Pivot - Trump’s Putin Call, Inflation Rises, and Sam Altman Strikes Back at Elon Musk

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss President Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin about Ukraine, inflation rising 3% in January, and Elon Musk’s Oval Office appearance. Then, Sam Altman has some harsh thoughts about Elon Musk following his bid for OpenAI, an AI deal between China’s BYD and DeepSeek threatens Tesla, and the AP gets punished for deadnaming the “Gulf of America.” Stick around for Scott’s prediction on Tesla. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Human eggs are only the size of a grain of sand, but the space they can take up in your mind can be gargantuan. Now there are a lot of concerns with some experts saying this procedure really just serves as another way for companies to make money from stoking women's anxieties. Egg freezing has been presented as a kind of girl boss panacea. But what's the reality? That's this week on Explain It To Me. New episodes every week, wherever you get your podcasts. Support for Pivot comes from Intuit QuickBooks. Do you own a business that's ready to thrive?

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Here's my tip, head over to upway.co to find e-bikes from top-tier brands like Specialized, Cannadeal, and Avonton at up to 60% off retail. Whether you're into MTBs or speedy city bikes, they've got you covered. Plus, you can get $150 off your first e-bike purchase of $1,000 or more with the code PIVOT150. You can thank me later. I love e-bike purchase of $1,000 or more with the code PIVOT150. You can thank me later. I love e-bikes. Turn off the electricity and let's dance. Let's dance. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.

How are you doing, Scott? What's going on? I'm doing OK. I just hauled up five flights of stairs, my 14-year-old's beverage refrigerator. Because what is a 14-year-old without his own beverage refrigerator? I like a beverage. I just bought a beverage refrigerator.

Yeah, you and my son. Do you know that? Yeah, but you deserve one. We renovated our house. We're moving back in. And I thought, I need a beverage refrigerator in my little pod room. I created a pod room, you know that? Yeah.

My own home pod studio like you. I'm trying to keep up with you. It's very nice. Yeah, but I got one of those old retro ones and it's blue. What do you think? Oh, really? Yeah. I'm in favor of retro blue fruit.

I'm just, I'm actually very much an evangelist for beverages. But also, also, uh, uh, yeah. Was it one of those like cool, what are they called? Smeg? It's not smeg actually. Frigidaire. They, someone bought the Frigidaire name and it has Frigidaire across it in that script. Yeah.

I'm very pleased. I'm very pleased with my refrigerator. I love a refrigerator. I've always had beverage refrigerators, and my kids have too. I think it's important. I have one in San Francisco. I had a whole mine upstairs too. Anyway, we have a lot to get to today.

My God, the news is insane, Scott. I have to tell you. It's nuts. Besides that weird Elon Oval office presser with a kid saying whatever he was saying, we have also how DeepSeek is threatening Tesla's dominance. We've got a million of things. Of course, it's all about fucking Elon. I'm so tired of him, but he's right in the middle of everything.

So what are we going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? But first, President Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to start negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. Trump and Putin had what was described as a lengthy and highly productive phone call on Wednesday. Trump later spoke with Ukraine's President Zelensky, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth

offered some insights on what Ukraine can expect from a peace deal. Way to go Pete, telling people what we're going to do before we negotiate. But go ahead. We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield. We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war

and cause more suffering. So Hegsatz also noted that NATO membership for Ukraine is not on the table. I mean, Russia sort of won at devastating cost to itself and to Ukraine. But they're essentially saying, well, they got the land, they got, and this is where we do. And I get that on some level.

At the same time, it's kind of, Putin's kind of won because he was willing to put up with all those losses on his side and the damage that they did to Ukraine on the other side. This could have been written by Sergey Lavrov, who the equivalent of their secretary of state or propaganda. What might be interesting of the wild card here is I'm not sure Europe is down with acquiescing

to another murderous autocrat invading Europe and just saying, OK, it is what it is. I mean, what Secretary Hegess has said is probably pretty accurate. It's very unlikely we're going back to the traditional borders. That's correct. But at the same time, the time you negotiate,

you want to negotiate from a place of strength and what you've seen across Europe. And you could argue that's one of the benefits of not only the invasion of Ukraine, but also quite frankly of Trump, who signaled, I'm sick of supporting or giving everyone this very expensive military umbrella. But you have seen a dramatic increase in military spending across the EU. So I'm not sure the EU is going to say, you know, Ukraine, if you can't, if you don't want to bend the knee at this moment,

courtesy of whatever Trump and Hex had say, we've got your back. And what's just remarkable about Ukraine is in every conflict, there's a new weapon that kind of rears up, whether World War I, it was tanks and biplanes, World War II, radar. Drones. Yeah, and this is all about drones and it's just incredible what they have been able to do with substantially less resources. So I think you negotiate from a position of strength and when you start off with this type of rhetoric, you're basically, this could have been written by the Russians. Yeah, I agree. I think it's really, you know,

this is what they said they were going to do, so it's not a surprise. But Hegseth is just reading from a card, by the way. I don't think he has a fresh idea in his head ever. I think he's just handed things like the TV host that he was. I heard he consulted with Jack Daniels before he made this speech. Zelensky, who's basically been sidelined here, posted on X after the Trump call writing,

no one wants peace more than Ukraine. I would imagine so, given the devastation of his country. And it's just, the question is, can Europe have, does Europe have, this is a goal Trump had, which was Europe should pay more of its own freight, presumably, after we have been supportive of him for so, so long. And what he's doing is he's acting like this is a real estate deal, right? The other wild card people are talking about

is you know who doesn't want peace? China. Yeah. China was a real beneficiary of the war because they get oil at dramatic, you know, on sale because Russia, because they've been essentially shunned by every other major oil consumer. And then another country just went off of Russian oil the other day.

