Pivot - Thiel Thinks BlackRock is Woke, Tesla Stalls Out, and a Crypto Crash

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Tesla halts production in Shanghai, Grindr flirts with going public, and Democrats get an edge at the FTC. Also, Peter Thiel sets his sights on BlackRock, because apparently it's too woke? Kara and Scott discuss the meltdown in cryptocurrencies and take a listener question about TikTok's management. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. So, Scott, I hope you haven't looked into your retirement account today. The stock market is just down, down, down it goes. Down it goes. Yeah, so I think before this market meltdown, when I was rich, I used to be quirky, and then I got rich, and then I was just fucking fascinating. People started laughing at my jokes. You're quirky again. People found me kind of handsome in a weird way. Now I'm just a quirky old man again.

So here I am back again. Back again. Quirky. Quirky. I wouldn't say quirky would be the adjective I'd use for you. No. Honestly. No.

Spry. Odd. Tonzo fun. So delicioso. I just want to say, Scott, you didn't come home the other night, and I'm not going to go into it. I was there. Well, our first story is on Grindr, isn't it? Yes, it is, and we're going to get to that.

But today, also, we're going to talk about P2. I didn't come home. You go to bed at like 7 p.m. No, I do not. I was doing something pretty lame. I was speaking. I was actually speaking at a conference anyway. Were you?

Sure. Speaking. Speaking at a conference, Were you? Sure. Speaking. Speaking at a conference, and his name is Lamar. Today, we're going to talk about Peter Thiel wants to take down BlackRock. Elon Musk might want to renegotiate that Twitter price as Tesla hits a roadblock in China. Also, we'll take a listener question about TikTok. All right, but first, this is an area that you wanted to talk about. Grindr wants to meet up in SPAC Alley. That is a thing written by Evan, and I'm horrified by it

completely. The dating app will merge with Tiga Acquisition Corp with a valuation of more than $2 billion. But that's not the only thing. It turns out Grindr's user location data was available for purchase until two years ago. No surprise. And meanwhile, the Match Group, which owns Tinder, also OKCupid, is suing Google over dominance in Android payments. Match says it is, quote, hostage to Google's payments policy, which can mean 30% cut in the Google Play Store. So what do you think of this? What do you think of these things? You have thoughts on dating, from what I understand. What do you think of this?

What do you think of these things? You have thoughts on dating from what I understand. Well, I think that a key thing to remember in strategy is the specific crowns out the general. And it just seems obvious now that Grindr would focus on a cohort, right? And they've done a great job. I love how kind of nakedly profane they are, quite frankly, even in the name. Yeah. I actually have the Subway app and the Grindr app. So I either have a foot-long sub coming over or something entirely different, Cara. Something entirely different.

Okay. Can we talk for a moment? All right, that's enough. I want an actual business insight here rather than a series of butt jokes. Okay, so I have a few observations around Grindr other than online dating is a great business. And match. Yeah. It's a great business. I see has kind of dominated it. And if you look at how people are meeting, they're increasingly meeting online. Pre-pandemic, it was something like a third of relationships. There's some estimates

that it's now over half. I don't know that it'll go back, but what people don't talk about is there are massive second order effects from online dating. And that is, it takes out as a criteria, it takes out vibe, it takes out things like smell with pheromones, which supposedly are a big deal in terms of our mating preferences.

And it also creates something that is a big issue that we don't talk about. And that is we talk a lot about income inequality in our nation, but we don't talk about mating inequality. And that is if you have 50 men on Tinder and 50 women, 46 of the women will demonstrate all of their interests across just four men. And it's mostly based on their ability to signal their ability to garner resources. Not necessarily how many resources they have at that moment, but if you're coming out of MIT and have a job offer from J.P. Morgan, you do really well on Tinder. And then for women, it's basically just looks. And so what you end up with is this crazy –

All right, this is a straight world. Grindr happens to be gay, but go ahead. Keep going. But in sum, when you have digitization of any sector, it becomes a winner-take-most environment. 50% of e-commerce to Amazon, two-thirds of social to Facebook, and it's happening and mating. And the existential, the second-order effect here is the top 10% of attractiveness for men are getting all of the 80% of the opportunities, which doesn't encourage long-term relationships. And the bottom 50% of men are totally shut out of the market. And it's leading

to an environment where a large cohort of young men in America essentially have no mating opportunities and are creating this underclass in mating. And I think it is a real threat in terms of instability of a society because the most unstable societies in the world produce too much of one cohort specifically. Possibly. May I make another observation? I know a ton of amazing straight women, this is in the straight women area, who are single, who are wonderful, who cannot find a date and have a difficult time meeting people. So these men are picky and they actually have a lot of choices. I'm not getting it the other way around.

The data shows that it's the women, and they have every right to be. But here's the bottom line. In the next five years, there's going to be two female college graduates for every male college graduate. And women mate socioeconomically horizontally and up. Men mate horizontally and down. Women aren't interested in mating. A college graduate woman isn't interested in mating with a guy who didn't go to college. So your friends, I know a lot of the same women who haven't found the mate,

quite frankly, they can't find a mate that meets their criteria because there are fewer and fewer economically viable men in this country because young men are failing for a lot of different reasons. But essentially, we have too many men who aren't economically or emotionally viable. We are producing a huge cohort of men who, quite frankly, just aren't viable mates. They aren't going to college. They're immature. They're spending too much time watching porn and playing video games. They're not developing social skills.

So this is- And so you blame the match group on this or online dating. Oh, gosh. There are so many. I think a lot about this. There are so many factors, starting from the fact that two-thirds to 90% of primary school and high school teachers are women. So who do they champion? Young men, we don't talk about this because we don't feel sorry for them. Four times as likely to kill themselves, nine times as likely to be incarcerated. I'm aware of this, raising sons. I noticed that.

