Pivot - Trump's Tariffs, Elon's Government Takeover, and OpenAI's New Funding

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss President Trump's nonsensical trade war, and if there's an actual endgame to these tariffs. Plus, Elon Musk and his DOGE cronies get access to the federal payment system, and important information on government websites starts to disappear. Then, the winners and losers from Big Tech's recent earnings, and OpenAI in talks for a huge funding round. This episode was recorded on Monday morning, before news broke that tariffs on Canada and Mexico would be paused. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I put in my AirPods and I danced 80s music without my shirt on. Can you put a camera in your house so I can watch that? Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher and I am in San Francisco and was on a flight last night, having to read about Doge working all weekend taking over the government. Good to see you, Cara. I'm so tired. Why are you back in San Francisco?

I have a bunch of things to do here. I'm speaking in front of a group from Columbia University Journalism School. I've got some appointments. I've got a whole bunch of stuff I'm doing here in San Francisco. I like to come and visit the place every now and then to find out what's going on here. You love it there. I do. I don't have a lot of time here this time, but I'm excited to be here. Anyway, it was a long weekend. Listen, this whole Doge thing has got me off to a bad start.

But I am glad I'm in San Francisco, that's for sure. How are you doing? Good. I'm about to get on a plane for Orlando. Oh, nice. Yeah. I have a speaking gig at Walt Disney World. What? Yeah. Don't ask. I don't know. I don't know. I just go where they send me.

Which place? What's that? Why? Who is at Walt Disney World? They do a lot of conventions there, I guess. I don't know. Foreigners? I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. I just know I'm gone. Then I spend a day there and then I go to

New York for three or four days and I'm back. Oh, how nice. That's really nice. Yeah, February is gonna be a big month. It's gonna be a big month and it has been in Washington, as I said, but it's just, it seems very active. It used to be a lot slower in the winter. Now it seems crazy.

Maybe it's just I'm tired from flying all night and then being here. Yeah, I don't know. You spend, it's interesting, as close as we are professionally and personally, we are never in the same place. You spend most of your time in DC and San Francisco, and I am never in DC or San Francisco.

But that's why we're so close, you see. It's funny you say that, so just to bring this back to me, I have a really nice relationship with my sister. She's my dad's daughter by his third marriage. I'm the son by his second marriage. And I'm convinced one of the reasons that we're so close now is that we didn't live in the same household.

I've always been shocked by how many siblings are not that close, even though they're both really good people. And I'm convinced it's because something traumatic happens, it creates a fissure when they're living together as children. And when you're a sibling, you feel that familial bond, but the fact that you never lived together, I don't know. She looks like a different species.

She's attractive, she's blonde. She kind of looks Irish joke, she looks like Aryan youth. She has big, beautiful blue eyes and platinum blonde hair. Okay, all right. That's an interesting reference. Okay. Yeah, she likes that. Oh, all right.

She likes that. Yeah, I'm sure. We have a lot to get to today. May I start off by saying something? Someone who is a big listener of ours wrote me and someone they knew died in that plane crash and said, we were a little too glib about the plane crash making it political.

And I thought about it and I really do think we were trying hard to separate it from the politics and there's no getting around it. This is a terrible tragedy of people dying. And I get it for a lot of people, it's been turned into a political thing and maybe we did a little bit more than we should have because we said we weren't going to.

So I wanted to bring that up. I don't know how you feel about that, but I wanted to say these families, they're finally finding everybody there. They still have not found everybody in the Potomac. But reading these stories this week of these families was really heartbreaking. I found it. I found it very heartbreaking. Yeah. It's impossible not, that's an impossible, I don't want to call it an accusation, but

it's an impossible comment to not land because if you knew somebody on one of those flights, you're devastated, right? They're losing a loved one unexpectedly and in such a harsh spectacle is, you know, I can't imagine any of those people, including their families, are ever gonna be the same again. You know, my view is taking a step back. I mean, it was sort of like when the wildfires came, I think, oh, at least the point I was trying to make,

I won't put words in your mouth, is that rather than I would argue empathy for the people on, you know, who lost their homes or the people who lost their lives, the left says it's climate change, the right says it's DEI. In this instance, the right mostly, the left was mostly quiet, the left was mostly quiet, the right was, this is DEI. And it's just a shame that a lot of that empathy gets some bullshit nods from people, thoughts and prayers, and they immediately go to how can I politicize this? And our point was, or not your, our point, my point is the following.

The FAA is arguably one of the most successful government agencies in history. And as someone who's invested in aviation, the error rate you have to test to is 10 to the negative eighth to get a civil aviation aircraft certified to fly passengers. I mean, in the ability at any moment, there's something like 7,000 planes in the air, in our airspace. And the fact that they're able to minimize or keep the number of these horrific tragedies, it is more dangerous to walk up your stairs to get on a plane. Yeah, no, I get that. I get it. And just let me finish here. I am not a fan of DEI.

I've said in the university setting, I think that apparatus should be disassembled. I think in the corporate setting, there is absolutely still a role for DEI and people don't realize that DEI, the removal of DEI will impact veterans ability to get jobs. But in the instance of, if you were to say that the DEI has infected the FAA, then all you could

say is based on the has infected the FAA, then all you could say is based on the performance of the FAA, then DEI should be incorporated into every organization. Because whatever the FAA has been doing the last 30 or 40 years has resulted in outstanding metrics. But I just want to circle back. I feel whoever wrote that, I trust and hope that- It's a big fan of ours.

Yeah. Yeah, I trust and hope that- He's a big fan of ours. Yeah, I apologize sincerely if in any way our comments come across as coarse. That was not our intention. Yeah, not at all. Let me just say, I would avail myself, sometimes you can complain about media, but these stories about these people,

and I read a bunch of them are wonderful. They're heartbreaking. Especially this group of skaters and friends. I know plane crashes do get more attention than other things and as you say, not as many people die, but it's such a horrific way to die and the way it becomes suspectical is also horrific, but let's just remember there's people on this flight. That's all I want to say. I did that after 9-11 too. I read so many of the biographies and stuff like that. You don't do that for everybody every day of the year who dies.

But in that case, it gives you a real sense of mortality when those happens to everybody. Anyway, we're sorry. That was not our intent and let's hope we figure out what happened. of mortality when those happens to everybody. And it just was, anyway, we're sorry. That was not our intent. And let's hope we figure out what happened and stop accidents like that. Because Scott is right.

Our air travel is safe comparatively going forward. Anyway, we've got a lot to get today. Trump set off a firestorm over the weekend, slapping 25% tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and 10% on China's products set to go into effect this week. What do you think, Scott? Well, just on a human level, for the first time in my life, and this is an odd feeling, and it's a mix of shame and surprise, I'm rooting for Canada, not the U.S.

