Pivot - Twitter! CNN+! Unions!

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

In the most Elon Musk move ever, the billionaire bought Twitter just 2 hours after we finished taping. But don’t worry, we did an emergency re-tape so you’d have our latest thoughts. Scott & Kara discuss the unprecedented buyout, as well as Scott's front row seat to the demise of CNN+. And as Amazon labor organizers make inroads in New York, Kim Kelly, author of Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor, joins us to talk about the past, present, and future of unions. Follow Kim Kelly at @GrimKim and find her book here. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast.

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

And I'm Quibi. Quibi. You are Quibi. Yes, we will talk to you about that. My condolences on CNN Plu and its untimely death, although not really untimely. Give us the rundown here. We got to get to Twitter because obviously Elon's about to take it over. But tell us what's going to happen from the inside, what occurs? Give us the lowdown. Well, I'll try and give you the cliff notes. Big picture, the thing, the tail wagging the entire dog of streaming right now is since I signed my deal in August, Netflix has gone from being worth $300 billion to $100 billion. billion. So when Netflix goes down 70%, when Netflix sneezes, the entire streaming market catches pneumonia. And if you look at it this way, Netflix gives you $2 billion of content

for every dollar a month, which means that even at three bucks a month, CNN Plus was supposed to show up with $6 billion in content. They spent $300 million. So they literally showed up with a square gun to a Howitzer fight. It was kind of over before it began. And we even alluded to that. The thing that was shocking is, as Dove Seidman says, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. There's some real, like what I'd call fairly serious little dick energy here. And that is Discovery or CNN waved the middle finger, as far as I can tell, at Discovery and said, we're launching this with or without your permission two weeks before you take us over. And then two weeks after Discovery showed up, they basically

said, bitch, I'm on top. And they not only unplugged the thing, they smothered it with a pillow. I mean, you know how I found out about this? What? How? As I find out about everything from you. You texted me and said, are you all right? And of course, I got panicked because I thought something really bad had happened. Oh, sorry. And then I got forwarded the article. And I think everyone at CNN Plus, I think nobody at Hudson Square has found out about this until it was in the media. So, I don't understand. There's some anger and ego here because this is not, from a shareholder standpoint, how you treat people. The executives, Discovery, CNN, and the talent, quite frankly, Carol, we all look really fucking stupid. Yeah, you do. Yeah. Well, he had

to cut prices. Let's get to the actual thing is he has this enormous, like the stock is languishing and doing badly since the acquisition, right? Since April 8th or something like that. One, he promised $55 billion in cuts. So had to start or whatever, how much? $3 billion in cuts. Excuse me. He's got $55 billion in loans and different debt and stuff like that.

So he's got to cut and he's got to look like he's strong. And he's a cutter, by the way. He's someone who does that over at discovery and so he had to show that he could do it by do something by sacrificing something significant also jason kylar did this even though it was signaled to him not to although they make the argument on that side that they did not do that that they didn't signal to him that heavily in that regard there's a big argument over how well it was doing initially and whether it should have been cut this quickly. But I think he just needed to do a flex for Wall Street.

Like, I'm in charge. I can cut things, look at what I just did, and give him to buy him some breathing space. And the way he did it, I agree, was kind of, you know, to me, you're in the media, oh, well, that's the way it goes kind of thing. You better suck it up, you know, sister me, you're in the media, oh, well, that's the way it goes kind of thing. You better suck it up, you know, sister. But it certainly was pretty abrupt. It was pretty fascinating how abrupt it was.

But the thing is, a little bit of pushback there. Most of the money had already been spent. Yeah, yeah. These anchors aren't Uber drivers. They're going to get their money. Yeah, it was part of the deal. That's what I understand. The first signal I got was, this is clearly ending soon, was all this negative press was coming out, especially from, quote-unquote, conservative media, and Discovery wasn't

hitting back. Because they could have said, well, Chris Wallace's interview with Jen Psaki today was the number one story in the media. They could have said, I was getting hundreds of emails saying, why isn't it available in this country? We had just gone on Roku. They could have easily started pinging out good news, and they didn't. It's like, oh, my gosh, our parents are not our allies. They're the enemy. There was even rumors that Discovery was leaking negative numbers about CNN Plus to create cloud cover to close it down. And this business is about talent. If you're Chris Wallace, do you do a deal with Discovery ever again?

Yeah, well, he has to stay there, right? He's going to move. A lot of these people had contracts. Just so you know, there are people who are hired and are losing their jobs and have to reapply at CNN if they're available. And then there are people with contracts that presumably, like Audie Cornish, yourself, and others, I assume she has a contract, that have to be either paid out or somehow prorated. I don't really know. No, they're all going to get paid out, Cara. That's the thing.

This did not make any – whenever you see something that doesn't make sense, there's anger and ego involved. And there is anger and ego involved here because you know what they could have done very easily? Oh, we're going to take Chris Wallace's HIT program over to the CNN core program. We're going to take Carrie Champion's program over to Turner for Final Four. They could have figured out a million ways to have peace with honor here. Instead, this was like Discovery saying,

oh, wait, fuck me, no, fuck you. No, I'm not so sure. I think they had to show Wall Street that it could do something like this. I don't know. I feel like it was, I agree. To put it onto the Jason Kylar versus David Zaslav thing is a little bit, but it certainly is we're in charge here and our stock is languishing. And so we need to do something significant. That to me is what it looked like. But go ahead. You have your sign. As someone who's been on the board of big public companies, this isn't how you roll. This isn't how you treat people.