They turned on the lights. They had kind of a weird Eurovision event. One of them, they were like, fuck you, Russia. It felt like a rave party. It's like... It's like... Let's drop some molly and turn off Russian gas. And let's dance. Let's dance. And now we dance. I loved it. I loved the whole thing.

Yeah, it was pretty. Wow, it's loud. But, you know, it's this idea of giving into Russia. This is sort of a real politic, right? All right, they're there. This NATO thing on top of it, it's like they should be in NATO. They want to be in NATO. They're a European country.

They are so innovative. Speaking of drones, I mean, this was a technological, this was a, to me, in 10 years, there'll be tons of technology going on there when this is all settled, which is a good thing, right? They'll create a really innovative, interesting country. But if they want to be in NATO, let them be in NATO. And the fact that they accepted this is, you know, we all want this war to end, obviously, especially for the people of Ukraine. Russia gets what it gets because it invaded. I'm sorry for people who died and the Russians, but I'm not because they did it, right? So they have to pay their

price. But, you know, to be attacked like this and then have us throw them under the bus is just not a surprise. You brought up a key point, and that is while at the end of the day, we might end up with some sort of commitment to not let Ukraine join NATO because there is, if you talk to Professor Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia, who I disagree with on almost every foreign policy viewpoint, he would argue that we invited, that Russia was backed into the corner because of the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO. And maybe ultimately, you know that you're not going to let them join NATO, and America

for the most part gets to make that decision, but you don't offer it up before the negotiations. You maybe even say, in one way we'll guarantee their security moving forward is incorporating the new Ukraine into NATO. And then Russia freaks out and says, okay, if you take, you know, if you give back 60, 70, 80% of the territory, you don't show up and negotiate against yourself and offer that up before you need to. So that's why you do all the negotiating for us. Because I'm always saying what I think on the top of my head.

That's why I like working with you. You're always like, and then we do this and like, what? Oh, all right. Okay, fine. Like, I don't know. Anyway, it's a shame. And I have to say I have a lot of regard for Vladimir Zelensky. He's the most tertrillion character of this millennium so far. They're going to jam him out. That's the next thing. They're going to find a way to get rid of him and put a pro-Russian

government in there. No question. I would say I have more confidence actually in the EU. I don't think... Okay. Keep in mind the EU is a large economy. They have dramatically increased the military budget. And quite frankly, they still remember what happens when an autocrat is let, when you give him, when you say, okay, here you can have Poland or you can have this segment of France. Yeah, feels very Chamberlain, doesn't it? Feels very Anthony Chamberlain to me. Anyway, well, we'll see where it goes. But Pete Hegseth just reads things on a card,

just so everybody knows. Anthony Chamberlain? Wasn't it Neville or was it Will Chamberlain? Neville Chamberlain, Cherry Chamberlain. I'm sorry, not Anthony, Neville Chamberlain. Thank you for checking my historical references. It's so rare. It's usually that you're the one telling me I got it wrong.

I was thinking of a different Anthony because there's so many Anthony people. Richard Chamberlain from the Thornbirds. Richard Chamberlain. Yes. With one of the hottest women ever, Rachel Ward. We need to redo. Oh my God.

We need to redo. Oh my God, I just talked about the Thornbirds with someone, I was being interviewed this week from Australia because I'm going to Australia in a week. A love affair, his commitment to God. I'm like, dude, just tell God to put- Just fuck her. Yeah, oh my God, take that shit down and let us watch.

I know. Put it on cable and let them go at it. You're not gonna believe this. I mentioned it to one of the interviewers from Australia. I'm like, I love Australia, thorn birds. And literally this person was maybe 12 years old. They're like, what's that? An Australian.

I was like, I need to go now. You don't know Thornburgs? I need to leave now. Anyway, we'll move on from that. I don't know how we got to Thornburgs from Ukraine, but there we are. Okay, the latest inflation numbers are out and they're higher than expected.

Inflation rose 3% in January, the fastest monthly increase since August of 2023. The surging price of eggs was a big factor in the increase, up 53% from last year, which is fine with Cara, as I noted, I'm not an egg fan. President Trump was quick to point a finger at these numbers, calling the Biden inflation up. Sorry, dude, you own the car right now.

And for those expecting lowered interest rates, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says inflation numbers show there's more work to be done. So Jerome was right, and Trump was wrong. And now he said he didn't fix the price of eggs on day one, which he promised several times and now says, it's Biden's and it'll take longer. What do you think about inflation right now?

Obviously we talked about it a lot in the Biden administration. It was a big factor in his loss. Well, I mean, first off, to be fair, you can't pin egg prices going up 53%. It's the avian flu or whatever it is. But if you look at, if you dig in, inflation is sort of a crude number

because there's core inflation. And if you really get to the nut of it, the thing that drove a lot of this kind of uncomfortable number, and it's probably the reason why the Fed is now pulling back on what they thought were going to be rate, or the market thought were anticipating to be rate cuts, is shelter. Housing costs, including hotel and

motel rooms rose 0.4 percent last month. And I've always, I've always thought that, and the Democrats need to get off their heels in whining and bitching and being outraged and get onto their toes and start proposing some really dramatic forward-looking solutions. Because I think one of the, I think one of the reasons we lost Cara was that we were seen as a party of the past and everything's fine and let's hold on to our tradition. Yeah.

