always been the same thing from the Vox Media Podcast Network and the Wisdom is company. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. After the better part of two decades, something impossible just happened.

Siri became good. At Apple's WWDC Developer Conference, Apple once again presented its grand plans for AI and the future of everything, and the star is a brand new voice assistant that by all accounts actually appears to have done the job this time. This week on the Vergecast, we're talking about all of the news from WWDC, including all of the stuff coming to Apple devices this fall, and what it means that Siri actually works now. That's the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts.

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first? You go first, Kara. I'm going to do a win and a fail. together because one of the things around this UFC thing is meta's used the opportunity to do PR for itself, which fine, I don't really care, around this giving blind veterans these glasses, right? These glasses that help them navigate. I think this is a great thing.

I don't care if it's a PR thing. I don't care any manner of it. I do think I know, and Amanda was actually telling me, this is really helpful for people who have disabilities like blindness, these glasses. I think all of them, not just metas, but everybody's, not these RayBam ones, but I suspect Apple, will have a lot of utility for people who are blind. I think it's very exciting. And I think it's a good thing. Look, I don't mind if you use PR for doing that.

I get it, and it's fine, and it helps people. And I give it a lot. This was an effort pushed by Dina Powell, who they just hired, and good effort. And they should do a lot of these things. Nonpartisan would be great. They don't have to just mob up with Trump all the time. they should go with everybody to do these things to help people. And again, I don't care if they get a PR win off of it.

That's fine by me. What I think is that them being, doing it during this UFC fight took the focus off the veterans in that way. You know what I mean? Because it just is like, oh, God, didn't you expect that something terrible would happen here? And so, as I said, I really do admire Marx, like of MMA. It's kind of like one of the most human things about him. But it just was like, here's something that's for good, and then you get this idiot say something

and create all manner of problems for them. So it was a good attempt, and then it got drowned out. Something good got drowned out. And again, I don't even mind if you trot Ivanka Trump out. I just, I don't love it, but whatever for these kind of things. But if it helps these veterans, a good thing. I just think it got in the way of what the veterans they were trying to do for veterans, which I think is a real thing.

but they should do a lot more nonpartisan things that helps the rest of us. But any, you know, as they say, anything Trump touches turns to shit. And that's, I felt that my dad was a veteran. I have a lot of family members of veterans. I wanted to be a veteran. As I always say, I would have been being, I would have been an admiral about to be fired by Trump right now if I had my career choice. But it was, I really felt bad that this was got sucked up into this ridiculous nonsense of

the White House with UFC. I just, the vision of you being an admiral, I don't. That would be an excellent admiral. Yeah. I would. By the way, Dana White's on the board of Meta, too, just so you're aware. That's win and fail, because I was like, oh, here's something good, and here it got sullied. And the story, as usual, went off onto another way.

And I don't blame the media for it. I don't blame. This guy said something so terrible and grotesque at the White House. This is where this woman used to live, you fuckers. Like, back off. Like, and say you're sorry. Say you're fucking sorry for that piece of shit. Anyway, go ahead.

Okay, my win here is the social media ban in the UK. Britain just announced the world's strictest teen social media law going further than Australia, the country that inspired all of this. Prime Minister Kirstarmer announced Monday that TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and X will be banned from offering services to under 16s. As someone who has a 15-year-old in the house, I can tell you that I think the most negative anxiety-inducing thing in our household is our 15-year-old's usage of social media.

And people say, well, that's a parenting thing. No, they pay for the tube with their phone. If you tell them not to use social media, they're isolated from their friends and become more depressed. This needs to be a collective ban, and that's what the prime minister here did. There is no reason, no justification for anyone under the age of 16 being on any social media platform.

Some people will say, what about YouTube? Fine, put out a kid's version of YouTube. I'm down with that. But this goes into effect in spring of 2027. Overnight, it curfews and infinite scroll limits under consideration. or, excuse me, overnight curfews and infinite scroll limits are under consideration. Liability falls on platforms, not on children or parents.