And I'm not talking about the anchors cashing seven-figure checks. I'm talking about the gaffer and the sound guy and the editor who read they may not have health insurance. And also, I do want to be clear, Discovery is being generous with severance. But you call people like five minutes before they read about it in the New York Times. Well, this is media. This happens a lot. This is not a freshman. Anything I've been involved with, this has happened like a zillion times.

This is media. I think the league got out ahead of them. I can't believe people would actually behave or treat other people this way. I don't. How does Discovery do deals with these people? You haven't worked for News Corp, have you? But go ahead. I guess not.

Yeah, maybe I'm naive to the media world. Oh, trust me. We had such a back and forth with the News Corp people who were leaving and such astonishing liars and totally tried to kneecap us. And it wasn't helpful at all. We were going to go quietly because we wanted to leave. But I had emails, luckily, that I threatened to leak. But did you see the article in BuzzFeed yesterday? No.

What did I do? BuzzFeed put out this really well-researched article saying, with a big CNN logo and a big Apple TV Plus logo, that said CNN Plus and Apple TV Plus had just come to an agreement. Their Apple TV was going to begin distributing a lot of the CNN Plus content. And it went through every program they were taking. And it made a lot of sense, the RBG stuff, the Murdoch stuff. And then it listed three programs of the weeklies, Tapper's, Anderson's, and mine. And all of a sudden, I'm getting emails from my team saying, wait, we're back in business with Apple TV Plus? Fortunately, I know someone very senior at Apple TV+,

who confirmed that there was absolutely no talks of any kind. So we have a hoax published on BuzzFeed. Nobody at Warner knew anything about it. And meanwhile, everyone's saying we need less moderation in media. So there was what looked like a very credible article yesterday saying CNN+, and Apple TV Plus had come to an agreement. So the honest answer, you asked me what happens to the content, where does it go? I have no idea, Cara, and nor does anyone else at Hudson Yards.

You might as well tell me. Have they said anything? Or what's the communication to you? The communication— Toss them under the bus, Scott. Go ahead. No, the communication from all the people at Warner has been nothing but gracious, a little bit embarrassed. And how can we be helpful?

They couldn't have been nicer. The only communication I've got is I've heard from three other media companies saying, hey, do you want to talk? But I have yet to speak to a person at Discovery. And everyone else I speak at Warner is sort of like chagrined. How can we be helpful? What have you heard? I don't think anyone at Hudson Yards has been told anything as far as I know. And what happened to your team specifically, since we're not getting this out of Anderson Cooper, but go ahead. My team at Prop G Media is fine because we make the majority of our revenue with books, speaking, podcasts, and the

other stuff. So everyone here is just kind of relieved because this was more work than any of us had anticipated. I think my team, our team at Warner, is very nervous, as they should be, because what you're about to see in streaming media is going to be a bloodbath over the next 18 months. The general cadence of the market or complexion of the market around streaming was as long as you kept growing subscriber base, even if you can ignore the economics, we'll keep taking the value of your firm up. And then when the lead dog loses 70% of their value, like, I mean, think of this math, and we'll close on this point because I know we got to move on. There's supposedly going to be somewhere between $220 and $240 billion in investment in original content spent in America or spent across these companies.

Maybe that's a global number. But let's just use American numbers as the denominator, American households. There's 115 million U.S. households. 25 or 35 million are either so far right they don't want that profane streaming in their house or they're so far left they tell everyone, oh, we only read The Atlantic, we don't watch TV. So call it 80 million households are streamable. That means that these companies are spending $3,000 per household to send you Euphoria and Bridgerton and Better Call Saul.

That is just not sustainable. I'm not talking about your cable bill. I'm not talking about your cable bill. I'm not talking about your phone bill. I'm talking about how much Hulu and Netflix and Amazon Prime are spending just on content to send you the marvelous Mrs. Mizell. Yeah. It was fine when Netscape was alone. Excuse me, Netscape. Netflix. Netflix was alone. That said, I think Bill Cohen, who we both agree is really smart um he said that they he thinks the run on netflix is ridiculous given the finances of it and how well how big it is and how far ahead it is and stuff so it's it's it's drawdown that it's oversold he's like this is ridiculous this

the amount no no the amount of how the stock's gone down he was arguing this is stupid this the the attack the the attack on their stock is, and it is worth a lot more. He just did a really interesting— Well, you could say that. You could say that about everyone from Moderna to PayPal. I mean, there is literally no shortage of companies down 70% in the last six months. But this is—Netflix is the tail wagging the entire media dog right now. Specifically, it's shedding 70% of its value.

It's the reality. It just, it's a basic lesson in economics. It got overspent. And what I'm learning and everyone learned is that when certain decisions kind of don't make sense, I don't give them the credit you're giving them in terms of trying to send a signal about how decisive they are.