I sent you that essay. Did you get that essay? I don't read anything you sent me. Okay. It takes too much time and it's usually exceptionally. It's like 140- Well, you're articulating exactly what that piece said, but go ahead.

140 paces mirrored over very woke toes. Okay, okay. 140 IQ, it's very smart. It's not woke, it was like in economics. Anyway, go ahead. Anyways, so I do wanna listen to the podcast here with the three economists, but anyways, the really exciting thing would be,

all right, how do we implement a chips-like act for housing? Because if you unleash the real economy, there's a lot of great housing builders out there, Pulte, you know, there's a ton of, and say to them, all right, I don't know if it's 3%, 5%, 10% tax subsidy, and also make it more difficult for residents to sequester new housing permits. One of the biggest tragedies in American history,

I believe, was we took housing permits out of the hands of actually the bureaucrats were trying to fire, and we put it into the hands of housing owners who all of a sudden decided, if I own a house, I don't want any more new houses built. Yeah, nimby, nimby. But a dramatic, I would love the Democrats to propose a dramatic increase of tax subsidy,

whatever it might be, that increases housing supply well beyond its current demand and says within the next 10 years, we're going to bring housing prices down dramatically. You think Trump would do this, Mr. Real Estate, right? Studies like playing games in Ukraine. It has such a huge psychological impact on our youth because, and not only that, housing formation. I don't know about you, when I was younger and trying to figure out a way like not to get married, I said, okay, let's get a dog.

And then I was like, okay, let's get a house. And when you get a house, it's really a commitment to each other and you start saving. It's a great means of creating more cementing of a bond with somebody. Should you and I get a house together? Let me think. No.

Okay. My housing strategy is very straightforward. It's a 0.1 percent strategy. Wealthy people are the most homogenous, boring people in the world and that is I'm convinced, essentially income inequality is only going to get worse. The 0.1 percent are incredibly boring. They all wear Hermes ties,

they party in St. Barts, they drive Range Rovers, and they want to live in one of six or seven places. Sounds like you, but go ahead. Invest what you know, and boner pills, and two-headed glass dildos, I'm still looking for an investment there. Anyways, but back to real estate. The 0.1 percent all want to live in Dubai,

London, New York, Palm Beach, Aspen, certain parts of LA, and then there's maybe two or three close seconds, and they're all crowding into a small number of homes. And in addition- I don't want to live in any of those places. The secondary benefit is I want to make it such that my boys can't avoid me.

It's like, well, we can go to Tijuana and eat cheap lobster, we could go hang out at my dad's place, we have to have lunch with him. Anyways, I don't know how we got here. But Trump, the Democrats need a housing act. All right, but here's the thing. Will this inflation stuff gonna stick? There's the tariffs, everything else,

although they're kind of a paper tiger in that regard, for now at least. Is it gonna stick to him? Because he made so many problems about fucking eggs. He went on and on about eggs. Is it gonna stick to him? Cause he made so many problems about fucking eggs. He went on and on about eggs. Is that gonna stick on him? Well, my heart says yes, but my brain says based on all previous track records.

Nothing ever sticks this guy. If he can be found liable by a jury of his peers, selected by both his defense and the prosecution and be found liable of sexual abuse, I'm not sure inflation is going to stick to him. So I would think, but what I probably know or what I feel is yes, what I know based on fact patterns is no. Yeah.

So we have to offer positive things going forward. I agree with you. All right. Let's go into quick break. When we come back, President Musk takes center stage in the Oval Office. Support for Pivot comes from Attio. Attio is an AI native CRM built specifically for the next era of companies. It's extremely powerful, adapts your unique data structures and scales with any business

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Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. Scott, we're back. Elon Musk joined President Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss his work on Doge. I'm going to call it doggy from now on. I'm calling it Doge, doggy. He gave a very casual explanation of what he's been up to. Let's listen. I mean, these things, like, it's just common sense. It's not, it's not draconian or radical, I think. It's really just saying, let's look at each of these expenditures and say, is this actually

in the best interest of the people? And if it is, it's proved. If it's not, we should think about it. Actually, when the best interest of Elon Musk, according to a lot of reporting, by the way, a lot of these cuts have to do with his businesses and a lot of these attacks are mostly around things that affect him. He said he speaks to Trump almost daily and checks with him before making decisions. Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order giving Doggie even more power. The order requires the Doggie team.

I like saying it like that, to be stationed at every government agency to oversee hiring decisions now and will only allow agencies to hire one employee for every four that depart. Aside from that, that was the weirdest visual I've ever seen. His four-year-old was there looking, what Elon used to call this kid a cute prop and that's what it was. And he kept talking to the president who seemed out of it. Elon was casually dressed, sort of pontificating, saying, so what if he made a mistake about the gauze of condoms, who cares, he makes mistakes.

It was the strangest thing I've ever seen, and Trump looked like he was drugged or something, but I don't know, how were your thoughts on that? I'm a big fan of bring your Elon to work days. I think it's, I was praying that the little kid would start goose stepping. I think that would have been fitting. Papa, tomorrow belongs to me.

Oh, no, don't make kid jokes. Keep it out. Keep it out. Even Grimes was like, that kid should not have been in public, you think? You mean the same? Hold on. I think it's the same kid he put on his shoulders as he walked through the gates

that said, work will set you free at Auschwitz. Oh, my God. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Well, that's true. Talk to me about this. That's true. Yes, he did. You're right. He used his kid. He used his kid as a prop at Auschwitz.