I observed a class where the boys were always caught. The girls were more clever when they were misbehaving. But you have, you're going to have two female college grads for every one male college grads. And the bottom line is women aren't interested, women college grads aren't interested in mating with men who didn't get caught. We're getting away from the SPAC, which is, is this a good thing? I see your point. I think this is a really big issue that we're not talking about. And you know who resonates when I talk about it?

You know who calls me and says, first off, women get upset because they think I'm somehow saying they have an obligation to service men. I'm not saying that at all. No one has an obligation to service anybody. Men get insulted because I'm calling saying that at all. No one has an obligation to service anybody. Men get insulted because I'm calling a group of men basically incels. But you know who totally this resonates with

and I hear from? Mothers. My daughters at Penn. My other daughters moving into Chicago. And my sons in the basement vaping and playing video games. Well, I have two very attractive sons

who would make excellent dates and have not had trouble, but I'm just saying there's a lot more availability out there. I just think people get on these websites and the way people meet has changed rather significantly. I think that's what it is,

is they don't know how to meet each other. And these online dating services, Grindr is transactional for the most part, from what I can understand, people who use it. There's also Ruff, there's a whole bunch of them in the gay space. And so they're transactional is what they are, which is sex. And I think Tinder and others have been too transactional. I think people see dating as transactional, which maybe it has been forever, but it's sort of laid bare when you're on any of these groups. And so that's the issue I see is that people don't know how to meet each other in normal ways. But when high schoolers, the number of high school kids who see their friends every day has been cut in half. When you have a pandemic, if the government, and I always turn to government, maybe I shouldn't, but if you wanted to make, you know how we have, we make parks and everything.

We need social and civic groups and volunteering opportunities. And I would say social service that forces young men and women or men and men or women and, to meet each other in person and to spend time together. We should have dances. We should have a business where we have dances. Men and women need to get together and fall in love. Country line dancing. And there's not enough of that. And they go to these apps.

And the apps create, like you said, a certain transactional bigger, better deal mentality. And the majority of the people I know, and again, I'm sounding like a boomer here, when they spend a lot of time on apps, they find it kind of depressing. It is depressing. It's like watching Instagram or on Twitter. It is. I think it has a lot to do with how they meet each other.

And I would agree. The other issue is I'm spending a lot of time not looking at my phone lately, which is interesting, and looking at other people, looking at their phones. And we went out. Amanda's birthday was yesterday.

And so we took her out to dinner for some oysters and stuff like that down at the Wharf in D.C. And all the couples were on their phones and not talking to each other. It was fascinating. It was really fascinating to watch. I see that a lot where couples are together and not interacting in any way. And I know that's kind of like, oh, pick your head up from your phone. But there's something happening not just with the transactional nature of these apps, but also the way people are having relationships. Their best relationships are with their phone.

Well, I noticed the same thing. But I noticed that if I'm out to dinner and I see a group of young women out, they're totally comfortable, like five or six of them, they're totally comfortable with all five or six of them just on their phones, not talking to each other. I'm not talking about two people checking their email. I'm talking about entire – it's like, why did you even go out together? Yes, I agree. And I'm trying to do the same thing. We must remove the phones from people. I'm trying to, in meals, turn my phone off because I have the same addiction to just turn it on and see, you know, do people love me on Twitter or not love me.

Well, we're going to have to move on from this. But here's another thing. Another thing, Democrats are in control of the FTC, the confirmation of Alvaro Bedoya. Democrats now have a majority at the agency. That should give Lena Kahn, who is the head of the FTC, more room for aggressive action. Let's see. Is she going to do anything? Scott, I don't know.

She's got, you know, she got that bad review from internally. Now she's got an ability to do something, but what can she do? What can she take out the Amazon MGM merger, deal with the Microsoft Activision merger, these privacy lawsuits, these algorithm lawsuits? What do you, I don't know, the clock is ticking. So what do you think? I think it's a good thing. I think that it's become so partisan that she probably had roadblocks put up, you know, every which way. And you pointed that out. I don't know if you saw it, but the SEC, and we predicted this and it was pretty obvious, is in fact going after Elon Musk for his failure

to disclose his ownership stake. And also the FTC is involved. But here's the bottom line in terms of the FTC. I think it's reputationally, psychologically from a morale standpoint, I don't think things really get better for the FTC until they shoot the generals, until they go after one of the big tech guys and say, you need to spin Instagram or Google. You need to break up your buyer and seller and control the market in digital marketing. Look, I would have all hands on deck. I mean, I just thought it was so kind of ridiculous. They announced a case. They're taking legal action to block Sony's acquisition of some video game. And I'm like, that's who you're being heavy handed with.

And by the way, that might be the right suit, but I feel like they've just sort of said, thrown up their arms and said, we're outgunned with the big guys. We give up. And I just don't think they're taken seriously until they say, we're the sheriff. The law is clear. I'm sorry, Facebook, you need to unwind Instagram. Or Google, you can't be the buyer, the seller, and the lemonade stand, and control the market. I'm not sure why the FTC is involved in this, the Musk thing. They should stay in their lane in that regard. They can't be too, they've got to pick one big case and go for it.

You know what I mean? Exactly right. Probably has to be around Amazon. And win it. And win it. It's hard enough to win it. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.

But she's got a really, she's got, the clock has been ticking. Now it's really ticking. It's super loud. By the way, speaking of the market being off, things aren't looking good for the world of cryptocurrencies. Oh my gosh.

Coinbase's stock dropped this week after reported poor earnings in the first quarter and stablecoin called Terra collapsed overnight this week. It's causing ripple effects throughout the market, maybe dragging down the price of Bitcoin, which is at its lowest. What's happening here? People don't want risky investments.

That's what I seem to have read into it. Yeah, but the thing that- Because you had talked about having a basket of things. Well, what I mean is, if you're going to go into speculative assets like crypto, you want a basket, and you want to limit the percentage of wealth you just put in it. Because I don't own a single coin and I don't want to poo-poo it because everyone's talking about how Bitcoin is down 50%. But the bottom line is if you bought Bitcoin five years ago, you're still up 13x.