This was anger and ego. Oh, I don't think it was a good signal. I just think I can see them saying it. They're like this. Besides the we're in charge here vibe, which I think was interesting, and the sort of underhanded stuff. I think, you know, after the Zucker thing. Now, remember, Zaslav was very close to Zucker. And the anger at Jason Kylar is very real.

There's no question about that. But I think they had to say something to Wall Street, and this was dramatic. They look stupid doing it. And I wouldn't mind saying that to David Zaslow to his face. It's just the way it was done, it seems talent negative. It makes everybody feel nervous. I know that these deals for the big talent, like Anderson Cooper's, were part of their deal. They got paid whether they did it or not, right? It didn't matter. Again, it was already paid up front. Right. And that was not just because they were angry. It was because of its virtue signaling to Wall Street.

And I still don't think it matters because they are in for a world of trouble because they're not big enough. Well, they got $55 billion in debt. That is correct. And they have a shareholder base that's used to a dividend and slow growth. They got to shift that shareholder base very quickly. Yeah, it's got to sell out of AT&T. So they've got to transition to shareholder base. And you've got David Zasloff. And just so I can cement the fact that I will not be on HBO Max,

David Zasloff has moved, he's gone Hollywood. He's moved to LA and he's going on Oprah. You know when you know an executive is no longer about their company, they're about themselves? When they go on to do an interview on a network that's not theirs. No, no, it wasn't a network.

It was for a... With Oprah? All Hands. It was an All Hands. Yes. She's a friend of his. But wasn't it broadcast? I don't know, but it was an All Hands for the company. Because someone who watched it said it was the weirdest thing they ever saw. So it was an All Hands. So that was... I'm sorry you weren't invited. Okay. But if you're... Granted, we all got to eat. But if you're an anchor, a talent at CNN+, do you do a deal with Discover? Yeah, yeah, this is interesting. And he's bought a big estate, and he's definitely doing that. I just think, we'll see. You know, he's a very good operator. He cuts costs and everything else. Well, clearly. You know, but that's what he's known for. The bottom line is, this was the right decision. It's just, again, how it was done, I mean, wow.

So your stuff, you don't know what's going to happen to your stuff. So I was literally at university high school doing something on high schools and education on Wednesday, and this happened Thursday morning. And last week, they put two new producers on my show because of the success and the numbers it was showing. Yeah, you were doing pretty well, that's what I'm saying. And then Thursday, on Wednesday, I found out that we were the most successful to say. And then Thursday, on Wednesday, I found out that we were the most successful weekly program.

And on Thursday, I read the whole network had been on plot. Yeah, I know. I felt bad. Everyone's like, is Scott okay? I'm like, I'm sure he's fine.

I'm fine. You did a nice thing. The sex tweet was good. Shorts. Loved every minute over too fast. And what if I told you, where have you come back to? Kara Swisher.

The only way you can be ahead is in a show with Kara Swisher. Mom, I'm back home. Can I just tell you? Let me just say, Scott has been a little bit distracted. You didn't turn my room into an office, did you? I'm going to. You didn't turn my room into an office. You know who I was hanging out with last night who loves me?

Ask Amanda Katz. Jon Stewart, my new best friend. And I'm just telling you. Jon does love you. In a parking lot the night he was being feted, he was intensely talking to me. I was like, you need to go into your party. Let me just say, you better come home or else I'm going to find a nicer. So Jon Stewart, have you been watching his program?

I really like it. I don't like his program. I don't like it. Oh, no, it's gotten better. Trust me, it's gotten better. He and I have talked about it a lot. We're going to have lunch to discuss it more. It's very educational. He's wonderful. This about it a lot. We're going to have lunch to discuss it more. It's very educational.

He's wonderful. This event last night for him, Mark Twain, it was literally, it was Jimmy Kimmel, who I just had on to get to me, Olivia Munn, Bruce Springsteen sang. I was seven feet away from him singing Born to Run, an acoustic version. Dave Chappelle was there, Pete Davidson, Kim Carter.

It was so much fun. And I got to say, Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert had to call in because he had COVID. Let me just say, Jon Stewart gave one of the best speeches I've seen and so funny and so trenchant, is that the word? Really amazing. I have to say, even though he's sort of tried to retire and wonderful family, the whole thing was amazing. But let me just say, he has a lot to say still. And I'm trying to get

him to realize how, you know, there's a lot of stories recently that have been using an interview I did with him to say, they called me casually insulting. I was not being insulting in that piece. I was asking him what he's doing. And I was wanting to have a good debate with him about it. And it was turned into an Atlantic story, which was about whether he was relevant or not, because I asked him directly if he thought he was and what he was doing, and my criticism of the show. I was meaning to say, this guy still has it, and I want to know what he's doing. And instead, it was like, is he washed up? Which I think is bullshit. He's not. Let me tell you, he's not. He's not. The amount of people he created and created a genre.

Let me just say, as someone who's mentored a lot of people, this guy still has it. And he's going to be great. But I'm sorry. Are you okay? Do you need anything? Do you need any crackers, saltines? What I found, so I mean this sincerely. I was at my high school on Wednesday, and I spoke to the leadership class there.