Anyways, I don't, I'm a big, I think it's great when people bring their kids to work, but when you use your kids, it feels like the kid is a bit of a prop right now. He is. Well, he's called it that. And look, I don't, it all again is like the Gulf of distraction. And that is the inspector general who was looking into Musk's payments and business activities has been summarily fired, right? And I'm putting out a post tomorrow, basically. What people don't realize is it's just so incredibly cynical

because arguably one of the biggest welfare queens in history is Elon Musk. If you look at where a lot of these payments have gone, so a lot of this large S. So I find, like it's pretty obvious I have a bias against the guy, but I didn't, I thought it was smart for Trump visually to be sitting, like I'm more important than to have him there standing.

I thought Elon looked good. I'm trying to be, I thought he had, I thought that fashion was kind of cool, the black hat and like the, you know, the jacket. But I thought, and I actually thought he handled the questions relatively well. So, you know, probably a win for them, but I have a difficult time just absorbing

and processing any of this. I see, I did not, I had an exact opposite. I was like, what is going on here? This is so strange with a kid saying things to Trump. I mean, a lot of people put words in the kid's mouth. One was, you need to shush now. How much of that was real to you? I don't know. I'm not even going to go.

He was talking to the president saying something. He was saying something and he shouldn't have, the kid shouldn't have been there. It's such a weird thing to do that. And I don't care. You can attack me all you want. This is not an appropriate place for a kid, largely for the kid's sake, not for you shouldn't have kids at work or whatever. It's weird.

It's weird and the kid is going to suffer for it. I'm going to make that parenting declaration right now. His own mother said the same thing, by the way. But whatever, Musk wants to do it and he gets to do whatever he wants. It was disrespectful to the office of what they were doing. I still believe that. I still believe in that, even if you don't or necessarily or people don't. I do.

Secondly, I thought Trump looked old next to Musk and it looked like Musk was running the government. That I thought that's the visual I got out of it, but maybe that was. See, I think actually Trump, given the fact that he is that old, I think Trump is remarkably robust and good looking for people. Sure is. So why was he sitting down and just looking out of it and saying nothing?

I think it was sort of a power move, but a couple of things come up. One, the kid was totally distracting for me, and he's doing, I do the same thing. I put out pictures on social of my dogs. One, because I think they're great and they are beautiful dogs. And two, I think it makes me more likable.

I do the same thing. So I understand what he's trying to do. The thing that propped up in my mind is I have good friends who, and I got this practice from them. Every five years they sit each other down and they say, logistics and money aside, which is a position of privilege, what could we do that would make you really happy?

And my friend said, I think it was about five years ago, I'd like to sail around the world with the family. So they spent two years planning how to homeschool their kids on a boat, how to build a boat that could circumnavigate the globe. And they did it. They circumnavigated the globe. And there were some exceptionally scary moments involving pirates, rough seas, when you got like a seven-year-old on the boat. If the seven-year-old goes over, there's no getting him back. And then what they said to me was,

I said, would you do it again? I tried to talk them out of it. These are good friends. I'm like, I just don't think this is a good idea. I wouldn't do it. And there's certain bodies of water. I would just take a plane. You don't need bragging rights.

You're both incredibly impressive people. And I said, would you do it again? And they said, not until our kids could give consent. Because they said there were just some moments where that were very scary. And I feel the same way about this. If you're the president and you have children, it's one thing to have those moments. But I don't know, do you really take your kid to a concentration camp?

Yeah, you focused on the kids. I'm focusing on Elon. I agree. This kid should not have been there. I thought the whole thing was so fucking weird. It was weird. It was just a weird thing. And I thought Trump did look aged.

I don't think he looked powerful. I thought he looked like the kid in heat were just over playing with blocks over here and Elon was running the government. Anyway, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has some harsh thoughts about Elon Musk after his bid for the company. There's a lot of legal back and forth this week, by the way, about this.

There's a lawsuit and then Musk made a bid, which seems like a fake bid. Either it's a fake lawsuit or a fake bid, I can't tell. But let's listen to Sam Altman. Do you think Musk's approach then is from a position of insecurity about XAI? Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity, I feel for the guy. Do you feel for him? I do, actually. I don't think he's like a happy person. I do feel for him.

The backhanded compliment. Well done, Sam. In court filing, OpenAI has said the bid contradicts legal claims. Musk made a lawsuit against the company last year. In fact, it does. Musk now says he's willing to drop the bid if OpenAI remains a nonprofit. By the way, there are emails where Musk indicates he wanted it to be a profit company. So he's just, whatever it works for him, he says at the time. As of Tuesday, Altman told employees the board hadn't received an official offer from Musk,

which is probably true. I'm going to believe Altman here over Musk. You know, he's just trying to slow him down, that's what it seems like. He'll say whatever it takes to slow OpenAI and drag it into controversy and take advantage of people either have left OpenAI or who have ill feelings towards Altman, et cetera, which is going to be many. Yeah, I think Sam has shown a great deal of discipline around his comms and his brand.

I think he screwed up here. I think that whether it's true or not, it might have felt good to say, I feel for the guy and yes, he's insecure. I think he just said, the offer isn't a serious offer and I can't, I have no idea what's going on with Elon Musk. I don't want to, he,

Sam has taken so far the high road around this and he should continue to take the high road. He shouldn't take the bait and say, because that's basically saying he's insecure and it must have felt good and I get why he would do it. He's probably so sick of this guy. I think so. That wants to deploy law for

instead of actually competing against him. And it's like this poltergeist who will not go away. For all of us. That's absolutely fair. But Sam's brand is, Sam comes across as the adult in the room and he's very restrained and he errs on the side of taking blows.