So let's start with the tariffs and let's do a strong man or steel man. His argument is that to a strong man or steel man. His argument is that the America's been too soft and that America should command the space it occupies and charge more and create a revenue source or access to what is the largest economy in the world. And that our trade agreements have been asymmetric and that is we have been taken advantage of. First, my personal experience having literally done business

in almost every Western nation and even negotiated agreements between private companies and world leaders, America flexes its power every fucking day. I mean, the notion that somehow we're always on the wrong end of deals, when you show up, almost every trade agreement, we have 700 military bases in 80 countries. China has one in Djibouti.

And you think we just asked for those? You think we just said, hey, wouldn't it be great idea to have a military base? We flex our power every day. So first, the base notion that somehow we've been- Being taken advantage of. Getting taken advantage of is literally comical. Now, let's talk about the tariffs themselves.

You can make the argument all all right, with China. The argument would be, and I'm trying to call balls and strikes here, a lot of the tariffs initially imposed in the first Trump administration were actually kept in place by Biden. This takes it to such a deeper, weirder level because, for example, with Canada, 25%, this will just immediately raise prices for both nations.

The definition of stupid is you hurt yourself and you hurt others. In addition, you don't think China might get a military base at Columbia at some point. You don't think Canada, the Canadian embassy in Tehran, those people risked their lives to try and covertly get American hostages out of Iran. They risked their lives because Canada sees themselves as friends, brothers, siblings of America. They followed us into Afghanistan.

They followed us into Iraq. They followed us into Iraq. We have Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association teams. Called an ally. In Canada. It's more than an ally. They are with us. And Canada right now can even answer the question,

what do you want from us? What's the end game here? Why didn't you call us your good friend and say this is our concern and this is what we're trying to achieve? I don't even think they know, they can't even answer the question, what is his end game here in this bullshit that,

well, we've got to reduce the level of fentanyl. You can sort of make that argument against China and Mexico. You can't make it against Canada. Yeah, he wants to be the 51st state. There's that thrown in there that Canada should. Okay, you've't make it against Canada. He wants to be the 51st state. There's that thrown in there. That Canada. Okay. You've managed to raise prices, to diminish the quality of life of a friend, to

diminish goodwill that has been built up over 150 years, and it's just going to raise consumer prices. It's not only reckless. It is literally the definition of stupid is doing something that hurts others and hurts yourself, especially the one against Canada. I can sort of see the argument, at least theoretically, about the drug trade and fentanyl coming through Mexico, fine, the immigrants, the 250,000 people coming over the border. Maybe China, I can sort of make an argument.

I still don't think it's smart. But the tariffs against Canada? Right. All right. The Mexican president who seems much more aggressive than previous presidents, was making the point, stop wanting drugs so much. Do something about your own drug problem within the country and the demand, which you never do.

There has been an effort by the Mexican government to slow all that down, right? There has been progress made. Just a note, we recorded this episode on Monday morning. Since then, Mexico has announced that it has struck a deal with the Trump administration to put tariffs on hold for a month, which is exactly what Mark Cuban said would happen.

But again, this seems like in Trump's head, and I've read economist after economist, that it's just like this is the world's worst thing to happen to everybody, and it will be a tax. There were a couple of anchors who just doesn't seem to know math. It'll be a tax on the American consumer that they're not going to get through tax breaks because the tax breaks are going to the very wealthy. They're not going to. And this is a direct tax on the American consumer. It's really quite something.

And the price of everything, all this weird, I had no idea that so much stuff. And I know that we're doing lots of trade vaguely, but in terms of when you start to get the specifics of what we import, fresh fruits and vegetables, gas, obviously maple syrup, things like that. But some of it, you know, cars that go back and forth across the border, I was vaguely aware of that. But it's really, we are, they aren't the 51st state, but they sure as hell aren't just another country. That is true. And I think the same is with Mexico.

We have so much trade with them, and there was a hope that we'd put more technology engineering there, so it was closer and less at risk than in China, right? He thinks it's a negotiating tactic. And one of the things, let me look it up, Mark Cuban said, which I thought was smart, is that he'll make some calls and call them off right away and then declare victory, essentially. Do a pinky promise that I think that's what he said, that he was tough and then he can take his win and go home, essentially, which it sounded

like a pretty reasonable idea of what this idiot's gonna do, essentially. If you were to game theory this out, the most likely outcome is that immediately you're gonna see a spike in prices, or near immediately. A lot of companies have been stockpiling. I was on the board of a retailer and I was speaking to the CEO the other day and he said, yeah, the tariffs in China, we knew they were coming, so we've been stockpiling things and trying to get them in until this gets solved. So you're not, I actually don't think you're going to see price increases as

quickly as people think. Maybe we will, but we will see price increases. And then he will come up with some sort of, he'll declare victory and say he got something and most likely roll them back somewhat or all. That's the most likely scenario. What we're not thinking about is that people have memories, people have egos, and we're no longer a trusted ally. We can be counted on. You're gonna see that the Canadians are going to be more likely to

import BYD electric vehicles. This is from China for people that don't know. And what's interesting about this and it gets more Machiavellian and mendacious as you look at it. It's clear must fingerprints are all over this because if you look at Tesla, they actually have to their credit, the greatest manufacturing depth. What do I mean by that? If you're an American car maker, sometimes certain car parts or components

literally go up and down Canada and cross Mexican borders six, eight, 10 times. There's tariffs gonna be everywhere in American automobile companies, except Tesla, the majority of their parts are manufactured vertically here in the S. everywhere in American automobile companies, except Tesla, the majority of their parts are manufactured vertically here in the S. The majority of the automobiles they sell in China,

which would be subject to the reciprocal tariffs that China is going to impose on American products. The majority of Tesla's sold in China are actually manufactured in China. Now, and Tesla is suing Europe for their 7.5% tariff they put on Tesla sold, manufactured in China. So actually these tariffs, in my view,

were massaged and written and negotiated to a certain extent by Elon Musk. Because what this amounts to in the automobile industry is it's gonna seriously impair US auto companies, but it's not gonna impair Tesla. But this is, what people don't realize, he'll try and get some sort of political win, flex his muscle, America's back.

But the amount of goodwill that we are eroding long-term, this isn't how you operate a business, this isn't how you operate a country. No, it's called distributed negotiations, or one is a winner and a loser. I was reading a whole thing about his negotiating style, which doesn't work on the international stage. This is what Cuban said, he's going to say, pinky swear you will protect our border and buy more booze and stuff from us.