I was in leadership. And I said, someone asked me, what is, quote, unquote, the secret to your success? And this is true. It's rejection. When I was in high school, I ran for sophomore, junior, and senior class president. I lost all three times, and based on my track record, I decided to run for student body president, where I, wait for it, lost. The key to success is your willingness to endure failure and rejection. And you never know what's going to happen. And you never know what's going to happen. You just never know what's going to happen. So nothing's ever as good or as bad as it seems.

So on Wednesday when they told me my show was the best weekly, it wasn't as good as it seemed. And on Thursday when the thing got unplugged, guess what? It's not as bad as it seems. And I'm blessed because TV was something I did, but it wasn't what I do. You know, it's just like it was 5 like 5%, it was 5% of my income. Now it's 0% and it was 20% of my time. Yeah. Well, now you're back and you understand where you're going to have a big deal of these shows with me.

I'm sorry to tell you. There you go. I hate to tell you, but you're stuck with me. And you're stuck with our lovely pivot team. If this is wrong, I don't want to be right, Kara. If this is wrong, I don't want to be right, Kara. If this is wrong, I don't want to be right. You went off with your date, your Anderson Cooper date. I tried to get.

That's not fair. You can't. You can't. This is the third time. That's not fair. Now you know. Come on. Come on.

You're going to have to come home. And you're going to see what's going to happen. You need to trust me on this. You need to trust me. By the way, people were also worried if you were upset about Elon, which we're going to talk about today. Looks like he's getting Twitter. like I said, like I said. You said you didn't know. I didn't know, but I thought he was.

Bill Cohen was right. Yes, I was also tending towards Bill Cohen's argument. You said, no way. And I said, way. You were tending. You're a tender. I've written, I'm a tender offer. I said, I don't know how he couldn't win.

That's what I said. All right, Scott, you know, you're gonna have to dry your CNN Plus tears now. Are you done? Are we done? Hold me. Hold me. No, we're gonna move on to Elon. Although, you know what?

You are. It's so funny. The first message I get, and I always get my bad news from you. You're like, are you okay? Well, I want to be sure. I am such the needy little sister in this relationship. I'm literally. I felt like, oh, no, he really liked doing this.

I'm like, uh-oh, my big brother knows something bad happened. I'm like, is dad dead? You know what? You had done some very nice work. I thought it was ridiculous that they didn't have a plan with all the good stuff, cutting some of the stuff. I'm not sure Jake Tapper's book thing should continue. That's my feeling on that one. Well, there's always public access television in Wokastown, Jake.

Right, exactly. But I thought your show was quite good. And I thought, why didn't they do something about it? In any case, you're back home. It's an office. You've turned it into a gym. Dad, where's my Snoopy bedspread? It's gone, gone. No, we're staying here. We're waiting for you to come back. We knew you were going to, in any case. Okay, Scott, let's get to our first big story. All right, Scott, if we sound a little different, it's because we're re-recording this later in the day because things happened and we had a whole taping. And then our fans were clamoring for our thoughts right now because Elon actually did get a hold of Twitter. Scott, where are you right now?

for our thoughts right now because Elon actually did get a hold of Twitter. Scott, where are you right now? You know, I'm in a car from the airport and I'm basking in the wonderful notion of Tara that finally I get to express myself. Finally, Tara. Finally, I get to be the real me on the less moderated Twitter. Thank God. You're welcome, Carol. Here it comes. All right. So let me start. We're updating this segment because just a few hours after we wrapped today, and by the way, it was a very entertaining back and forth, Twitter agreed to sell itself to Elon for $54.20 a share. Weed o'clock. In a deal worth about $44 billion, it's actually happening. The deal was unanimously approved by Twitter's board. It's expected to close this year, pending a vote of Twitter shareholders and some regulatory approvals.

It doesn't look like he'll face any challenge from the Justice Department or the FTC. But we'll see what happens. Now, Scott, you did not think this would happen. I did. And Bill Cohen definitely did. So you had talked a while ago. I'm going to give you credit that Twitter was going to be in play. You just didn't think this was the one that would land.

So explain what you think now. Well, in a word, Cara, this is stunning. This is, just to give you a sense of the scale here. I mean, first I want to acknowledge me and other naysayers said there was no way he'd raise the money. He did. That there would be another suitor that would give the board cloud cover to reject the offer. There wasn't. I mean, Bill Cohen and you called this perfectly. And every time I mentioned the words Elon and Musk, I've gotten it wrong here. But just a sense of the scale here. Everybody, I think, rightfully was concerned about Bezos buying an influential media property, The Washington Post. He purchased that for $250 billion. Elon Musk is spending 180 times more money to buy Twitter. This is his, effectively,

he is financing the deal. There's 13 billion of debt. 33 billion is really his. Some of it is margin loans against stocks. Some of it's just cash he's putting in. But effectively, this is the largest individual contribution to a leveraged buyout in history. There's just no getting around it. This is stunning. This is a big deal. It is. And it's also a big deal in terms of taking Twitter private, which is something you've talked about. Many people have talked about that it can only operate in private. What were the other players you thought were going to buy it? I thought Salesforce would use it as a CRM platform and that Mark Benioff's reputation for being a solid citizen, would he be able to thread the needle around moderation? They'd