And I don't think he should go there and say, I mean, that was passive aggressive minus the passive part. Oh, no, that was like, what an asshole. Yeah, I watched how he did it. I've seen him do it before, you know, these sideways attacks and they're funny. And he's like, oh, I feel sorry for him.

He's such an asshole. I feel sorry that he's an asshole. But I think the bright answer would have been, of course, we had our lawyers look at it. We don't think there's any merit on it. We're focused on building great products. So I'm not here to psychoanalyze them. So which one do you think, this is just about slowing down. Both of us think that, but it's just about slowing down OpenAI. Not a real lawsuit and not a real bid. Possibly could be though.

Yeah, but the only thing is, if you're a public company and someone makes a bid for a certain class of shares is the way I would describe this, then you have a duty share obligation to put together a special committee and look at, and I don't know if they have debt, if that changes anything. But it's not clear cause it's a nonprofit if they have a special responsibility. But go ahead. But when you're basically a private company and everyone's making so much money, I just, unless there's someone on the board of the nonprofit that also hates Altman,

which might be the case and wants to create trouble. Now he's sort of stacked it with friends of his. And they can pretty much do whatever they want. They don't, a public company has an obligation, the board has an obligation to get the highest offer and look at everything. A private company is basically a private company and they can kind of do, you know, the shareholders, the shareholders as represented by the board can

kind of do whatever the fuck they want. And I can't imagine any of them are going to go, yeah, let's bring Elon in. Well, in the case of Twitter, there was a really good, there's been very good reporting when the CEO at the time, Lagerwald, said we have to look at this offer. It's an offer. it's a huge offer.

I'm sorry to say we don't have a choice, even if he's an asshole, essentially. And then they had to take it because it was so good and ridiculous and so above their thing. In this case, they can do whatever they want. And it's not that far above it. And maybe the nonprofit gets more money

or something like that, but they'll be lost. He'll just keep throwing, listen, Elon Musk has two moves. I'll buy it or I'll sue you. These are his two big moves. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. He doesn't have the money to buy. Because if he were to buy it,

he would have to match. Look, the more interesting thing that no one watched, I actually read or looked at, which is Latin for had one of my analysts read, the earnings call from SoftBank. And a bunch of people asked questions about this anticipated investment in OpenAI at a $300 billion pre-money valuation.

And basically in so many words, they said, what the fuck are you thinking? Can you please explain this and what will be the structure of the investment? So I'm now beginning to think that that investment might be at risk because a lot of the analysts on the call were, what are you doing? This makes no sense.

So for the first time, I'm now wondering if SoftBank actually reduces their commitment to that route. Right, right. It's exactly what Musk wants to happen, right? That's exactly what he wants to do. He wants to cut them off at the knees. He's very clever that way. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. How deep-seek is threatening Tesla's next?

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and start enjoying your Aeroplan points. We're taking Box Media Podcasts on the road and heading back to Austin for the South by Southwest Festival, March 8th to the 10th. What a thrill! We'll be doing special live episodes of hit shows including Pivot. That's right, the dogs going to the great state of Texas.

Where should we begin? With Esther Perel, A Touch More with Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, Not Just Football with Cam Hayward, and more presented by Smartsheet. The Vox Media podcast stage at South by Southwest is open to all South by Southwest badge holders. We hope to see you at the Austin Convention Center soon. Visit VoxMedia.com slash S-X-S-W to learn more. That's VoxMedia.com slash S-X-S-W. The Republicans have been saying lots of things.

Just yesterday, their leader said he wants to own Gaza? On Monday, the Secretary of State said an entire federal agency was insubordinate. USAID in particular, they refuse to tell us anything. We won't tell you what the money's going to, where the money's for, who has it. Over the weekend, Vice President Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, tweeted about the same agency that, you know, gives money to the poorest people on earth. We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.

But what have the Democrats been saying? People are aroused. I haven't seen people so aroused in a very, very long time. Huh. That's a weird way to put it, Senator. We're going to ask what exactly is the Democrats' strategy to push back on Republicans on Today Explained. Scott, we're back. Chinese electric car company BYD is bringing DeepSeek technology to its vehicles, of course. The EV maker has added advanced driver assistance systems in most of its vehicles, including

a model that costs under $10,000. They also continue to be adorable. The cheapest Tesla model on the market is $30,000. Tesla stock is down 17% in the last month because people are actually doing math and not thinking that Musk's ascendants will benefit Tesla necessarily. He's a CEO, but he's focused on a lot of other things. Scott, this week you talked to Alice Han, Chinese economist and director at Green Mantle,

about this very thing. Let's listen. How is our player, Tesla, domestically, who has its own manufacturing in China, faring against BYD domestically in China? Not well at all. I mean, the fact that Tesla is still there surprises me somewhat given its price point. And the fact that all these companies, including Tesla, have had to

cut prices over the last few years because of the extremely competitive price wall landscape. I think it's only a matter of time before that share starts to diminish even further. It's going to be an open-ended question. And now this is gonna be based on the politics of it all, whether or not Elon Musk gets these autonomous vehicle licenses. Explain what she was saying there. And by the way, her accent is fantastic. Oh, I cannot tell you how impressed I am with this,

with Alice Hahn. She's my find. Occasionally you find somebody and you think, this person is a genius and I wanna give them more sunlight. And she's one find. Occasionally you find somebody and you think, this person is a genius and I want to give them more sunlight. And she's one of those people. Anyways, she's essentially said that, I mean, if you look at what's happened to Tesla in Europe, it's not much better in China.