They will say yes, won't actually buy this stuff, and he will declare victory, Trumponomics. And long-term, they're just not going to be as inclined to coordinate, cooperate with our central intelligence agency when there's a terrorist threat to sell in their country. The reason the US is the most powerful nation in the world is for a variety of reasons, our geography, our natural resources, our IP, but also the incredible amount of admiration and goodwill

our allies have for us. Let's listen to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau essentially called Trump's actions a betrayal of our alliance, which he just said. Together, we've built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen. A relationship that has been the envy of the world. relationship that has been the envy of the world. Yes, we've had our differences in the past, but we've always found a way to get past them. As I've said before, if President Trump wants to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us.

Anyway, that's a very good... He's also gaining. He's had to leave because of pressure from conservatives too. And now they're all joined together. Just some more things and then one more next thing. Larry Summers has called the tariffs against Canada, Mexico, inexplicable and dangerous. He's usually right about things. He's an economist, obviously, well-known economist.

Trump acknowledged it could cause some pain, but how bad could it get? As we said, alcohol, food, cars, toys, pretty much everything. They'll also, these terrorists will also target that de minimis provision that allows packages of less than $800 to ship to the US duty free. That loophole has been a boon for Sheen, Teemu, and others. I suspect he'll be a paper tiger here, correct? I mean, do you imagine? I think that he's going to do exactly what Marx says. Well, a senator that the both of us know heard our comments that, and our disappointment in the Democratic Party around messaging and hitting back, and called me and said, well, what would you do?

And I'm like, don't play the indignance card. Don't talk about all these federal employees being laid off. Don't be outraged. Have five or six different items, whether it's eggs, whether it's lumber, whether it's a toy, I don't know what, you know, a car, a new Chevrolet and have it on the DNC website and just every day announce what the prices are. Inflation is number one on people's minds. That's what they promised to bring prices down.

And I don't see any way around how interest rates or prices don't immediately or near immediately tick up. And that's what impacts people every day. And that's what he promised to immediately bring down as we were gonna bring prices down immediately. This is, I don't get the end game here, I don't. Because he was, he was, he was prices down and tax cuts, I think.

And none of those things are on the, are on the thing. It's DEI, the FAA and tariffs and destroying the government essentially, which seems to be taking advantage of his chaotic friend, Elon Musk, for helping who's helping. Well, in all of these stories that would have made huge news and had real scrutiny, one, there's fewer journalists to cover them

and you flood the zone with all of this stuff. By the way, these tax cuts they're talking about, just so you know, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway are getting a tax cut. Anyone else on this show that makes less than $300,000 a year is getting a tax hike. So these tax cuts again done under the cover of flooding the zone are going to cut taxes on people making over the people making over $300,000. We've got a small tax cut people making over $800,000 or a million bucks a year.

I thought to get a pretty nice tax cut. Is that what you voted for more more wealth? More wealth for the 1%? But no one's even talking about it because everything seems even more outrageous. There's so many things here that we can't, the media, and I don't think consumers can absorb it. And that was their strategy. In some ways it's sort of mendaciously brilliant.

Just, oh, slip in a tax cut for the rich because they're going to be focused on all this stuff over here, all our accusations of DEI and the things we're doing at the CDC. Distraction. Distraction. There's just so much here, and one thing feels more strange, weird, reckless, economically stupid than the next, they won't notice all this other stuff. Project 2025 is being implemented. Let me go through the other ones that happened. Over 8,000 US government websites

have been deleted as a result of Trump's order and programs to promote gender ideology. Information about vaccines, hate crimes, and veterans' care has been removed. Among the moves, 3,000 pages from the CDC, 100 pages from the FDA, 200 pages from Head Start, a program for low-income children, and 1,000 pages from the Department of Justice, a lot around January 6.

Obviously, USAID was the other thing that was happening. Looks like they're closing it down. They went in over the weekend and took control of the agency, which they're trying to close down. Apparently, Elon said on X, on spaces, I guess, that they are closing it down. And he also tweeted, it should die. It was a criminal organization making all kinds of accusations. Sounds like he has a band of teenagers, young people

helping him do this. Troublesome. They are claiming that nobody without security clearance got access, but it sounds pretty middle of the night on the weekend, which he bragged about saying one of his advantages in superpowers is he works on the weekend, which he bragged about saying one of his advantages in superpowers is he works on the weekend. I work on the weekend, but I don't consider it a superpower. Can we talk about the sites?

Yes, let's go to the sites. Well, I've always maintained, so for example, there was an HIV transmission calculator, and I've maintained that actually, I don't think Trump is homophobic. I'm not even sure it's fair to say that their policies are misogynistic. What I think their policies are, I don't know what the right term is here. I don't think this is a war on women. I don't think it's war on gay people. I think it's a war on poor people. And if you have, the CDC had an HIV transmission calculator. And if you're a young man discovering your sexuality and you live with a single mother, you don't have a lot of money, maybe you've dropped out of high school,

it's important that these kids have this information about PrEP and PEP and what certain types of sex result in transmission of HIV. It's important that if you have an STD and you find out that you're pregnant, what that means and what treatment are available. And all those sites have been taken down. Now, who does that impact? Would it impact my son? No, it impacts poor kids. It impacts poor women. And this is the, it's the definition of censorship and purposely regressing and taking us back. It feels like it's not, I don't think it's a war on women or LGBTQ, it's a war on poor women. Oh, come on Scott, I'm sorry.

It is, it's a war on lots of things. That stuff they're taking down across the government is, it's not just poor people. They're trying to like abrogate, to eliminate other, anyone else that has, remember they're taking down like, they have Black History Month or Gay Pride Month. But who does it impact? Well, that kind of stuff, it's the same message.

It's, if you read the Project 2025, it's not just, of course it impacts poor people, but it also impacts the idea of any kind of identity beyond, you know. That's fair. Veterans need to veteran, you know, CDC needs to CDC, don't talk about anything else. It's an idea that has driven them crazy, which is that we should celebrate diversity, I guess. You know, it's a broader obsession that they have with this issue. And that's how you led to sort of the FAA thing, which is it had to be diversity, equity,

and inclusion that caused these crashes, even though we haven't had a crash in a very, very long time when those things were in place, which probably is a tragic accident. That's really what it is, and that's what happens in life. But I think it's a bigger ideological attack of things they're trying to eliminate in schools. Let me just say, my kids in a public school in DC, I am very nervous they're going to start meddling with the education system. She came home and she said, oh, I learned the word diverse today. And I said, what does that mean to you? And she goes, oh, they were all different. And she wasn't using race.

She was like, oh, we're all different people from each other. And it's good to have differences and it's good to have things in common. It was a very like, you know, chalk, vanilla, strawberry way of thinking about it. But I was like, oh, they're gonna take that out of her education, just the word, which was frightening in a lot of ways.