So, you know, now Bitcoin and Ethereum, I think outside. Yeah, you are. You're up 13x. That's exactly right. If you're not investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum, I think it's literally just lottery and Kino. I don't see the value of the utility in any of these things. What is interesting about crypto is that in a down market where people are getting margin calls and risk off environment, market where people are getting margin calls and risk-off environment, the thing that eventually supports an Apple or a Facebook or a Procter & Gamble or what have you is that they'll look at their earnings and say, okay, at some point when it's trading at five times earnings, it's so

cheap that you can go in and realize you won't get that badly hurt. The thing that gave it no gravity in terms of its ascent up with crypto, because that has no underlying cash flows, you could argue, okay, maybe it's a store of value, but there's no real kind of tangible or intrinsic value or asset there. At least it's scarcity. Right. Which meant it could go with Bitcoin, only with Bitcoin. And there's some technology around Ethereum, around minting NFTs. But that same lack of benchmarks or ability to value it in any tangible fundamental way gave it no tether to the earth. It had zero gravity. So when people were feeling optimistic

and there was more buyers than sellers, people could say, oh yeah, it makes sense that it's gone up 13X in the last two years and I could still buy. Now that it's going down, it has no floor because there's no earnings to look at. So you could see it's the tail of the whip. On the way up, it goes up more than the market. And on the way down, it goes down more than the market. And you want to talk about regulatory bodies. I'll tell you who pulled a gangster move. You want to talk about the most powerful words uttered in the last five days. It was from Gary Gensler, the commissioner of the SEC or the chairman of the SEC, who said, by the way, if Coinbase or one of these exchanges goes bankrupt,

your assets aren't protected. And then Coinbase had to confirm that, which means that if Wells Fargo goes out of business, your life savings are still safe. Those assets are sequestered from the operations of the bank. That is not true with Coinbase. And that sent a huge chill through the market because people are thinking, okay, Coinbase stock- I think the CEO said they were protected. He said they weren't, but they said it in the disclosure, but then he was trying to say- Walk it back. Walk it back a little bit, which is-

I mean, this is a company that went public at 300, went to 400 for a hot minute, and now what's it at? 50? I know. I mean, it is. So you have- He's an interesting character. He likes to have dinners of intelligent people all the time, which I do not go to. But now maybe he needs to focus on his company. Let me just show, look at Bitcoin. Do you get invited to a lot of those things? I'm not bragging. I get invited to that shit all the time. I don't. They don't want me there.

They don't want me there. They want all people who agree with them. So-and-so CEO is having, I always hear from some PR hacks, so-and-so is having an intimate dinner with thought leaders and we'd like you to be there. I'm like, why the fuck would I want to hang out with this guy? They only want people who agree with them. I'm not a very good dinner guest in that regard. So interestingly, look, all time, it's up 8,000% Bitcoin from way, way back.

All right. So its high was in November at $61,000, almost $62,000 a share. It did have a high also, and that was in November. And then it also had a high in the springtime of last year, in the high 50s and low 60s. Then it dropped to 34 in July, and then it went up again to 60. Now it's down at 28,000, which is really crazy, which is really, it's down 20% in the past five days, which is nuts. This is, it just, you have to recognize, as Scott said, this is just speculative, all speculative, and there's no reason it goes up or down. It's just that people buy it, I guess. Correct?

Correct? Well, there's parts of the market that have really been harmful, and that is Tether, which was supposed to be pegged to the dollar and was especially attractive to people in, I don't know what you call them, volatile or merging markets where the currencies were volatile. They thought, okay, if I transition my money into tether, it's dollar denominated, so it's safer. That has totally split from the dollar. So people who thought they were going into an asset peg to the dollar, found out they weren't. We said this a couple of weeks ago, no one is being spared here. Last week or in the last few days, the generals have taken out and been shot. And that is Apple and Microsoft are now dropping pretty- Airbnb, which had great earnings,

for example. Well, and I've said this, it's my biggest holding, it's down 40%. And if you had read their earnings, you would have gone, oh my God, the stock must be skyrocketing. Yeah, and they just introduced a new upgrade to its app, by the way, speaking of which, which is fantastic looking. In any case, it looks like a reckoning, but you just never know because it did it before and then went straight back up in last year. So we'll see. It had a real low in July and then went up back up again in November. And people always say, well, what do you do? I'm comfortable saying your emotions are your enemy in a market like this. And great investors typically don't have stock picking acumen.

What they have is great temperament. And that is, if you're diversified and you didn't over leverage and you didn't over margin, you just don't panic sell and you don't let your emotions take over. Your emotions are your enemy here. And just recognize that typically you make money by selling stocks when the optimism is frothy and you make money by holding on to them when there's a panic like this. So I would just be careful right now. Obviously, people have to do what they think is right in consort with their financial advisor based on their situation.

But panic selling, be very careful about your emotions because typically speaking, like right now the sentiment is so negative. And what I found in the markets is when the sentiment is this negative, the market's about to rip up. So you just don't know. You just don't know.

Look at the numbers last year. It was way down in this range. It was way up, then way down, and then it went way up again. So I would hold on to it. And when it goes way up again, maybe sell a little bit and take some gains, even if it goes up any further. Okay, let's get to our first big story. even if it goes up any further. Okay, let's get to our first big story.