In January, retail sales of Tesla in China were 16% lower year on year. Why wouldn't you buy a BYD? They're great cars. And get this, 60% lower than in December. So BYD, and BYD is now the number one EV car manufacturer in the world. Going to a much broader point here,

I think that the most important relationship that could evolve, hopefully, in the next three years, let's assume that Trump, supposedly he definitely wants a Nobel Prize. And so let me go to advising the president in a hopeful way. The most obvious way would be to solve the civil war in Sudan, threaten both sides, work with both sides. The other way would be if China in the US,

kissed and made up, the, I mean, have you seen these cars? These cars are $10,000 EVs and really good. They're adorable. As long as they're safe, they're going to raise questions. I've had people write me about whether they're safe or not. They're like, they're, I'm just saying, they have to be if they're here.

For another $2,000 or $3,000, you can install a lot of airbags and a lot of safety features. In addition, I would even go further than that. I would create a bilateral AI commission where we, I mean, supposedly 38 percent of AI engineers are Chinese in the US. When we don't cooperate with them, they develop their own ships, they have incentive to do things kind of in and around us.

I would have a bilateral AI, similar to what Oppenheimer's vision was for nuclear, where we share everything with each other, but we also commit to ensuring that AI is not used to create bioweapons by third parties or bad actors. Because all we're doing is motivating the other to figure out workarounds to attack the other. The most important relationship in terms of a thong right now would be the first and second largest economy. Talk about these autonomous vehicle licenses. He needs them in China, right? If he can get these from the Chinese.

Yeah, but here's the Chinese playbook and it's happening to Tesla. The Chinese playbook is very simple. Oh, Google, oh, Meta, come on in. Then they watch, oh, Meta, come on in. And then they watch, listen and learn, and then they steal their IP and prop up a local entrepreneur and capture the most of the value for the domestic market. And I think the same thing is happening to Tesla. I can't imagine a lot of that IP from Tesla didn't end up at BYD. I don't know about that. I do think that, I am of the feel, I agree with you about the sort of the fast follower, right?

The planes are covered, the bodies of pioneers, that kind of thing. That said, I do think there's a ton of innovation. I think you can see it through TikTok. I think what Ali Baba has done, there's a lot of innovation there too of their own, but they definitely wait, watch and then innovate. And battery too.

Yeah, I don't think they necessarily steal every minute of the day, but there is that. But these cars are very different than anything I've seen. So it's not like they're copying, right? They're sort of copying, but there's also innovations around it that I have never wanted to buy a car more than a BYD car.

And I love my Ford. I love my Bolt, as you know, and I think it's adorable too. BYD sales plummet day after podcast. You have the worst taste in cars. I know, but have you seen them? I like their inexpensive. They're beautiful.

They're super cool. They're beautiful and they're cool, and if you're a young person, you'd want one. 100 percent. In a second, they look like, I don't mean they're kind of like the- It's like the new VW Bug, but with technology. It's a Uniqlo of cars.

Great analogy. Whenever I get a Uniqlo, I buy 10 shirts. They love them and I have to say, I love them. I don't think I'm using them as just throw them out. They're just inexpensive and adorable. I look adorable by the way. It's the car equivalent of fast fashion. It is.

We have figured out supply chain to just bring you something for dramatically less money. As long as they figure out the safety, which they'd have to in this country. I agree. I think he's just, here's the deal. Musk does not make cars that are interesting anymore. That's all. It's an interesting car.

It was an innovation. You have to update these things for consumers. I don't think he cares about the cars anymore. That's my feeling. Some better news for Tesla and Marco Rubio in a totally normal deal that had no strings attached. The State Department procurement forecast for 2025 includes $400 million in armored Tesla vehicles. At least someone is buying them besides douche nozzle men. They tried to hide it. They had Tesla on there. They changed it to armored vehicles and they're their cyber trucks. Nobody else wants to buy them. Consumers don't seem, a small group

of consumers do of course, as there would be, but it seems like it's a you know one of those things people buy because it's weird and interesting, but nobody is buying them and there are very few people are buying them and now the government is buying them. another gimme for Elon Musk The grift keeps grifting I feel yeah, that's that's exactly right. We're the only thing propping up Tesla stock right now Is and his wealth is this basic the market has said this is now a Cloptocracy and your proximity to power is more important than your innovation. Right. So they're buying them from him. Yeah. And also firing people who are investigating the company and getting rid of them.

I guess that's a plus. Yeah. It's even, unfortunately, it's even, and this isn't in the script, but I'm just curious to get your quick reaction. Have you been following what's going on with Mayor Adams? Yes. Yes. Please do. I mean, just pay per filet. He's not going to be mayor soon. That's the thing. He's out. Don't you think?

I feel like he's not going to be. God, I hope so. I mean. Oh, come on. Nobody in New York likes him. I agree. No, I said, I hope so. I mean, essentially, what's effectively happened is

he's instructed the DOJ to drop all prosecution efforts against Mayor Adams. And in exchange, Mayor Adams has agreed to comply with all efforts by ICE to capture or retain or detain and deport. So what you have is, I'll make sure that you are not subject to the same laws that every other citizen is subject to. If you agree to go against your constituents and let our ICE people into, who knows, churches or schools. I mean, this is really fucking ugly.