I think it's a bigger issue, taking the word diversity out of preschool. No, I know. I think they're going to do a lot of meddling in education. Well, let me finish. I think in terms of actual damage on the ground, not letting having information around vaccines for new mothers who may not have access to formal education, not having access

to information around STDs, not having access to information around HIV transmission, not having access to who you can contact if you think your landlord is unfairly abusing you and won't give you your deposit back. I generally believe America, even under Trump, that rich people continue to have more rights at the expense of poor people. And I think that's the basic fulcrum and the injustice in our society right now. I think the majority of the people

who are in special interest groups, as long as you have money, I think you're fine. I just, this to me is just a war on poor people. And they give up, I agree with you, it's ideologically driven, but what they've said is in order to execute it, we're gonna give rich people a pass on all these things. They will still have access to medical abortions.

They will still have access to lawyers to ensure they have civil rights. They will still have access to marriage if they want it. They're fine. It's poor people who are going to bear the brunt of all this ideological weirdness. I very much think they're going to go after marriage. This is the hallmarks of all of it. I think they're going to go after that. They're trying to get it to the Supreme Court,

just like they did with affirmative action. They're trying to get libel cases with the press. There's certain—this obsession about gender ideology has really twisted them in a way that's really, it's just twisted them in ways that I think is much more at the heart of ideology than just let's attack the poor people. I think they have a real, they want to push back so much of the stuff that has happened over the past couple years, probably including among their children and everything else. So we'll see where it goes, but taking down pages is really just about, it seems so needlessly cruel.

Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about winners and losers from the latest round of big tech earnings. We'll talk a little bit more about what Musk is doing by being the, not the second president, the president. Support for Pivot comes from Coda. We talk about startups a lot on the show, but turning your back of the napkin idea into a billion dollar business requires

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NASDAQ is down 2 percent, S&P down around 1.75 percent. Global stocks are also plunging. Scott, what do you think about this? Not a surprise. The market is a sober arbiter and has done the math really quickly. Everybody loses over the medium and long term with tariffs. Yes. Wall Street thinks you're an idiot, Donald Trump. It's been a few busy days for tech earnings also. Let's go through it to sort of line us up for that. Apple reported blockbuster earnings for its most recent quarter, but the numbers show a slight dip in

year-over-year iPhone revenue. Probably not a surprise. Showing Apple intelligence did not boost sales that they had hoped, although it introduced sort of at the end of the quarter. Microsoft reported a 12% year-over-year rise in revenue, although its cloud business is slowing, and Meta beat expectations with revenue rising 21% in the last quarter, really big performance from Meta.

Tesla mostly missed expectations on earnings and revenue, with $25 billion in quarterly revenue automotive revenue fell 8%. These earnings were announced during the initial DeepSeek friendly last week. There's questions about the AI spending plans. Microsoft has earmarked $80 billion for AI this year. Ometa has pledged as much as $65 billion. Let's talk about, obviously tariffs probably may or may not affect them. And at the same time, they've pledged fealty to Trump in one way or another. Another things to throw in is met

as repugnant talks to reincorporate in Texas or another state, according to the Wall Street Journal, out of Delaware. It has to do with certain lawsuits that Mark Zuckerberg is facing, I believe. It has to do with certain lawsuits that Mark Zuckerberg is facing, I believe. But Texas seems to be the place where they all have, is their safe space. Thoughts about the earnings? Yeah, like they continue to do, I mean, all of them, it just went from sort of better, you know, good, better, best. I don't think you've seen any chill around earnings. The thing I find most interesting is that

all of them have essentially said we're going big at AI except for Apple in terms of CapEx. And no one is thinking that Apple is the dumb one right now. Apple said we're gonna take sort of a wait and see approach and we're gonna leverage other people's technology and investments and Apple just continues, sort of overperform. And then the other one is, uh, Metta using their kind of AI ad technology. They continue to serve more ads, more targeted, more effective. It's almost like what Tim Cook did to Metta was similar to what we did to

China around AI. And that is we forced, or Tim Cook with their opt-in kind of trying to kneecap Metta, actually inspired them to figure out a workaround where now their ad stack is much more robust and much more AI driven. And just as we held kind of sophisticated chip technology from China, which forced them to come up with a workaround that might in fact disrupt American AI, Apple sorta is, no one is criticizing Apple now for not making these enormous announcements

about just these staggering investments. Do you see any effect of the deep seek that came at the end of the quarter, obviously, and it did shake up the, shake up the stock market and people worried about the spending. This is my, my thesis right now. And is that similar that AI may be like, I mean, there's three layers to AI. It's loosely speaking buckets. There's the infrastructure layer, the Nvidia guys, there's the LLMs, the

anthropics, the open AI's perplexity in there. And then there's the application layer, an Expedia or an Airbnb or whoever comes up with AI to do more sophisticated things or make their services better. They're the customer layer. I wonder if this is going to end up being like the airline industry and the PC industry where there's a massive increase in economic value and productivity, but no one company is able to capture the majority of revenues similar to the way people are banking that Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia are going to be able to capture it. Now, Intel captured a ton of revenue and shareholder value because they were the brains inside of PCs. I was on the board of

Gateway Computer. Do you remember them? Oh, of course, Ted. Wait. Yeah. We, okay, get this. PCs changed the world. You were on that board? What? I was on the board of Gateway Computer. I know. Talk about the weakest flex in the world. No wonder what happened to it. No, sorry.

Sorry, did I say that? Anyways, so we were the second largest manufacturer of computers. Think about it. If someone had said 100 years ago, PCs or 50 years, PCs, these supercomputers that cost the government billions of dollars,

we're going to be able to put one on every desk. What would the market cap of that company be? PC manufacturers, Dell for a little while, but not anyone else. Lenovo, Asus, Compaq, Packard Belt, remember all these companies? None of them got anywhere, maybe with the exception of Dell, in a product that revolutionized the world. That's true. That's a really good analogy. God, you come up with a good one. Everyone's known, right?

You really do. I hadn't thought about that. Well, I'm not done. I'm not done. So the airline industry, I'm about to get on a plane, and in eight and a half hours, I'm gonna be in fucking Disney World for like, now granted, I'm gonna spend a shit ton of money because I'm a narcissist, but I could do it for $400.

I could skirt along the surface of the atmosphere at eight tenths the speed of sound for almost no money, almost no money, as opposed to getting scurvy or having to eat my niece in, through the passage of the Andes or the Rockies, which they had to do 150 years ago. Commercial jet transportation. Not willingly, but go ahead. But you see what I'm saying? Yes.

Jet commercial jet transportation has been remarkable. And guess what? The airlines have lost more money than they've made because there's no barriers of entry. Everyone copied each other and all of the value was recognized by the general public. And I now believe after what I saw with DeepSeek, by the way, I just fucking loved that Sam Altman was copying everything and then someone copied him. Karma's a bitch, Sam.