Peter Thiel thinks BlackRock is too woke and he's ready to do something about it. Thiel and fellow billionaire Bill Ackman, a very well-known hedge fund guy, are pouring money into a new fund manager that would urge companies to avoid taking political stand that's in opposition to supposed activism by BlackRock and other funds like Vanguard and State Street. Together, these three firms managed $20 trillion in assets. That is a lot of money. BlackRock, Larry Fink has talked up stakeholder capitalism

in recent years, of course. The money in here is very small. It's $20 million. It's probably out of the couch change of these two billionaires. But, you know, are these investment funds actually woke? Or is Peter Thiel just mad that they talk about being woke? And also, this is his brand, I guess. They have taken progressive steps at BlackRock, removed firearms manufacturers from some of its ESG funds, which makes sense. Talked about climate sustainability and social good investing and exited some investments along those lines. But BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard are still top investors in energy banking, weapons manufacturing, not exactly progressive. And The Guardian even called Larry

Fink one of its dirty dozen climate villains because BlackRock's funds profit off of deforestation. So what do you think of this? This is a new fund called Strive. Is it going to make money or is it just for another one of his branding moments for Peter Thiel? This is no different than Elon Musk putting out this bold statement that the Chinese like to work and Americans are lazy, basically is what he said. He has such a pathological need to be in the news. When you're talking about a $20 million fund, which is meaningless. That's literally meaningless. And you have guys saying, let me get this. Aren't you supposed to be the free speech weirdos? BlackRock having a political position and advocating for certain political viewpoints

or certain approaches to climate change, isn't that free speech? Isn't this a private company, Peter? Aren't you the big private property? I mean, this is just so fucking hypocritical. And A, it's meaningless. $20 million. I mean, this is literally- It's meaningless, yeah. It's meaningless. It feels like a desperate yelp. Why is Bill Ackman here? What is Ackman doing here? I agree. $20 million. You get them on a phone, they all go on and on about this stuff. So what are they going to do? They're going to be like, as a means of unlocking shareholder value, we want you to not make any statements or we want you to be conservative.

Because they're not saying be apolitical. What they're really saying is don't be woke. And Larry Fink has said as an investment strategy, we think that people need to embrace climate change. And then, so are they calling their buddies or are they calling the activists who took a stake in Chevron and said, you need to, was it Exxon, you need to transition to renewables faster? Are they critical of them as well? None of this makes any fucking sense, Cara. None of them.

It's interesting. It feels like I just want to be in the headlines. Yeah, this is called Strive Asset Management. It's being founded, it was founded by pharmaceutical investor Vivek Ramaswamy, who's very famous. He wrote the book Woke Inc., which is his branding thing. He's going to base it in Ohio, where he's from, and he said they're going to focus on excellence over politics. Americans want, quote, iconic American brands like Disney, Coca-Cola, and Exxon, and U.S. tech giants like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Google deliver high-quality products, improve our lives, not controversial political ideas that divide us. This is horse shit.

I'm sorry, Vivek. It's just horse shit. They are excellent companies. And so they can have their— Are they going after Hobby Lobby for not supporting—are they saying to Chick-fil-A you shouldn't make statements around homosexuality? In any case. They always seem to want to encourage companies to be apolitical when they happen to be political on the progressive side. Yeah.

They're not taking active stakes in companies that are very conservative and saying you should be apolitical. This is, hey, we want to pretend we're advocating for you being apolitical, but this is nothing but a thinly veiled way of saying we want you to be right. We want you to have more conservative libertarian views. Yeah, interesting. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who cracks me up, who does a stakeholder capitalism, just wasn't having any of it in his letter to CEOs that he published earlier this year. He argued that ComSent is not about politics or woke. It is capitalism driven by mutually beneficial relations.

You and the employees, customers, suppliers, communities, your company relies on to prosper. This is the power of capitalism. They said that businesses shouldn't cave to political pressure by any activist to hijack your brand to advance their own agendas. This is so strange. It's not strange for Thiel or Ramaswani, but it is strange for Bill Ackman, honestly. Well, I mean, there's an argument to say,

like, if you're to say, if an organization is flailing and it's spending more time doing all hands to talk about political issues, I do think there's some merit to the notion that CEOs were posing for the cameras and pretending to be really woke. And then when their employees believe them and started saying, we want the music to match the words, they're like, oh, just kidding. We're really not interested. I think they deserve some scrutiny.

And I do think there's something to the fact that do not bring your full self, specifically your politics, to work. It's a platform for building economic security. I get that. I buy it. But the notion, by the way, whatever BlackRock has been doing, woke, conservative, guess what? They're fucking killing it. They're killing it. So this notion that somehow there's a problem at BlackRock, it's like whatever BlackRock is doing. That's what you do. You attack the big dog when you have a tiny, tiny little yappy dog like this.

This is going to be a gnat hitting a windshield on a Mack truck called Black Rock. These guys are excellent operators. Yeah. I got to tell you, Peter, Bill, if you really mean it, put some actual money in here. Like, I'd be more interested. 20 million? 20 million. Let's say they're coaches.

Ackman bought, I think Ackman bought an $80 million condo. Yeah, yeah. He just got approval for his glass balls that cost like $20 million or something, at least. You know, he wants to put these special glass walls in. Do you know about this? Oh, it's ridiculous. This is a must-like. I need to be in the headlines for some reason.

This is nonsense. I'm just—let's call it nonsense. This is bullshit nonsense. It's so ridiculous. I was with someone for lunch the other day, someone who knows all these guys. Because these guys, when they get on their calls with each other, all complain about cancel culture and this kind of stuff.

And he's always like, this is such horseshit. I can't even sit listening to it. It's such horseshit. They're just like, just anyway, horseshit is how I'm going to put it. We've had it. We're on Team Larry. If Larry calls us for an intimate dinner, we're in. That is right.

It's like, you know, the people that gave us a hard time about leaving Florida. You know what? We're on Team Larry. If Larry calls us for an intimate dinner, we're in. That is right. It's like, you know, the people that gave us a hard time about leaving Florida. You know what? We're capitalists. We want to take our money and give it to Gavin Newsom or Jared Polis. It's our business. Get out of our business, you bunch of communists in Florida. They're the communists in Florida. I can't get over we got press for that.

Did you see they brought it up in the Bloomberg conference? They brought it up. Yeah, they brought it up again. It's ridiculous. Guess what? We're capitalists. I think that's care of posturing a little bit Yeah, they brought up again. It's ridiculous. Guess what? We're capitalists. I think that's Kara posturing a little bit. I got to be honest.

It's not. I don't want to give my money. I don't want to give my money. That's it. I'm a capitalist. Hi, LGBTQ community. I'm a leader. I'm a leader.