Oh, no, it's utter pain. You know what, Eric Adams, you're a crook. Like, you're a crook. You're a shitty crook, by the way. You only want tickets to Istanbul. Like, what a loser. You know, I know you're backing a particular candidate in New York, I forget who it was. Who was it? Who are you? Whitney Tilson. Yes, but there's a bunch of people running.

You know, there's a bunch of people. Well, the guy who will probably win is when Andrew Cuomo actually announces that he's in the race. But there's a bunch of very good candidates who are not going to be criminals. It's a bunch of out of control progressives. One pragmatist named Whitney Tilson.

Whitney, who is a pragmatist, would be a great mayor but probably doesn't have the name recognition. Governor Cuomo is going to come in and probably just lock it. But Kathy Hochul has, I believe, the power to remove Mayor Adams and she should. She should. This is corruption at the highest level. And this because- Yeah, they should make an example of him.

This is really, and by the way, I was a supporter of Mayor Adams. I thought the case- I was not. I thought the case against him was, quite frankly, overdone. I, you know, I don't, I did not think what he did rose to the level of, I don't know how the media was portraying it. I know. I think he's grifty McGrift from the start, from the go. He wasn't living there.

Everything came out of his mouth was a lie, this guy. He's such a ridiculous peacock and surrounded himself with such grift. I get New York mayor has to be a little bit grifty, but this guy was like grifty ish. You know, they all are. I mean, come on. I mean, but you know, like he's just, he's an embarrassment for a great city. He won a little greatness out of a mayor of, you know, even back in the day, Rudy was not actually, you know what?

I didn't support Rudy. He was the thug to a lot of people. This is, but this is, it's so damaging to the Democratic brand because the Democratic brand unfortunately has been tarred with a broad but fairly fair brush of every democratically run city on the West Coast is a fucking shit show. They ignored drugs, they ignored crime, and there's the quality of life is awful. I said two years ago of Fox, if I were Fox I would just broadcast live from downtown San Francisco every day.

And so the center of democratic branding for politics moved to New York, which is actually performing quite well. And still offers, is still the best place in the world to go in terms of a crush of opportunity, culture, nightlife. New York really still is the best city in the world and represents the best of America and thereby the best of the Democratic Party. And now we have this bullshit. So it's really damaging on a lot of levels. I think Governor Hockel should move in and say, do a press release and say, I'm removing him as mayor. Who would you put in place?

No, you know who I would ask? That's a good question. I just thought of it. I would ask Mayor Bloomberg to step back in for an interim mayor. Oh, good idea. I love it. I love it. Six to 18 months until there's a special election. Great idea. Love it. All right, Kathy, get on it.

All right, last thing. The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America, at least on Google and Apple Maps in the US, apparently are consequences for not using the new name. Associated press reporters have now been barred from multiple White House events after AP continues to use Gulf of Mexico in its reporting. The AP is calling this a violation of the First Amendment,

but press secretary Carolyn Levitt, also known as Tracy Flick, says, we reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office. Oh my God, it's so stupid. Distraction, distraction, distraction. I'm going to call it the Gulf of Scott. I don't give a fuck what people do to me if I do that. You saw my thread or whatever it is, I can't keep track.

I just put out golf of distraction. That's all this is. I don't, you know, but who cares? I don't find, call it that. I just don't. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. It's so manifestly stupid.

And I'm sure, I don't even think like, oh yay, we're calling it the Gulf of America. Whatever. Yeah, we'll show them. We'll show them. I gotta tell you, I'm calling it the Gulf of America. Whatever. Yeah, we'll show them. We'll show them. I got to tell you, I'm loving the new president of Mexico so much. She's such a badass. I'm going to try to interview her.

Yeah. Shinebond. Shinebond Claudia. She's like, fuck you. But at the same time, she deals. She's a dealer too. Anyway, it's a distraction. Googly, you look like wimps, but whatever.

And nobody looks good. I'm going to call it the Gulf of Scott. That's the end of it. All right, everybody? I appreciate that. Golf of dog. Dog golf. Doggie.

No, dog, golf of dog. I like golf of Scott. No, golf of Galloway sounds good. Right. Golf of Galloway, it feels like real. Make America Scottish again. It feels like Ponce de Leon would have named it that. Golf of Galloway.

Anyway, all right. It's time for this week's threads poll. This one's open-ended. What do you wish Democrats are doing in response to the Trump administration's actions? What do you wish? We've had our opinions on that. Something besides standing in front of a building and yelling, that's for sure. Visit us on threads at pivot podcast official to answer.

By the way, have you noticed AOC is not outside of the buildings? She's not. Have you noticed that? She's very calculating. She does great online stuff, I'll tell you that. She heard Pete are killing it. She's not going to be on the go to the alumni cheerleading day where they have all these very cute 95-year-olds dressed up in pom poms.

She's an actual cheerleader. She's a gangster. She and Pete Buttigieg, I have to say, are very appealing. They're in the background managing their brand really strongly with an eye on 28. And they're not going to like go down in some sort of like angry, near zombie apocalypse movie. Yeah, they're too smart. Yeah. Well, we would love our listeners to write in, what do you think they should do? No violence, please, if you don't mind. All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions. This week on ProfG Markets, we speak with Alice Han, China economist and director at Greenmantle. We discuss the potential impact of tariffs on China's economy, how Tesla is fairing against BYD and how a Trump presidency could shape China's foreign and domestic policies. Trump is the biggest dove in a house full of hawks. Everyone else around him wants to push him towards being more hawkish on China, on trade, on tech, on military. And I sense that whether it's Rubio or Hegseth or Waltz, they're going to try

to push the agenda of being tougher on China and having more deterrence vis-a-vis Taiwan. You can find that conversation exclusively on the Prof G Markets podcast. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. So, you know, a broken clock can be right. I was a prediction machine last night and I wrote a bunch down. You did? What happened? What were you taking? No, I was actually sober, which was kind of frightening. Interesting.