Anyways, this might be a tectonic shift. And I'm drunk on this idea. I'm intoxicated by this idea shift, and I'm drunk on this idea, I'm intoxicated by this idea, that AI might be the airline or the PC industry where there's enormous value created and it's all captured by consumers and the public and the Commonwealth, but no one company is able to capture the trillions of dollars in value that we've become used to in big tech. So who's the Microsoft, who's the Google? Anyway, let me note you most noted OpenAI. They're in talks to raise $40 billion in a funding round, which would value the company as high as $300 billion.

SoftBank would lead the round investing between 15 and 25 billion. There was several good Masayoshi Son things. I'd forgotten how much success he's had too, even though he's had so many disasters. He's like one or the other. It's fascinating. I looked at Lyon LeBarbier's book called Gambling Man, which was really quite good. I recommend it. OpenAO was valued at $157 billion in October. Meanwhile, Sam is giving competition some credit on Reddit and AMA this weekend when asked if OpenAA would show users the thinking steps, Altman said

yes and give credit to R1, also known as DeepSeek, when after he would consider a more open source approach like Metis Llama, he said the company was discussing doing so and he feels we've been on the wrong side of history. What do you think of him admitting the company needs to make changes and of course this fundraising round? He certainly moves fast, I'll tell you that. What do you think of him admitting the company needs to make changes? And of course, this fundraising round, he certainly moves fast, I'll tell you that. I have never heard a bell signaling the top, like the fucking gong of

Massey or Shisan saying he's going to invest 50 billion in OpenAI. 15. I read there was going to be as much as 45. It's 15. No, 15 and 25 billion. There's a $40 billion fundraising and he's going to be 15 or 25 billion of it. So 15 of a $40 billion round at a valuation, I read that is greater than the valuation on bike dance right now, at somewhere between 300 and 350 billion.

Yes, that's correct. So when Masayoshi-san says, at somewhere between 300 and 350 billion. Yes, that's correct. So when Masayoshi-san says, we need to be crazy, he's living up to it. I think this will be, I think this will go down as arguably in terms of gross tonnage, gross capital lost. I think this is just so fucking ridiculous.

Not a fan. You're thinking Wheatwork here versus one of the others where he's made a ton of money. WeWork was renting death space. It wasn't a tech company. This is a tech company. There's a non-zero probability that given how smart Sam is, given this unbelievable technology, which

I'm using 50 times a day, they will figure out a way. I don't see how it right now, given the fact that the Chinese appear to have come up with something very robust for a fraction or less, the lack of barriers of entry, the regulatory issues, I don't see how this is today one of the 15 most valuable companies in the world. Now, what they're saying is for Masayoshi-san to get his limited partners the return they expect with the risk here, he's saying this will be one

of the five or seven most valuable companies within three years in the world. This to me is an asymmetrically incredibly bad bet. And he is known for, and to be fair, he did ARM. He had a big win there. He's had some wins, but his vision funds, his vision funds have underperformed the market. He himself is a great entrepreneur. SoftBank or his telco has done really well, but the funds themselves have underperformed the benchmarks. And to me, this is literally, I saw the valuation here.

And when I look at the risks facing OpenAI, the fact they have no vertical distribution, even if AI ends up being as big as it is, even if I'm wrong and there is private company capture along the lines of what cloud and smartphones were, there's so many competitors who have direct distribution or existing relationships, whether it's Microsoft that has a direct relationship with 97% of every corporation over a million dollars in the world, whether it's Apple with their iPhones, whether it's Anthropic, which

has a large investment from Amazon where 80% of households are in a monogamous relationship via Prime. And then there's OpenAI, which Masayoshi-san is telling his limited partners that this valuation is going to be one of the seven most valuable companies in the world in the next 36 months. I just think it's nuts. And gambling man. He's a gambling man. There you go.

Gambling man. Yeah, it's really interesting to look at his history because he really has gotten some huge wins and some enormous, and WeWork obviously was his most famous, but there's been others. What do you think of Sam shifting this? Like shifting, oh yes, Zeke to Zeke, hmm. And then also the open source thing. Like a lot of the Facebook people, Yann LeCun was like, huh, interesting.

Because they've been touting open source, of course, the whole time. I just think if you go to OpenAI right now and type in, what is karma, there's a picture of Sam Altman crawling everyone's information and stealing it. And then when he goes to sleep, someone crawls his information and steals from him. People have noted that.

I just, I think this is such come upance from OpenAI. So what happens to this company? I think it probably ends up being an amazing company, doing amazing things. And the limiteds at the Vision Fund go, what the fuck were we thinking investing at $350 billion valuation? This guy is so good.

The technology is so amazing. I'm not suggesting it's not going to be an incredible company. Not a WeWork is what you're saying. Not a WeWork here. WeWork was literally the definition of insanity. Let's create an app for scheduling a conference room and call ourselves a tech company.

Let's buy office space for a million dollars and lease it out at 200,000 a year just to show growth. That made no fucking sense. There is a non-zero probability here that they lead the revolution that's the most seminal change in technology in history. There is a non-zero probability here that they lead the revolution that's the most seminal change in technology in history. I am now betting that the majority of that capture

is gonna be by the larger economy. And based on the fact they have no vertical distribution, based on the fact that China has popped up and said, hey, we're here again. And guess what? We're making similar shit for cheaper as we've always done. Based on the fact their competitors have vertical distribution.

Stupid fucking idea. If he raises money, if they were raising money at 50 billion, I'd be calling Moss and say, I think you're amazing. I've been a Sprint customer back from the 90s. Can I get on this deal at 350 billion? Makes no sense. Yeah. It was 157 in October, so that is kind of a leap at this time. You know, I think they'll,

one thing that OpenAI and Sam Alton have is this ability to be flexible and say one thing on Tuesday and a very different thing on Thursday, you know, whatever it takes. The open source thing is sort of interesting as they move forward. Obviously, Microsoft won that open close thing

with Apple many years ago, although you would say you'd rather have been Apple in many ways. So it'll be interesting what will happen to this company. I sort of wonder. I've always thought, is it Netscape or is it Google? That's always been my question about them, and it'll be really interesting to see how he navigates himself. What do you think?

I have not done enough reporting to understand what's happening here. When you see him saying we've been on the wrong side of history, that's quite a statement, right? What does that mean, precisely? Consider a more open source approach, he better hurry. That's all I have to say, if he's gonna wanna dominate that.

And in that case, it's not quite the same company, but it is hard, as you said, vertical distribution is critical, I think, here. If you're gonna do anything, maybe a merger. I kept thinking a merger with someone, Microsoft, Apple, someone like that. Yeah, but no one's gonna pay 350 billion for it. Yeah, no one's gonna pay $300 billion.