Je suis a capitalist. And guess what? It's my money. I'm with you, sister. I'm not sure boycotts works, but I want to be supportive of my business partner. Whatever. I just don't want to be there. I don't want to give them my money. It's like, I don't like, you know, my kids go to Chick-fil-A. I'm not sure boycotts works, but I want to be supportive of my business partner. Whatever. I just don't want to be there.

I don't want to give them my money. It's like I don't like, you know, my kids go to Chick-fil-A. I don't care. They can make their choices. I don't. For better or for worse, this is a marriage. I'm doing it. Pretty soon, we're just going to be doing events in Vermont and in San Francisco.

There's plenty of states to choose from. There's lots of states. There's getting fewer. There's getting fewer. We're not ever going to do something in Mississippi. Are you kidding? Like, we're headed to Louisiana. Maybe New Orleans. That's a disappointment, what's happening there.

Anyway, we're not going there anyway. It's too sweaty. Yeah, it's too sweaty. New Orleans is wonderful. It's like natural grit. It is, and yet that state is like pulling all the stops around abortion. Anyway. We will not fly over the state. We are capitalists. No, but we're capitalists. They're communists. They want to go government overreach. That's what I say. I sound like a

Trump person. Hold on. Just one quick note. Did you see Disney's earnings? Disney's killing it. Killing it. Killing it. Bob, I'll tell you, no man has ever been happier about a good earnings than Bob Chapek. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. They added a bunch of people. Unlike Netflix, they added a bunch of people to Disney+, and their theme parks are absolutely killing it. I can't tell you, living in Florida, the roads have never been more packed. Tourism hit an all-time high last year, and this year is going to blow through it. And Disney is firing on all 12,000 cylinders right now.

I literally lost my mind in traffic. Everything was packed at the wharf, and people are going out. And good for Disney and Florida can suck it. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back- Wait, you're in San Francisco? What? No, I'm not in San Francisco. The Wharf? Where's the Wharf? It's called the Wharf.

DC has a Wharf? Yeah, I'll take you down there. It's great. It's wonderful. You always say that. Another date you will not deliver on. You never come here. You never show up just like the other night. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about supply. I was with Lamar. Okay. My footlong sub.

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Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back with our second big story. I don't want to hear another word about Lamar. I don't want to hear your total ghosting of me. Everyone has to have their hobbies. Okay. All right. Okay. Tesla's hitting the brakes on its Shanghai factory. Important factory production came to a halt this week as the carmaker deals with supply chain issues in China. Shanghai is now in the sixth week of a COVID shutdown. Elon has said this will pass essentially

in April. Tesla employees have been sleeping and eating in the factory as part of a closed-loop system to combat COVID, but that's not all. Tesla also recalled nearly 130,000 vehicles this week due to touchscreen issues caused by overheating of the CPU. Not uncommon. This has happened a lot. But nonetheless, this China thing is a big bump for them, and they only have a handful of factories that do vehicle assembly. The German factory is still ramping up. This is what happens when you have a product that's so complex. You're going to be run into these kind of things. So the Tesla relationship with China is very important. And obviously the increasing tensions between China and the U.S. and certain politicians is certainly coming on.

So, you know, he's saying it's just a bump. Others are like, you're really in it with China a lot. I don't know. Um, so, and it's relatedly that the shares of Tesla are down, they're down today again, 732. Well, they're going up and down, but for the past five days, it's gone down 16 per 17% over the month, 25%, six month, 28% year, 40%. And since he announced Tesla, I guess that would be about him. Twitter, excuse me, in the 20s, in the 20s. Anyway, one short seller predicts that Musk may seek to reprice his Twitter bid below $44 billion.

Now the tech stocks are slumping. And the only reason Twitter's not gone down into what I called yesterday the Mariana Trench, where other tech companies are, is because of this deal. I was, oddly enough, Keith Raboy noted that's what he's going to do. He's going to walk away and pay the billion dollars and then maybe come back when the stock is higher, I guess. That's one of the, that might be his plan B. What do you think, Scott? The deal is off. I mean, it's just, and have you noticed in the last week, Elon's gone surprisingly silent about Twitter? I mean, he was tweeting every day. What if we had a blue, blue check? What if we did this? Also, I like chocolate milk. Yeah, he was very active.

All of a sudden, he's not talking about Twitter, because here's the thing. Well, he did. He did say that Trump shouldn't have been permanently banned, like I said he would say. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. He did say that. That took a lot of- Stock was in the low 30s. He started buying. Didn't disclose that he was buying. Stock ran to 39, made the announcement. Stock went to 49. He's saying he's going to buy at a 54.50. Now, what would have happened had he not come in? What is the natural price sort of in absentia of this deal? Where would Twitter be trading right now? In the 20s, 30s, 20s.

Well, if you look at all its peers that are off between 20 and 50%, you're looking at a stock that would conservatively, generously, optimistically be in the 20s right now. So he's effectively paying 100 to 150 percent premium. By the way, his bank account is off 20 or 30 percent. This deal is off. This deal is off. At this moment. He will come up with reasons, something around woke or conservative, or he'll try and reprice the deal. There's a specific performance clause in these deals. He'll definitely have to pay the breakup fee, but sometimes they claim that they can force you to close. I don't see how you force anyone to close on a $45 billion check. But I think as of now, as of now, this deal is off. It makes absolutely no sense for Elon Musk. Can he just sit and wait and then reprice or not? That's the correct question. For a billion dollars, he has six months to kind of see what

happens. But I think that at some point, what will be obvious, the thing that might call or force his hand here, Cara, is that if Tesla stock keeps going down, people will start to say, and Elon is going to have to margin more and more and sell more and more Tesla stock when the closing happens. overhang that grows in ugliness over Tesla stock, he's going to need to say, you know what, just kidding. Deal is off. I tried to renegotiate with the board based on recent market dynamics, and we could not come to an agreement. Yeah, yeah. But Boyd was saying that it would go to $15 billion, and then he'll come in as the hero to buy it at that price. I don't think the board will do that again. If he were to leave and then come back and say, hey, I'm back, I think the board would have every right to say, sorry, boss, you have no credibility here. And there will be more buyers at that point. At $15 billion, tons of buyers.