When I was talking about, when you said that fuck Mary, kill thing, and I was talking about making sweet, sweet love to Mark Zuckerberg, and I thought I'd grab- You're still thinking about it, aren't you? Oh my God, I can't get off of grabbing that chain, riding him like a dog and singing, "'Who's self-harming now, you wanton bitch?' Oh my God, my nipples are getting hard.

And at that moment, at that moment, I thought, maybe I don't need drugs. Maybe I don't need drugs. Anyways, this is all gonna come crashing down, Kara. Anyways, last night- I'm getting notes from Lara saying no, no, no, but I say yes, yes, yes, and therefore- If that's wrong, we don't want to be right.

Oh, you don't. All right, go ahead, prediction. I think Tesla's about to experience its real first major existential crisis. Sales off. What? Oh gosh, they're off. Here you go again. They're off, here I go again.

I can't help it. I'm an addict. They're off 20-60 percent across European countries. They're off 50 percent in China. EV demand appears to be plateauing. They are getting their shit kicked out of them by BYD. They haven't really released a new mass adoption product in about seven years. Have I been saying that? I have been saying that. And they have what is right now the worst brand ambassador in the world.

Or the people that want to buy those cars. Yeah. And then my more boring one is I really think Google is gonna, you're about to hear a lot of stories about Google search share falling below 90% at the hands of Perplexity, ChatGPT, and also Reddit. And I was even thinking just as YouTube has become the ultimate distribution platform in 2025, I think in 26 is gonna be Reddit.

There's just a bunch of like, there's so many moons lining up right now. I'm really, anyways, I think that Tesla is about to have, I can't help it, I'm just going to say it now, Tesla stock is going to be below 200 in the next six months. You're going there. You're going there again. I love you. Once more into the breach, Scott Galloway. At some point, I'll be right. Well, the numbers are the numbers. The math is math, right? Look, before they were on the upswing in terms of like the quality of cars, what they were releasing, instead they're forced

to sell things to Marco Rubio, who has to do whatever everybody says because he's such a beta. Just so you know, on that thing about search, Atlantic Politico Vox, Jim Bankoff sent me this, another major publisher suing AI startup Cohere for copyright and trademark infringement, escalating the news battles, legal battle over the technology. That's from the Wall Street Journal. It's a Canadian company. It's valued at $5 billion and they're using thousands of copyrighted works to train its large language model. Hmm. Anyway, they're suing Tim Bankoff on the attack. Atlantic, Politico, they must have coordinated it all together. All right, so those are your two that searches.

Those are good. Those are big ones. Those are big ideas. We'll see, right? Yeah, we'll see. Someday you're going to be right. Anyway, you are right. You were right before on terms of the numbers.

It just didn't matter. In this case, we'll see. We'll see what on terms of the numbers. It just didn't matter in this case. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Do you have any thoughts, any predictions? Um, I predictions, I predict I will buy yet another EV this year. I will. The key is getting a little long in the tooth.

Um, and I I'm trying to debate whether to get the hybrid, which I think is really hybrids are growing like crazy. Oh, you know, we should do what, what I'm serious about this. Alice, who I really respect, I would even call her a friend, a China analyst, Alice Han, she said, Scott, you should really, I've been to China since 2019. And I was saying, I was so excited about China. And I went there probably two, three times a year.

And I haven't been back since 2019. And she said, I'll take you. It'll be a ton of fun. And you'll meet with some interesting people. You and I should go to China. And you should pick up your BYD and see if you can get it back to the US. Oh, interesting. And pay the import, pay the tariff and bring it back.

Let's go to China. I bet we're popular in Hong Kong. We did one of my conferences there. I had a stroke there, as you know. Last time I was there, I had a stroke. Yeah, the International Tourism Board, that's not going to be on any billboards. Want a stroke? Come to Shenzhen. No, let's go to China. Let's do it.

That would be really interesting. We should do an event in China. China, we want to come visit you and we're going to bring, but we're going to drive a BYD. Reach out to us. We're going to drive it across the ocean. Reach out to us.

Reach out to us. We're coming to China. We'll do an event, whatever you want. Yeah, and I've heard that the CCP is actually a good organization because I can't find anyone who would say anything else. Bring us to China. Bring us to China.

They're so good. All right, let's do it. Let's do it in 2025. After we see Wicked. After we see, we're going to see Wicked, my friend. We could see Wicked in Beijing. That'd be interesting. Are they to let people? It's all about a surveillance economy.

I wonder how big it is. I have no idea. Do you know what, what are you doing this weekend? Anything interesting? Oh yeah, I'm going to, it's funny, I pause there because I feel like I rub my wealth on people's face. I'm going to Zermatt. You do.

I'm going to Zermatt on Saturday. All right. That's not very far from where you are. I'm really excited. Supposedly we have this ridiculously hot ski instructor, so. Okay. You know where I'm going? I'm going to SNL's 50th concert.

Really? Is it a concert or a showing? There's a, no, there's going to be a show on Saturday. I'm just going to the concert the night before it's at Radio City Musical. That sounds really cool. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back next week with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Severo, and Dan Chulan. Nishak Khorwas, Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care.

Have a great weekend. Music .