I'm not gonna pay too much for this muffler. Yeah, it's a good muffler. And by the way, the people investing in that round, they're not looking for 350 billion, they're looking for a trillion back. And guess what? If I type into OpenAI or ChatGPT in the voice of Kara Swisher, specifically referencing chapter seven on, you know, whatever it is, Microsoft from her book, Burnbook, it's remarkably accurate in your voice, referencing that chapter. They have crawled your book. They are using your IP without paying you. So DeepSeek, bring it on.

Copy that bitchish. Due to him, what he's been doing to us. I am so here for DeepSeek. It is so weird to be rooting for a Chinese company, the Canadians and the Germans. You're rooting for the Chinese, the Canadians and the Germans. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back more on Elon's hostile takeover of the Germans. You're rooting for the Chinese, the Canadians, and the Germans. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back more on Elon's hostile takeover

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And this has been a tremendously busy couple weeks for the tech industry. There's Donald Trump and his embrace by the men running the world's most powerful companies. There's TikTok and its future of the US. And there's DeepSeek, the Chinese AI engine that just shook Silicon Valley and Wall Street. I wanted to get an insider's perspective on all of that

so this week I turned to Jessica Lessin, the veteran tech journalist who runs the information. Jessica'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that.

I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that.

I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got that. I'm not sure I'm the only one who's got Listen to Awesome Podcasts. Scott, we're back. Elon Musk's Doge now has access, as I said, to the federal payment system. Musk criticized the US Treasury Department.

Obviously they're trying to close down USAID. He said he's doing it on instructions from President Trump, and he's doing what he said. They're saying that there's stuff, obviously, the concern is privacy and sensitive and classified information, being accessed by a bunch of kids. That's a worry. That's been a narrative around over the weekend. Obviously, the way they did it was in the middle of the weekend. They crashed in, all kinds of people left and tried to stop them. It's quite a dramatic thing.

And then Congress has no ability to stop him in some way. It is concerning that the world's richest man and a private citizen that has contracts with massive contracts with the federal government has this much access. And now it seemingly has the power to close down entire departments. They think it's a, obviously I'm doing an on with some of the experts of what he did at Twitter and is doing here. But it is one way to take over a government is to be doing this. And of course, they're arguing that they're trying to save money and it's the only way

to do it, but they're flinging all kinds of unsupportable allegations about different things. But of course, that chaos is part of the plan here. Any thoughts on this? Well, when you have the world's richest man who can deny people, there's getting in the way of their Medicare, Social Security, veterans benefits unilaterally based on his crew that shows up. I mean, it's the ultimate. We complain about regulatory capture and private capture.

We richest man in the world is now have access to who gets money from the federal government without the approval or the oversight of our elected representatives. So again, there's just so much crazy shit going on that we never thought we would see that people don't seem to be, they're just, they're, you know, it's triage right now. There's so many incoming projectiles

at everybody that they don't know how to respond and absorb this. But he is now kind of the puppet master and the notion that he can go into a website and turn off payments for social services or government services or shut off foreign aid at his sole discretion. It's just- Well, he says he's doing it on the president's orders. Well, that's fair because he's appointed by the president and the president can remove him. But my impression is based on the tariffs, the markets reaction to taking a stock up,

that basically, okay, you have one guy who the president has entrusted to make these decisions real time. And it's, you know, we, the, the, one of the downsides or the upsides of a bureaucracy and then what people would argue correctly is sometimes an inefficient government is that we don't let any, you know, power corrupts an absolute power, absolutely corrupts. And what we have here is absolute power. And what do you know? It's the world's wealthiest man.

And it goes back to the same thing. There has to be a check on this American experience where we just have decided that money translates to not only power, but to rights. And we are transferring more and more wealth, which subsequently means more and more power, and probably most obsidely, more and more rights at the expense of poor people. And what's gonna happen to every company

that isn't owned by Musk. And I look at these tariffs and I'm like, this is brilliant. He's figured out a way to create a tariff that pretty much exempts Tesla. Everyone was like, well, Tesla sells a lot of cars into China. No, all the cars being sold in China are manufactured in China. They're not subject to tariffs. Anyways, I find it very distressing and very un-American.

There are very little. It's interesting to see whether you saw those protests in Germany or not seeing them in this country, but Musk's favorables are quite low, really quite low considering a lot of people look up to him, which is interesting because it does look, especially with this crew he's got around him. It feels like a movie someone made up, right? Some of this stuff. They're all kids. They're all kids of some sort that are around him or people that work for, they're all his

people that are coming in and demanding to see everything, demanding they're like the evil genius bar, essentially, that's going into all these places. And they did take over what was essentially the genius bar for the government, the US digital service, and they've renamed it the US Doge Service. And that gives them access. These were already set up, these offices, in every federal government facility, in every department. And, you know, some of them literally were just a camp counselor. And one kid did this astonishing computing around decoding these ancient scrolls, brilliant people who had brilliant coding skills and brilliant computer skills. But it's this team. One guy is called Big Balls,

that's his nickname, which I doubt he has them, I mean, that's what his nickname is, I bet they're small balls. It's just the whole thing feels so bizarre and people are freaking out, because I don't think many people can do anything. What do you do when he does this? It doesn't feel like Congress has a handle on it. The Democrats do not control Congress.

It feels like it's plain sight, just this is how they're going to go through every federal agency and do this unless they're stopped by courts, which is interesting. Now Ezra Klein was making a really interesting argument, which I like. I'm going to read from it. There's a reason Trump is doing all this through executive orders rather than submitting these directives as legislation.

To pass through Congress, a more powerful executive could persuade Congress to eliminate the spending he opposes or reform the civil service, to give himself powers of hiring and firing that he seeks to write those changes into legislation, make them more durable, and allow him to argue their merits in a more strategic way. Even if Trump's aim is to bring the civil service to heel, to rid it of his opponents and to turn it to his own ends, he would be better off arguing that he is simply trying to bring high-performance management culture of Silicon Valley to the federal government. You never want a power grab to look like a power grab.

I thought that was exactly on point. I don't know what you think. He's calling it weak. This is a weak flex. I think almost every life lesson can be extracted from one of the seasons of Game of Thrones. I feel like Elon Musk right now is the high sparrow. That's not good for him. And Toman is President Trump.

It feels to me like Trump is just kind of massaging and coordinating everything here and shows up with these really impressive, probably very hardworking, intensely smart group of people who show total failty to Musk like a god, and I bet Trump admires that and Trump says to him, show that same sort of loyalty to him. And Trump says, this guy's smart, he fired 80% of Twitter stuff,

this is exactly what we need in the government. And they just go at it. And I don't think, at this point, Trump has the regulatory checks to even slow him down, unless he were to decide to fire him. So I think he's just going after it so fast and so furious. He's his junkyard dog. That's what he is. He doesn't care what he does to get there. Yeah. It just, it feels, I mean, there's a component of it that I understand. There's a kernel of like value. You know, it's- Something's, you can see- Something has to shake it up.