You and I should put the money together and buy it. But this stock right now, Twitter, the day he announces that, I mean, Twitter actually, I mean, it's an investment recommendation, which I don't like to make, but Twitter puts right now are probably trading at a decent number because if he announces he's out, the stock's at probably 20 or 25 bucks, not at 49 waiting for a close at 54. As of today, unless the market's dynamics shift dramatically from today, this deal is off. This deal does not make sense for him. It makes sense for Twitter shareholders who are going to get a ridiculous number on a stock that would be trading at 20 or

it might even be sub 20 right now. Look what's happened to Pinterest. Look what's happened to Snap. Look what, Meta's off 50% from its high and Twitter hit its 50. This deal, and it just really struck me that he has- It's the only thing keeping it up, keeping the shares up, is the Elon deal. I think it's fascinating. And again, the tail wagging the dog here is Tesla stock. And if people start to- Well, let me focus over there because it looks like it's going up and down and up and down. It looks like the shorts are starting to gather. He's always been plagued by shorts over at Tesla, but they seem to be

gathering and yet, and then all his fans are gathering. And so it's kind of an interesting situation. But that stock is dropping quite substantively over the past five days, over the past month. And it's still not as, it's still doing better than other stocks. It's only down 25% over the past month and 28% over the past six months compared to some others. So its fans are keeping it aloft, let's say that, like the people who love that shares. The other thing that someone was noticing was that some of the people he's brought in as investors are Qataris and others, and there's a Russian investor in there

who was an early investor in Facebook. That's going to cause U.S. government scrutiny. Again, it'll delay the deal even further. So delay it, push it out until next year now. So even though Elon acts like he's owning the place, he doesn't own the place. He doesn't own the place in any way, and he's not even close to owning it yet.

So that's another issue is pushing it out because of these. He's going to have to get money from foreigners, essentially, and that's going to cause a look at the thing. And who wants to buy it at this price? They'd be like, Elon, the company's worth $20 billion, not $45. Why would we invest in this? And I said this initially. On the things he's not on his side hustles, he brings volatility. He doesn't bring value.

He's brought massive volatility to Twitter. He'll bring disruption, distraction, tumult. But in a lot of PR for him, which he sees is worth a billion dollars, it's going to be terrible for Twitter. Terrible for Twitter. It's a huge distraction. Like, what do they work on? What do they – anyways, I don't – And also with this Shanghai factory, even if it's temporary,

and I would tend to agree with him that it's temporary, these things happen and China will get it back together, as with all these things. But he's got to focus on his car company, honestly, and his space company. Someone's going to say, hey, boss, without the golden goose, you don't get to have adventures and whatever the fuck your synapse, your neurons fire that night. The thing – I have a group of – and it's related to China. And the thing that struck me, I have a group of people or friends I call on a regular basis. I'm like, just what are you seeing out there?

And one of my friends is this really impressive businessman, a guy named Bobby Julian, who started Coulter Homes. He's a developer. And he's been hugely successful, very insightful. And I called him. I'm like, what are you seeing out there? And I spoke to him this morning. And he said, the things that really shocked everybody is the supply chain issues have gotten worse. Everyone thought that because prices were skyrocketing, it would create incentive to be thoughtful, agile. No, it has been. Go to the store.

He said, it used to be like we couldn't get garage doors or for refrigerators. It was always something you couldn't get. He said, now we can't get like 35 different things to build a house. He said, housing prices have never been stronger. Demand's never been stronger. We need 1.4 million new houses. We're only going to be able to build 900,000. But he said, you know, the little winch that connects, you know, the foundation to something or the latch on a window, he's like, he said, you're really finding out where all this stuff comes from. You're like, oh, you find out that this plate comes from Turkey and it's been shut down. Supply chain issues, it's interesting, are getting worse. Listen, someone hit our car the other day and it's going to take eight weeks to fix it.

It's crazy. Like, if that. So, we've had to rent a car, everything else. And so, yeah, it's everything. Everything. Everything. But let me just say, he also noted that Trump should be back on. And what was really interesting, and I'm going to note this, because I like Jack Dorsey, but what he's been doing lately around his responsibility is really irreprehensible as far as I'm concerned.

Say more. I don't know what you're talking about. I like Jack Dorsey. I thought he was thoughtful. He said that banning, he put a tweet out. You know, obviously, Vijay Gowdy has been attacked for this decision to ban Donald Trump and others. Dorsey called the ban a business decision and took responsibility for the move, but then he had an asterisk. So the asterisk CEO. It's like saying the buck stops here, asterisk.

He wrote on Twitter, every decision was made, was ultimately my responsibility, asterisk. It's also crazy and wrong that individuals or companies bear this responsibility. Well, Jack, don't build it then. I don't know what to say. It was crazy tweet. It was like, bear this responsibility. Well, Jack, don't build it then. I don't know what to say. It was crazy tweet.

It was like, I take responsibility except that kind of thing. And so I thought that was irresponsible on his part. You know, Trump is going to have to stay on Trump truth social for now. And we'll see where that goes. I think that was just allowed. This is something we said he would do anyway. So I just was really disappointed in Jack Dorsey's behavior because, again, I find him to be thoughtful. I've always had a pretty

good relationship with him, but I don't know what's going on here. He should just take responsibility and that's enough. That's my feeling. I don't know. Hushed tones and beards and silent retreats don't mean you're thoughtful. He has been. I haven't seen him in a while, but he has been, compared to a lot of people, thoughtful. I will say that. Okay. He has thoughtfully created a mendacious company that has made our discourse more coarse and has threatened people all over the world. And so he goes on silent retreats as there are coups in that country that are being organized on Facebook and Twitter.