already expressed an interest in it. I didn't think it would be bought, though. I thought that somebody would show up with enough shares to force change at what appeared to be a fairly encephaletic board. I would agree with Elon there and implement greater moderation, go 180 from what he suggested, much greater moderation, much more curated, much more edited, and also most importantly, move the business model away from advertising to subscription. That's what I thought was going to happen. But in terms of the bite size now is so big that there's really only a handful of companies that can't take a private and LBO firms can't care because the company is not really LBO-able in the traditional sense because it doesn't have enough EBITDA to support a lot of

debt, as is C-Above. Elon's really coming in with $33 billion of his own money. A loan, a loan. A lot of it's a loan from banks. So we'll get to that in a minute. We'll also get to Jeff Bezos in a minute because he had something to say. But first, former President Donald Trump says he won't go back on Twitter and told Fox News that he instead joined True Social over the next seven days. I don't believe him. And I wrote a column saying Elon will let him back on. Elon protested when Twitter threw him off. So he will certainly let him back on if he wants to be. And I wrote a column saying Elon will let him back on. Elon protested when Twitter threw him off. So he will certainly let him back on if he wants to be. And I don't think Trump can resist. But what do you think it means for all the other banned accounts, like,

what is it, Babylon Bee, a whole bunch of them that irked Elon for a little? Well, as it relates to Donald Trump, I think Kai Ristal summarized it perfectly. And that is, regarding his comments, he's not going back on. Take the under on that one. Yeah, under. I do too. I think it's a neck and neck horse race between who is more desperate to be in the news. And I think Trump will absolutely go back on the platform. And you've predicted that. The question I think—

Yeah, anyway. Anyway, without Elon, without Elon. Regardless, right. The issue that Elon is going to face, every person from the CEO of Reddit to Dick Costolo at Twitter to Alex, I mean, everyone who has dealt with this has the same thing. These are really difficult problems to deal with. And Twitter has spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. I don't think they've gotten it right, but their employees believe they have figured out a way to thread the needle around very, very difficult problems. And I would speculate that sooner rather than later, he's going to find out what all of us

have encountered or what I've encountered when I go on boards of companies. And that is, I am not as smart as I thought, and they're not as dumb as I'd hoped. I think he's going to run up against the same shit they've run up against. And I don't know. Yeah, it is. I don't know what he wants to say on Twitter that he hasn't been able to say already. I don't, I just don't get it. Yeah, well, here's the thing.

So he did make a speech, a little bit of a statement about free speech, of course, when he bought it. He wants to make sure, he calls it a, you know, a public square, which I don't think it is, but go ahead. You can make that argument. It's a reasonable argument. Elon wants to make sure you. It's a reasonable argument. Elon wants to make sure you stay on the platform, Scott. He tweeted, I hope that even my worst critics

remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means. You might want to delete some of your DMs unless you want Elon reading them. I'm teasing. Maybe, I don't know. Twitter DMs are not encrypted, which means future Elon employee can have access to them. And I'm a little worried about the security, honestly. I don't know why I didn't worry with the previous administration, but I definitely would think about it. Well, let's see the bull case here, because these are big boys and girls. The shareholders are getting a decent premium to where it was trading just a short while ago. And the investors are grownups. So I think that at least for the first six months,

I think users, people in the media, investors owe him the benefit of the doubt. And here's the bull case. And the bull case is that a fraction of that brain around product innovation and focus tier could unlock tremendous value. I think it's just naive not to think that that's not a possibility.

The bear case is that you have media, which is becoming increasingly instrumental in a time when we're becoming more polarized, and there just don't appear to be any guardrails. The Washington Post, which everyone is saying, well, what about the Washington Post? They have an editorial board. They have 700 journalists who have their own free will and can say no to stuff. And Twitter has algorithms and likely not a CEO pretty soon, and an individual who has vague ideas about free speech and quite frankly, has a reputation for punching down. So you can make a bull or a bear case here. Now the board didn't get to make the bear case because it's not really up to them to make societal calls.

It's them to say, was this the best price for shareholders? And I actually think the board did its job. They didn't play games. They said, look, the majority of the shareholders want to do this. It's up to the new owners what they do at the company after they own it. Okay. So here's the next thing is employees. You're talking about this.

At most companies, Elon, you join people knowing they're working for Elon Musk. He's obviously hired some very good CEOs at his other companies. He's not the CEO of, well, he's the CEO of those companies, but he has very strong number twos in various places. A lot of people might join because it's Elon. Existing Twitter employees probably didn't like getting bashed by him. They don't know what's going to happen to their stock. There's a lot of issues in a private company where you don't get compensated the same way.

So what about that? Well, first thing is, you know, if I were advising them, which I'm not, I would say you need to do a charm tour and you need to go, go elevate and publicly praise many of the senior leaders there and junior leaders and acknowledge that I'm here to learn. I'm going to try, you know, I want to make this better. I want to unlock the potential that we all agree is here. I think it becomes in guns blazing. I think a lot of people are going to say, you know,

maybe I'll give it 90 days to see if there's some there there. But I think he has to really err on the side. And he's got to think that a certain level, he's an outstanding manager. You can't, greatness is in the agency of others. And he's achieved so much greatness at his other firms. You got to think he has at least some instinctive, instinctual ability to really draw people around. There's a lot of people who've left.