Something has to shake it up. You can see the importance of shock value. And occasionally you do need to kind of go in with a hammer, not a scalpel. It strikes me that this is just so reckless that it's going to take, it's going to road decades. What do you think the morale is like? Yeah.

This is what he did at Twitter. This is the same tactics. You know, one of the things that, you know, when they were talking about, oh, look, What do you think the morale is like? Yeah. This is what he did at Twitter. This is the same tactics. One of the things that when they were talking about, oh, look, the word fork in the road is in the letter, Elon Musk wanted you to see that. He wanted you to know it was me. Tell them it was me.

You know what I mean? He wants people to have us and the journalists to write that he's trying to copy what he did at Twitter, right? Which a lot of these moves, remember he seized the systems, fired people, took over people's, there was worries about privacy. It's the same kind of playbook that he has. They're sleeping in the office,

that's his favorite thing to do. Apparently, they have beds at the Office of Personnel Management, bringing in his cronies. This is the same, it's like watching Fast and Furious over and over again, except they're a bunch of geeks, I guess. This is what he wants to do. But I agree with you. I do think it's the mark of a loser and he wants to be seen as a king,

and so he's sickening this guy on people and to scare them. And I'm not so sure they're so easily scared. I think this FBI agent that pushed back, a lot of these people at these agencies are pushing back. And we'll see if Congress has any kind of balls, which they don't in any way. They kind of like it in some weird way. The Republicans certainly do. And the concerns, of course, are privacy and the ability for these people to download all this information about people. We'll see why these, what explanations they have,

of course, but let's just say, Scott and I don't trust them on First Blush. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. We'll be back for wins and fails. Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert Floride Kennedy Jr. went before the Senate today in fiery confirmation hearings. Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bio weapon? I probably did say that.

Kennedy makes two big arguments about our health, and the first is deeply divisive. He is skeptical of vaccines. Science disagrees. The second argument is something that a lot of Americans, regardless of their politics, have concluded. He says our food system is serving us garbage and that garbage is making us sick. Coming up on Today Explained, a confidant of Kennedy's, in fact, the man who helped facilitate his introduction to Donald Trump

on what the Make America Healthy Again movement wants. Today Explained, weekdays wherever you get your podcasts. This week on ProfG Markets, we speak with Robert Armstrong, US financial commentator for the Financial Times. We discuss Trump's comments on interest rates and who might emerge as the biggest winners from the deep-seek trade. In the world we lived in last Friday, having a great AI model behind your applications, either involved building your own or going to ask OpenAI,

can I run my application on top of your brilliantly good AI model? Now maybe this is great for Google, maybe this is great for Microsoft who were shoveling money on the assumption that they had to build it themselves at great expense. You can find that conversation and many others exclusively on the ProfGMarkets podcast. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. It strikes me that you need a better strategy than showing up at churches and schools and workplaces for these immigration raids.

I don't, I just find it so ironic that the agencies charge with locating people. I, okay, starting with, starting with people who've been detained for a crime. I get it. But it just strikes me as so ironic that, that they have determined the place to find these undocumented workers is at work, church or school. Doesn't that make them the most American of us?

I mean, hard workers. It's so ironic. Largely hard workers. But it appears that we've decided that if we want to find undocumented workers, we should go to a workplace or they're sending their a workplace? Or they're sending their kids to school? Or they're going to worship? I find it so telling that maybe, maybe, I mean, I'm not against deporting people, but I find it illuminating that, okay,

we didn't wake up one day and just find out that 17% of people on construction work sites were undocumented workers. And what I don't think we've come to grips with in terms of an honest conversation around this is one, I do believe, I don't think you can have open borders, but two, the reason why we have let this go so far is that the most, if the secret sauce of America

is immigration, the most profitable part of that secret sauce has been illegal immigration. And we don't wanna have an honest conversation about it because they come in, they take care of grandma, they pick our crops, they build our houses, and then when the work dries up, they leave without taking social security. They pay social security taxes,

but they never stick around for social security. They actually don't lean on our social services because they're worried about being deported. And have you seen what's happened at construction sites across America? They're empty. People aren't showing up. So I wonder if this strategy is just of, of trying to shock and aw and intimidate is very short-sighted and not good for the economy and not

going to accomplish what we need to accomplish in terms of having a sane immigration strategy. That's my, you know, anyways, I, I doubt that call it two fails in a row here. The other real fail again, under the auspices of flooding the zone with mendacious shit, you know, a foreign aid freeze, I think we spent about $70 billion or about $200 per citizen. And this is some of the things we do. or about $200 per citizen. And this is some of the things we do.

You know, in Sudan, we support 634 soup kitchens that feed almost a million people. And Thailand and Myanmar, refugee hospitals funded by the US are closing their doors. Patients with tuberculosis and life-threatening conditions are being carried away on makeshift stretchers. And Africa, I mean, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where USAID supported 4.5 million displaced people,

we were on the verge of eradicating diseases like malaria malnutrition because of private and public coordination. In Cambodia, where the US was close to eliminating malaria, officials now fear the disease is making a comeback. Scott, it's not helping Americans. It's not helping Americans. That's the stupidest argument.

It does help Americans. I think the majority of Republicans, when if you sat them down and you said, for 200 bucks a year, this is the good we're going to do around the world, and this is the goodwill it's going to create, and these are the diseases we're going to eradicate, and this is how we're going to do around the world, and this is the goodwill it's going to create, and these are the diseases we're going to eradicate, and this is how we're going to find refugees who are displaced in wars,

a shot at surviving. I think the majority of people go, here's $200, right on. I can't even, it's the cruelest. It's the cruelest and most petty and small-minded of cuts. There's so many cruel and just like cutting, like we talked about last week, cutting the security details of people

who worked for this country. It's so petty, it's so small. It shows you this shiver little heart that we have at work here. But let's put the morality aside. So you decide, look, I want that $200 to go to American kids, full stop. Okay, I understand the argument.