It's consistent with Australia's approach, which finds companies up to $50 million for noncompliance. It needs to be a percentage of revenues, I would argue. And then Britain's existing online safety act is already cut visits to porn sites by a third and raise the share of children encountering age checks online from 30% to 47%. Spain, Greece, Slovenia, and France are already pursuing similar bans. And Australia's 2020, December 2025 law has officially triggered a global cascade. And a study of 18 to 24-year-olds found out that not using social media for one week significantly reduced symptoms of anxiety by 16%, depression by 25%, and insomnia by 15%. This isn't just a win for

teen mental health. This is a win for democracy. The more time you spend on social media, the less you believe in democracy. You know, can I, one thing you point, if they had gone and tried to make a safe product, like that's, you know what they're going to do? They're going to say, it's not going to work in Australia. It's not going to work. That's their argument. It's never about the thing. It's never about that this is deleteries. And by the way, speaking of which that movie's coming out, the social reckoning, which is the part two of the social network, Jeremy Strong from Succession as playing Mark Zuckerberg, as I noted last week,

why do they never talk about the thing? They just say how it doesn't work and how it does this and this and that, but they never want to talk about the thing, which is, are you hurting people with your unsafe products? Yeah, but again, I don't think we should fall under the trap of believing that the owners of McDonald's

or Ford are going to figure out, are going to focus on anything other than what car do Americans want to drive, what's the design, and we don't give a shit that it gives you diabetes, we just want basically a food orgasm in your mouth. It's up to us as voters, and we have done this, to implement to appoint really smart people who decide to devote their lives to government and regulatory concerns to protect the well-being of the Commonwealth. If we're waiting on these companies to start thinking about the safety and harms of their product, good fucking luck. But look at the cost we've paid for obesity and fat. Like, why do we keep doing this to ourselves?

That's the thing. I agree. But when you say we doing it to ourselves, the voters. The capitalist system is companies are rapacious, engage in full body contact, violence, not worried about other people, worried about getting a product that commands margin. And quite frankly, that works, as long as you have regulatory bodies ensuring that opiates don't gut, you know, small towns in Appalachia. But again, asking, we can ask the question, we can all hope for a guy who's in charge of AI with hush tones who just adopted a baby boy and he's concerned about AI and this really attractive woman who says, we need to do better and we are

open to regulation. They're all fucking whores. And we have built a whorehouse and the whorehouse works but you have to have a cop. Can I call you on that? We have built a hall house and the whorehouse works. Go ahead. The whorehouse works. That's your next book, The Whorehouse Works. Well, it's funny.

I was just in a wedding in Amsterdam and the Rosewood there used to be an orphanage and then a whorehouse. And I thought, well, that's a pipeline. Oh, God. Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said. Anyway. I think I know that hotel. But go ahead.

I get mad at us. They're doing their job. And we keep trying to shame them into thinking about. the safety of their product. You're right. You don't think McDonald's is just going to decide we need to have salads. It's just the right thing to do. Remember, it didn't work.

Yeah. I mean, anyways, we need economic incentives and regulations that punish these people and create disincentives. I like it. But my win, Prime Minister Kirstarmer, my fail, I just spent the most wonderful week in northern Europe. I was in Stockholm and then I was in Amsterdam. And Sweden is growing, it's kind of the non-European European country. It's growing 2.5%.

It is actually produced, despite having the population of North Carolina, it's produced companies including King, Clarnah, Spotify, Erickson. They produce a ton of unicorns. Very clever people. And they have the industrial might or productivity of Germany with some of the innovation of Silicon Valley and the social policies of Bernie Sanders. And then you go to Amsterdam, where they have become kind of the ground zero for data centers in Europe. They have ASML. If Nvidia is the picks and shovels, ASML makes the picks and shovels. Productivity is up two and a half

percent. The economy is strong there. These are some of the wealthiest countries in the nation, and they settle an argument. And this is my fail. America has tried to convince its population, that you can't have billionaires and universal health care. Bullshit. Yes, thank you. These companies prove you can have really wealthy people, and you can have universal pre-K, and you can have child services.