There's a lot of people who've left there. He obviously has those issues in some of the plants, not his direct fault, but certainly he's the CEO around racial issues. But I think there's been a lot of churn at some of his companies. At the same time, some people love working for him. So it's an interesting question. He's certainly doing well and producing beautiful products. That is one thing. I think he'll be very innovative on the products. He's a user of the products. He owns it now. So he's in a different way than the board that exists. He's a fan of it. And so he will have a lot of interest in that. And so that I think is a good thing. Now, one thing, New York Times' Emily

Flitter pointed out that if Musk failed to repay the loan to Morgan Stanley, the bank could seize and sell Tesla stock as collateral destabilizing a portion of the stock market and the public may have little to no advance warning. This is a big swing by this guy. He saw an opportunity, he took it, but boy, is he putting a lot on the line here. Well, here's the thing, and just so I can get attacked even more on Twitter right now. Please, I would like that. There's still a non-zero probability this thing doesn't close. One, the SEC, and I'm still holding hope that at some point they decide, well, we can't send a signal that all guidelines are no longer in effect.

They could pop up here. He has pissed off so many powerful people, Cara. He's pissed off senators who meet on a regular basis with the SEC. But the most likely thing that contaminates or stops the plane from landing here is imagine if Tesla in the next 60 or 90 days or before the close, the stock gets cut in half. And everyone says, well, that won't happen. Well, guess what? It's happened to Netflix in the last 60 days. If that happens, he's probably not going to want to show up with this much money leveraged against stock that's worth half as much. So this is what they're probably negotiating right now, or they've negotiated as a fairly large breakup fee, because for Tesla to go down 50% is not a lot in the eyes of the market, but it will be increasingly large in the eyes of Elon Musk, who has just borrowed $33 billion or has, I mean, he is levering up here. This is a bold move.

levering up here. This is a bold move. It is. He did see an opportunity. This was an opportunity, whether you... It's an expensive opportunity for him, but it certainly is a company that most people think should be better than it is as a business. He has talked about subscriptions. He has talked about all other ways of making money. I'm sure advertisers are not going to like a cesspool. And he's talked about not relying on advertisers because then you get to be pushed around by them, whatever they happen to be angry about at any one time. So I think it'll be interesting to see how he behaves with the employees and how he – parts of me thinks he can't help but gloat, but he's been rather controlled, sort of, except for the Bill Gates thing he did yesterday, which was to publish this picture of Bill Gates and a pregnant emoji guy and make fun of his gut and use the word boner and et cetera. That was just ridiculous. He said he was mad because Bill Gates allegedly shorted Tesla.

And if he was for climate thing, he wouldn't have done that. You know, honestly, these people are so rich, they probably even know what you just said. And then in the next sentence, an individual now controls solely with really no guardrails whatsoever, one of the most influential media companies in the world. It's uncomfortable to think about these two people being the same person as much as the Beavis and Butt-Head Animal House cohort thinks this is funny. butthead animal house, you know, cohort thinks this is funny. This company has a lot of influence. And when you're mocking people's physical appearance, when you're calling, I just, this is not, are these the values you want to bring to Twitter right now? So we'll see. Or does it have influence, Scott?

I don't know. Look at TikTok is running the laps around this company. So is Facebook and Instagram. This company has not been innovative. So I don't quite, I think it's important to us. It's important to us, people like us. Yeah. Punching down is not innovation. That doesn't reflect anything innovative. I agree. But I think, look, people's behavior, I think you're going to see more and more, you know, these very wealthy people like Peter Thiel, like Elon Musk, stepping out and being the men they are, whatever they happen to be,

and they want to be the center of attention. And in Elon's case, he doesn't care if he's the Tony Stark villain hero or he doesn't care that he brings a lot of attention on himself. He loves it. You're going to see this more and more with CEOs. I don't think it's going to be less and less. But again, Kara, that's the uncomfortable thing about what is going on here. And that is we have two billionaires that started an incredible company, PayPal. We have two billionaires that

are remarkably innovative and just impossible not to admire. We have two innovators, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who have huge fanboy followings and serve as role models, whether they want to or not, for tens of millions of young people around the world. And we have two billionaires, one who spent $45 billion under the auspices of free speech and no moderation. And we have another billionaire who invented a law firm to put another media company out of business because he didn't like their free speech when they outed him. So which is it, guys? The question isn't whether about free speech or moderation. The question is, should billionaires be implementing their ayahuasca visions of no moderation and or closing entire media firms down? That's where we

are right now. Yeah, I know, because they do. They're almost like Kevin McCarthy, not quite as bad as Kevin McCarthy. They say one thing and do another in many cases. But let me just tell you, speaking of billionaires beefing, Jeff Bezos weighed in, which I was so surprised by because he usually keeps his mouth shut. Interesting question, he tweeted. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square? He's using Elon's phrase. And then he was tweeting apropos of something. Tesla's second biggest market in 2021 was tweeting apropos of something. Tesla's second

biggest market in 2021 was China. After the US, Chinese battery makers are major suppliers to Tesla's EVs. After 2009, when China banned Twitter, the government there almost had no leverage over the platform. And that may have just changed. Wow, that was something. That's a gauntlet. I said gauntlet thrown, the last, last duel. I mean, he's alleging he's a Chinese asset, I think, in some fashion. It doesn't get more violent amongst white guys that are tech billionaires than that. Basically, Bezos, who is hugely respected, Bezos sits on top of the most trusted organization in the world, just behind the military, the U.S. military.