I don't agree with it, but I understand it. That 200 bucks, that void we're leaving, Russia and China are going to step into that void. They're going to find people willing to be allies and who will fund groups. We have this sense of security, this cold comfort, that there are people out there who would come for us, kill us, and take our shit away. And one of the reasons they don't is because they can't, because generally speaking, the vast majority of nations and the vast majority of people around the world

might find us obnoxious, they might find us gluttonous, they might find us arrogant, but they think at the end of the day, we're trying to do the right thing. That we're the people who are funding that hospital, that when there's refugees, when there are homeless people and there are maternity wards being shelled in Ukraine, that American

charities show up, when, I mean, we're seen as the good guys. Yeah. And that pays enormous, that pays enormous dividends that we don't, we don't recognize because the homeland hasn't been attacked since September 11th. So even if you think, even if you don't make the moral argument or you don't accept the moral argument, just

from a security standpoint, from a political power standpoint, this is the best 200 bucks we can spend. Canadians are booing us people. Canadians don't boo anybody. Let's just say Canadians. They're booing us. Did you see the national anthem? They started booing. They're booing us. They're booing us people. Canadians don't boo anybody. Let's just say Canadians. They're booing, did you see the national anthem they started booing?

They're booing us. They're booing us. Anyway, all right, I'll start with mine. My win obviously has to go to Beyonce on her album of the year. Grammy wins. I'm glad you're lighting, lighting up. You know what?

Watching the Grammys was great. They weren't, the vibe they had was like, fuck you all of you. We're gonna be black, we're gonna be interesting, we're gonna be talented, we're gonna of you. We're going to be black, we're going to be interesting, we're going to be talented, we're going to be enjoyable. The vibe was so good at the Grammys. I'm sorry. I didn't even know it happened.

They weren't doing a lot of the virtue signaling at all. In fact, they were just like, we're fucking better, we're cooler, we're so cool, we are so creative. Anyway, Beyonce's at the top of that. I love Cowboy Carter, I love that album. There's a lot of albums I love this year. Kendrick Lamar's was, I liked a lot. But this one I really enjoyed and played it over and over again.

She's been nominated four times in this category. This was her first album to win it and deserve it. Go listen to it. It's really a wonderful album in lots of ways and really fun. Actually, super fun and really moving and everything else. So congratulations, Beyoncé. I know it's been hard for you to make it in this business. I also really enjoyed watching Taylor Swift dance her ass off throughout the night. I don't know why, she made kind of a little like an adorable spectacle of herself dancing with kids, dancing in coats. And also Janelle Monae did a Michael Jackson, it's everybody. Lady Gaga did an amazing duet of

California Dreaming with Bruno Mars. Really wonderful. The whole Grammys was wonderful. My fail, besides this ridiculous antics of Elon Musk, which continues into the fucking millennial, make Elon go away is a really good thing to happen. He should go to Mars again. I think he should realize his dream. We should spend all that foreign aid money we're not spending on sending

him to Mars immediately. But was an interview that Mitch McConnell did with Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, which is under attack because the owners are trying to pay off a Trump through settling a lawsuit, as we talked about last week. But this is a great interview with Mitch McConnell where he goes, you know, she's like, you wrote this and this and this about Trump being a terrible person. He goes, well, that was a conversation. And then she goes, well, it's in your book. And he's like, yes, it is. He's just, this guy had every opportunity to stop Trump in a very significant way and did not do so.

And it mystifies me that he could act like he doesn't like him. He doesn't get the right not to. He facilitated Trump. And to try to pretend he didn't is really, he's a lonesome toad. He really is of all the people. Because you can't hate someone and then be the reason they're still here and give them the lifeline that he richly did not deserve. So Mitch McConnell, you also should go away.

You really should. You've been a real- He did vote against Hegseth, which is kind of- He did, finally. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I feel like that's Hannibal Lecter deciding he's a vegan on his deathbed. I know. It doesn't do us a feel so good now, right?

Exactly. You're no John McCain, my friend. You're just no John McCain. And I just act, trying to be like that right now. I don't know what he's going for, but I would like his tour to be over and I'd like him to go back to Kentucky and just get the fuck out of here. Just leave. It's all your fault, Mr. McConnell.

Anyway, that is my fail. I have a quick question for you. Sure. Is Edward Snowden a traitor? Complex topic. I did an interview with him many years ago, and I think what he uncovered was astonishingly disturbing about the government spying on citizens.

So in that way, a good thing. In a bad thing, the way he did it, I think there's all kinds of hair all over him in ways that are disturbing. I have talked to many national security people who find him to be a traitor and they have very persuasive arguments. I have a hard time deciding about that.

I do, even after doing the interview. And I hate to say that because I think that in many ways he is and in many ways he isn't. I don't know what to say. That's where I am. I don't know what else to say. I think it's a complex topic, let's just say. And they did make reforms after he did it. But at the same time, the way he did it was traitorous too. Why did you ask that? Because, well, I thought that was the most interesting moment of it, but you now as well, no longer in my opinion are qualified to run a national intelligence service.

I think that's a layup of a question. All right, okay. I'm not suggesting what was found out might not ultimately be good for America, but he's full stop, 100% a traitor. All right. I've heard, I'm usually with the national security people be good for America, but he's full stop, 100% a traitor. Am I? I've heard, I'm usually with the national security people on this thing, and I think he did hurt

our national security apparatus. You lost my vote. I'll vote for you. Secretary of Defense, I'm in for you. I just have a smidge of, I don't love the government what they did. So 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 we'll call 855-51-Pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, I talked to Ben Stiller about Severance on On. Let's listen to a clip. There's so many different ideas of what, you know, Severance could be a metaphor for.

And I think we all do sever to a certain extent when we, you know, severance could be a metaphor for. And I think we all do sever to a certain extent when we, you know, check out if you have a drink or, you know, you take a gummy or you, you know, watch a TV show or if you go on your phone. I mean, we all find ways to cope with the everyday sort of, you know, torrent of stuff that's coming at us in life. Right. It's also, I go to hardware stores and browse. What do you do to sever, Scott? We already know gummies, breath work, what?

I hang out with my dogs. Sometimes I take a gummy. I like to write. The evening is my alone kind of peace time. And I also occasionally, if I have both a gummy and a couple of makers and ginger, I put in my AirPods and I danced 80s music without my shirt on. I danced in the mirror like a 15,

what I imagine like a gay 15 year old teenager would do. Is that wrong? I so want to see that. I so want to see that. Can you put a camera in your house so I can watch that and then I will sever watching that? That would make me happy. It would literally, it would probably,

it would probably decrease the amount of sex people that people have that night by like, everyone would just be so freaked out and so unattracted to everybody. I would like to sever doing that. I would like you to do that for me. I want that as a gift. I want a video where I can watch it over.

DJs and Tom Petty. Little bit of edible CBD and sativa with the makers and ginger. Daddy's got the moves. Hello, ladies. All right. Do you believe in love at first sight or should I walk by again?

I don't know what else to say. Anyway, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Scott, read us out. Dance us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Anderson, our engineer this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Severio, and Dan Chalon. Nishat Kherwa, is 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. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of the week.