Yes, I'm aware. He's thoughtfully a mendacious fuck that isn't taking responsibility for the shit show that was Twitter. I mean, you want to know something? You know what's not going to age well? You know what is not going to age well? What? His tenure at Twitter. Because my sense is, like Sheryl Sandberg, he's incredibly charismatic

and likable. And when likable Jack is no longer around the office with his cool, quirky beard and nose rings, they're going to go, you know what? We wouldn't be in this shitty position had we performed at a fraction, at a fraction of the excellence of every other tech company when the sun was shining for the last seven years. Twitter was the only tech company that went sideways for seven years. They did. Let me just say this whole debacle will hurt only Twitter. That's all I got to say. Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hi, Kara and Scott. My name is Ryan from Austin, Texas, and I have a question for you about media coverage of

TikTok. My perception is that we know a lot and we talk a lot about the power players and the strategies of Meta, Google, Apple, Twitter, Snap, and Tesla, but it doesn't seem like we talk the same way about TikTok. I couldn't name a single executive there. I don't understand its new structure with ByteDance or with Oracle, and the whole operation is a real mystery to me. So I'm curious, given the platform's popularity, why don't we seem to talk as much about TikTok's corporate happenings or the executives who run the platform? Thanks. Gosh, Ryan, I don't know if you've been following coverage, but there's been a ton of talk about TikTok's ownership and how it works, especially when Donald Trump was attacking it, the CEO we've

had on our show, Vanessa Pappas. We've talked about the possibility of it going public and moving out of China's control, although that seems problematic. Oracle was involved but is not now involved yet. It could be involved again. Same thing with Microsoft. So I think there's been a lot of talk about its growth and the fears around the China ownership. But I don't know about you, Scott. What do you think?

I actually think Ryan has a point. I think TikTok has been brilliant in that, as they've said, let's just stay out of the news. We don't want stars. We don't want megalomaniacs posing for the cameras. Let's let the press cover that Facebook was circulating misinformation around us. And let's just continue to perform. Because I think the story, and you don't know what happened, I think this business story that would be splashed across every page right now and be bringing a ton of attention to TikTok,

both positively and negatively, is that if TikTok was a public stock right now, I think it would be obvious that what Netflix did to Hollywood, TikTok is doing to Netflix, and I wouldn't be surprised if TikTok is up. If you saw their most recent quarter. Yeah, I bet. They added the population. I said this in the last podcast, but it bears repeating. They added the population of Japan and the United Kingdom, and they have zero content budget.

This is, and it's just so interesting. They're now worth $350 billion in the private markets. I think if they were public, they'd be much more than that. I think the stock would be up right now, and everyone would be talking about the juggernaut that is TikTok. But instead, they're like, we want to stay out of the news because it can go to bad places right now, and our numbers are going to speak for themselves. I think TikTok is the most – actually, I would argue TikTok is the most underreported business story outside of what's happening on a macro level. I think this thing, I spoke to a friend of ours, Kara, who's interviewing the folks who run Netflix. And the bottom line is we are raising a generation of youth that can't sit through a 58-minute episode of Bridgerton.

They've been trained that they just can't, they're not capable of it. And so what do they do? They lie on their sides and they watch this ultimate streaming network that, by the way, is free to the 80% of the global population that can't afford 12 bucks a month. Yeah.

Called TikTok. And it's got a zero content budget. So I kind of, with Ryan, I think TikTok is arguably the most underreported story in the world. And he's right. Everybody knows who the CEO of Tesla and Microsoft and Netflix is. Nobody knows who the CEO of TikTok is.

Because it's a division of. Yes, of course. Ultimately, it's a Chinese CEO. And then the U.S. CEO is a former Google executive who's been there. And they had some. Who we like. We had her on. Yeah, Vanessa.

I thought she was an impressive woman. And they used to have two, one of the executives from Disney was there when they thought it was going to go public, former Disney executive. But we'll see what happens there. I think eventually they'll go public and try to separate themselves from China.

I think when the pressure will return, there'll be probably some relationship with Oracle or Microsoft or something like that, eventually. But here's the deal with TikTok. Scott is 100% right. It is entertainment. I had an interesting podcast today with Ben Smith and Matt Bellany, and we all agreed TikTok was the entertainment future. I literally spent an hour and a half on TikTok the other day. It's a K-hole. It's a digital K-hole.

I used to watch just air fryer content now uh you know asmr this is that with the whispering they have other asmr stuff like cleaning and also uh cutting of sand the noise of sand you know that that magic sand i literally watched it it was so pleasing and i i felt good afterwards felt relaxed. It was like meditative because I was watching people clean, not clean refrigerators, arrange food in refrigerators. Now, I know it sounds weird. I happen to be a very neat person. And you can find whatever you like there, which is amazing. And it's beautifully curated.

It's weird. It's no question it's weird. But I had a choice of watching a wonderful show called Hard Stoppers or doing this. And the lift was so much lighter on TikTok that I was tired and I watched it for an hour and it was pleasing. I have seen every species of animal innocently saunter up to a watering hole and settle in and have a little drink of water and then be ripped apart by a crocodile that lurches out of the water. I can't stop watching crocodiles ruin animals' day as they go to get a light refreshment from the watering hole.

And I can't look away. I'm like, oh my God, it's a warthog. Oh my God, it's a deer. I'm watching magic sand being sliced and the noise, a ch-ch-ch noise. And you like gazelles being attacked. Did you see my TV show where I did angry ASMR? No, it wasn't angry.

ASMR is old news on TikTok, I know, but I love it. I didn't watch that one. Sorry, I will watch it. Is it there? You need to start investing in this relationship. I'm telling you, what Netflix did to Hollywood, TikTok is doing to Netflix. Yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting time.