He never weighs in on this shit. Has some issues, but go ahead. Yeah, but publicly, he demonstrates a lot more discipline than the other side of this coin here. And he's basically saying, if you let this guy go through, he's a Chinese asset. That's what he's saying. That's what I'm reading. It doesn't get any meaner in the Augusta Country Club locker room, Kara. That is that is snapping your towel at someone's that big head and the twins and then saying and then saying your wife,

your fourth wife is ugly and you don't make any money. It does not get meaner around, you know, over the Cobb salad. I was gobsmacked when I read this because Bezos never does this. And, you know, I think he was probably mad over the penis jokes that Elon tells about his rocket. And this is just, it's literally, it's insane. It's insane. Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, guess what? They have very tight contacts with the people at Fisius that try to assess, or I forget the name of the agency, the international security risks here. They are very close with the commissioners at the SEC. At the end of the day, just good business advice. You want to err on the side of taking some shit, showing some grace, and not pissing people off.

You know what most CEOs have in common? Is they've been really good at not pissing people off. They may not even be the most talented person in the company, but they haven't made any enemies. And that is not how Elon got there. And maybe he's the new century, new millennial CEO. This guy has a, this guy has, the worst thing about it is his enemies are not earned. He's made enemies really stupidly. It hasn't been worth it. Although you could say Bezos is competing with him in space and also for defense department contracts. No, Bezos is a worthy enemy. I'm talking about why does he turn

Bill Gates into an enemy? You think Bill Gates really appreciated that? No. That was interesting. And then, of course, he has a beef with Mark Zuckerberg, too. He has a beef with a lot of people. I've had beefs with him, and, I mean, they go away. But it's a really interesting situation. What's squaring up here is really interesting, these fights. What about, I think a lot of users that go, I'm leaving now, or something like the people who moved to Canada when Trump left.

I think their issues are business issues away from all this noise, and there are political issues, issues are business issues away from all this noise. And there are political issues. There are regulatory issues coming up. But he's got to get this business going or he's screwed. He has really put himself out there in a way that you got to, half of you have to say, whoa, what a thing to do. What an interesting thing. And at the same time be like, oh man, you're really out on that limb, sir. That's a limb you're out on kind of thing. Yeah. But again, shareholders, when you look at businesses, we oftentimes don't really understand what the real lever or what is really going to change the atmospherics here.

And what people don't realize is the thing that will have the most impact over this company, likely in the next 90 to 180 days, is the share price ofla if tesla holds or continues to go up and defy gravity everyone's going to say you know elon you be elon not that we have any choice if this stock resumes it does anything similar to any other company in this growthy frothy part and gets cut by 20 30 or 50 percent as strong as he are as strong as he is as much people love him people are going to start second-guessing the shit out of him. He's going to get stressed out. And his bankers are just going to go, heads up, if it goes down another 50%, we need you to start selling Tesla stock,

which will send it down another 70%. So you want to watch what's going to happen at Twitter. Tell me what's going to happen to Tesla stock over the next 90 or 180 days. It'll be interesting to see. By the way, Jack Dorsey, if this goes through, is going to make a billion dollars. There's a lot of rumors that he's in on it, right? That he's the invisible hand here. Well, they like each other, right? They do, indeed.

And Jack's mad at the board. And Jack's mad at the board. He was leaving the board. Maybe he's staying with Elon. I don't know. I mean, that would be important. If he brought Jack back, bringing Jack back is always a good move, necessarily, for morale. I think people really do like Jack, including Parag, in order to keep people there. What happened to Parag, Kara? Have you heard

anything there? Well, you know, Jack and he were, he was Jack's choice. I suspect he probably is okay with Elon. I don't know. He's going to make $40 million here dollars here uh maybe he's to exit stage right and says i'm going somewhere else like you know this is going to be for recruiters could be good for some some of the people at twitter i actually think elon would be smart to keep them at least in the short term yes a hundred percent i would i would stay i just want to see what happens yeah oh i'd so but just back to your notion around users let me me be clear. I don't think anyone, I think other than like the, you know, the junior, you know, the associate editor of Mother Jones trying to make a point with 700 followers. People aren't going to leave the platform. It's addictive. For those of us who are on it a lot, we get a lot of joy and a lot of value from it.

But we're not going to. I mean, I think that's pure. But it's still not growing. It's still not growing. It's still not growing in the way that it needed to, the way TikTok is, the way in other sources. But you are growing. Your growth is enormous.

You texted me over the weekend. You were worried about me. You are growing. I was. I am not growing. But this is fun for us. Thank you, Elon, for all the content. And Bezos, we love you.

We love you, buddy. Thanks for tweeting that. Finally, I can be me, Kara. Finally. Finally. In any case, it is going to be some melee is what I think. But thank you for Scott calling in from your car. Thank you.

Our fans wanted us to comment right away. And so we, this team, by the way, you thank the Pivot team for scrambling to get this done. More to come for sure as the days go by. Blue check tomorrow. Blue check on all. Blue check, baby. You know it. We're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, President Obama, we're going to do this very quick, pitches some fixes for big tech. We'll speak with friend of Pivot, Kim Kelly, about Amazon's unions, people who deserve more money, which are the average worker at many of these companies. Fox Creative.