And I spent some time with the founder and the people running Spotify this weekend, and they were all in the Valley. They all moved back to Sweden where they are paying much higher taxes, and they're fine to do it because they trust that the government is going to spend their money.

They trust that being able to ride a bike to work and have a kid with special needs is going to be taken care of. And I did not see a single homeless person, by the way, in Stockholm. Granted, that's probably not indicative of all of Sweden. And granted, do they have problems with immigration and housing prices that follow prosperity? 100%. But we need to stop in America believing that there's a myth that inequality, that inequality and billionaires and unicorns demand a rapacious lack of a safety net.

Yeah, I said the same thing about Korea when I was there. They're healthier. Oh, my God, it's so weird. Universal healthcare for one, but the other stuff, I agree. Great one. Anyways, I love, I had such a nice time. I was so blown away by Sweden and my, I was actually at my best friend's son's wedding,

Jack Markman, this incredibly impressive young man that reminds me of my, it's like the mini me of my friend. And I had time, I spent, I did myself a favor. I went early and I left late and I spent time in both of those places. They are such incredibly lovely places. And so do you want. Anyways, they trust that their governments are going to spend their money correctly. They trust each other.

They trust, there's also really strong governance such that they attract foreign investment because they know they're not going to get fucked by a corrupt guy. or a corrupt politician. They also just convicted in Norway, the princes, I think, steps up. I saw that. I mean, they just, look, when you do bad things, no matter where you are, you get, not all the time. Okay, Prince Andrew?

I know, I agree with you on that. I don't know. I mean, I agree, but he's heading that direction. But he was removed. They kicked him out of, they defrocked him, whatever the fuck they do, they do with the monarchy here. Yeah, but no, he's being investigated finally, but you're right, 100% fair point.

He'll pay a bigger price than any of those billionaires on that island. That's true. That is true. Anyways, my win, my fail is this false dichotomy. We've talked Americans into believing that you can't have billionaires and really robust capitalism and growth and not have universal health care and child care. You absolutely can. And the Netherlands and Sweden produce that or prove that in spades.

Yeah. And in America, you don't have to insult a very impressive black woman in order to feel more like a man, you in fact act. What an idiot. What a fucking idiot. And by the way, Michelle Obama does demonstrate more masculinity, service, strength than that dude. You know, anyway, I can't even go. I saw that and I thought, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ. Thank you. What the, like, what, what, does that kind of daughters? I don't know. Okay. Are you going to wait for some fucking idiot to start saying stupid shit about your daughter? Yeah, I just, I just, I did. Oh, we didn't like them.

Admiral Swisher, takeover. Thank you. By the way, I like MMA, but fuck that guy. Anyway, and by the way, Dina, say something stronger, like even stronger. Like, kick that fucker out. Okay, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivots.

I'm a question for the show. Or call 85551 Pivot elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week on On. I spoke to Peter Chernin, one of the producers of the hit film Backrooms, He talked, this legendary media executive, entertainment media executive, he talked about how studios are rushing to sign YouTubers and why that's a mistake. Let's listen to a clip.

Every single meeting in Hollywood over the last 10 days has been, find me my YouTuber. That's not the smartest thing on Earth. You know, it's no different than saying, find me a sequel to something else. You know, it's worth noting we spent three years on this project. You know, we spent a period of time chasing, We spent a long time working on the script.

We spent another year on production. And, you know, it's not just saying bet on a YouTuber. It's not just saying, bet on some, it's betting on a very specific piece of content and bending on a very specific piece of talent. He is a class act and so smart. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot,

and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Today's show is produced by Lara Namem and Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Weism, additional assistance from Kate Gallagher, and Brad's Lerner. investor. Ernie and Jodd Engineer of this episode. Thanks to also do your bros, mea Severeo and Dan Ceylon. Nishakuroz, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure

to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Box Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. I will see you later in the week.