Anyway, we think you're right. TikTok deserves even more attention, Ryan. If you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, one more quick break on this longest show. We'll be back for wins and fails. more quick break on this longest show. We'll be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans,

and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at phys.ca. Okay, Scott, we've got to do quick wins and fails. You go first. I don't really have a fail other than to say that I've been really bummed out and thinking too much about the markets. And I kind of step back and think, okay, I'm still economically secure. My kids still want me to take them to school. You know, I hope people out there, it's so easy to have an emotional reaction to the scorecard you get every day,

and the scorecard is really ugly. But most of us, really, the profound stuff in our life hasn't changed a hell of a lot. And so that's what I'm trying to focus on. That's more advice than it is a fail. My win is this wonderful show called Slow Horses, which is a spy thriller based on a 2010 novel by Mick Herron. And it's on Apple TV+. Gary Oldham is fantastic. Yep. He's crotchety, right? Crotchety?

What's his name? Price. Jonathan Price, who I think is a fantastic actor and one of my favorite films, Brazil, is in it. And also, Kristen Scott Thomas, who is in my favorite movie of all time. And I want to see how well you know the dog. What's my favorite movie of all time that Kristen Scott Thomas was in, Cara? It's not Four Weddings and a Funeral, is it? She's in that movie. Really? You think I'd like something that optimistic and happy?

Movies like that give me a rash. Oh, the one where it crashes into the, with Ralph Fiennes, that one. You know, there's hope for us. Maybe you do love me. The English Patient.

My favorite movie of all time. A wonderful film. Anyways, this is a fantastic. But do you like Julia, who's in that,

Julie? Julia Binoche. Binoche. Binoche is in that. Ooh, she's a saucy little number. She's fantastic. She's in Call My Agent.

And by the way, you said you thought Johnny Depp was overrated? Life Like Chocolate or Life for Chocolate? She's in a wonderful movie. One of the most beautiful women ever. Also a really, really competent actress. Yep. I should have reversed those two things. Anyways, Slow Horses is my win.

It's on Apple TV+. It is wonderful. Gary Oldham will go down. I think, is one of the better actors of our generation. And there's this guy who's going to be, I think, a leading man, Jack Loudon. I think he could be kind of like the next Bond, if you will. I think he has such great presence. Okay. That's a win.

What's your fail? I said my fail. There's enough fail out there for all of this. I just hope that people have some perspective around what's important. I think a fail is this. I think we've got to focus back on Ukraine today. The Soviet Union, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said NATO risks, quote, full-fledged nuclear war if it continues sending weapons to Ukraine, training its troops, and conducting military exercises.

This rhetoric is crazy, including around Finland, joining NATO. They're backed into a corner. I think it's Julia Ioffe who wrote this piece about Putin's origins of growing up in a very poor part of, I think, St. Petersburg. And he used to play in these things called devours, which are these teeny pieces of grass that there's all kinds of man playing going on, young boy playing. And one of the things is a story about him backing a rat into a corner. And then the rat turned around after being backed into the corner, turned around and attacked him and chased him. And this is what it feels like right now.

These are a bunch of rats who are now trying, you know, really been backed into corners. So, Biden's been talking about it like that, like we've got to be careful with this guy because his natural instinct is to attack when he's backed into a corner. And I know we shouldn't, it's just words like this from a country talking about nuclear war is really disturbing. Well, was it one of the first? It's irresponsible. One of the first sort of lessons in Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which every high schooler reads and thinks they understand war and conflict and strategy. But one of it is unless you're going to annihilate your enemy,

you always want to give them an out. And what I thought was most interesting is when they decided not to sanction Putin's girlfriend. And basically the word was, why didn't you do that? I said, well, we want them to still have things to lose. We want them to know. A very dangerous person is someone who gets to the point where they think they have nothing to lose. And they don't want to put Putin in that position. But I think I appreciate you bringing that up. If you want to talk about the most underreported story relative to its potential impact on the world, that's absolutely it. 100%. This worry about Finland joining NATO, which Europe is pushing through with and Finland wants to do, it's very serious.

I just did a really good interview with Clarissa Ward, who is the international correspondent for CNN. And she's done amazing work in Ukraine and probably will now have to go back. I interviewed her from London. But I got to say, this is something we need to really pay attention to, what's happening. I know there's all kinds of things happening here in this country.

And then, and that's a, I don't know if that's a win or a fail. I'm not so sure it's either one. And then interestingly, the bull semen guy, I don't know if that's a win or a fail. I'm not so sure. It's either one. And then, interestingly, the bull semen guy, I don't know if it's a win because a very conservative person won. But the bull semen guy backed by Trump in Nebraska, who seemed to be ripping Nebraska apart, did not win his bid for. But just to go back to the Russia, I've been to Russia a few times. I have a couple of friends who are immigrants, Russian immigrants. You'd think really the problem here is Putin and the people around him,

because with a different leader and the natural resources they have and the landmass they have, they have an incredible appreciation for science, an incredible appreciation for art. The greatest threat in modern history, we joined hands with them, and it's a team beat back Hitler. It doesn't make sense that we're not friends. I don't understand. So much of what they do is so in line, is so simpatico with the West. It just feels like, why can't we be friends? You know what I mean?

I understand sphere of influence, and we should probably be more generous in making them feel secure around their borders. But you would think that if you just looked- They're thugs. Putin's a thug and a murderer. But that's my point. But if you look at the history of Russia, or at least some of the, it's just in many ways, it's a very impressive and in some way, a lot of ways, more similar. We're more similar than we are to a lot of nations. I've just never understood why we wouldn't. Why can't we be friends is what I've never understood about Russia.

Because they're thugs and criminals. Because they're thugs and criminals. Not the population. No, of course not. But they keep voting for them. So I don't know what to say they're a completely propagandized population that at this moment is irredeemable in terms of dealing with them you know they're not throwing them out they're not they're embracing him i don't know what to say i'm not an expert on russia but from my small amount of knowledge this is a criminal organization this

country um so i'm not sure what to do with with nuclear weapons which is frightening anyway on that note on that happy note we have a win I don't have a win at all anyway happy birthday Amanda that's my win okay Scott

that's the show we'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot why don't you read us out today's show was produced by Lara Naiman Evan Engel and Taylor Griffin

Ernie Andertodt engineered this episode thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business, the Subway app.