This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion.

It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages

you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk

and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Uncertainty. Self-doubt. Stressing about not knowing where to start. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done.

Out. Word art. Sorry, Live Laugh Lovers. In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. Elon's not the only person thinking about free speech and social media. President Obama spoke of the dangers of that unregulated platform's pose for society in his speech at Stanford. Here's what he said about fixing the supply and demand of misinformation. Go ahead. On the supply side, tech platforms need to accept that they play a unique role in how we as a people and people around the world are consuming information and that their decisions

have an impact on every aspect of society. With that power comes accountability. And in democracies like ours, at least, the need for some democratic oversight. As citizens, we have to take it upon ourselves to become better consumers of news. Looking at sources, thinking before we share, and teaching our kids to become critical thinkers who know how to evaluate sources and separate opinion from fact. So what do you think, Scott? I'm sorry. Well, I had lunch with him to talk about this before this speech. And he's just catching up. It feels like he's just catching up to stuff that's, and almost a lot of stuff that's moved on. I don't know how you feel about this speech. I just like the fact that he's getting back in the ring. I guess, yeah.

And I do think that it's a big, important topic. He is, you know, it's sort of, I almost feel like, I hope he has the same impact as Francis Haugen. Francis Haugen kind of came in and said what we sort of all knew, but she put on a masterclass on how to package it and give it real visibility and real heft. And I hope you can do the same thing around misinformation. But anyone who's been

following this stuff, he's basically just regurgitating shit that's been out there for a while. Yes, that's what I would say. Actually, interesting, it was an off-the-record thing,

but I can say what I said. When he said, what should we do? You know, he was looking for solutions, which was a great, he's so smart. And so, you know, he's got a really sophisticated idea about this. I thought he was pretty cozy with

tech people back when I criticized him before on this, when he was in office. And I said, you know what, I think we need a time machine and we need to go back and you should do something when you were president. And so I don't think he appreciated that particular suggestion, but. That's you being casually insulting. Casually insulting, that's right. But come on. I mean, one of the things is Trump was also very critical of these companies and we made fun of him, right? But he had a very different reason. But, you know, I think these politicians are way behind and they just need to do legislation. Like, stop with the big speeches.

I really have a lot of respect for President Obama, but I think the speeches, and we should fend for ourselves, is, you know, it's sort of like, try not to smoke cigarettes, kids, even though they're addictive. We'll do nothing about it. Try not to eat those Twinkies, although I don't think that should be legislated. But I think it's just do some privacy legislation. Come on, get on that side, get pushing on that stuff. I don't know. I'm glad he's here, but I would like to see some significant muscle behind this.

And meanwhile, on the other side, the right-wing half-wit Ben Shapiro, did I say that out loud? Gave us the clearest description yet of the right's new approach to business. Speaking of free speech, which businesses have under Citizens United, here's what he said last week. I am the most free market person on the right. I'm an extraordinarily pro free market person. I don't believe that generally the

government should crack down on the operations of businesses. However, if you decide to just become a woke corporation that does the bidding of your democratic taskmasters don't be surprised when you get clocked with a legislative two by four f around and find out f around and that's what disney did oh my god i mean this is just okay the villages which is this retirement community which is very conservative should they have a special tax status too should we wait till there's a democratic governor and revoke their tax status? It's ridiculous. Chick-fil-A has very conservative values in terms of their membership.

So does Hobby Lobby. So does In-N-Out has Psalms on their goddamn trays. And guess what? I still eat there because I recognize that business and the capitalist engine, it should march on. And to start going after, to start, I mean, we're literally just politicizing everything. And what DeSantis and all these guys are saying is, I don't care about the long-term health of the citizenry I've been charged with protecting. I'm just going to try and make headlines and throw red meat at my whack job far left or far right voice.

It's just, again, nobody's thinking long-term. The incentives here have clearly been so perverted that everyone is politicizing everything. And not only that, we brought it on ourselves a little bit. I think when corporations and CEOs started saying this, bring your full self to work, and now Exxon is having to decide what flags they fly or don't fly. You know what? I do think there's something to the notion of what you do outside of work is your business. We are here to provide you with economic security for you and your family. And I would be really careful. IBM was critical to gay rights issues and racial issues way back in the day. I see that as civil rights.

I think that is the law. All right. Okay. All right. That's not – I don't think of that as even taking a political stand. All right. Some people do. That's equal rights.

That's civil rights. Not everybody agrees, as you know, because there's attacks on trans people right now going on, and they're seeping over into gay issues. You know, it's interesting. Let me just finish on that because I'll get attacked for that. If you really mean it and it's part of your culture, okay, fine. I think so much of this was just virtue signaling. I think so much of this was putting out black squares on Instagram saying Black Lives Matter when they don't have a black person on their board.

on Instagram saying Black Lives Matter when they don't have a black person on their board. They've invited, they have stuck out their chin, these corporations, by wading into waters they weren't really committed to swimming in. Well, they have to be committed to it, right? That's the thing. That's the issue, is if they are committed, they should do it. Like Patagonia doubles the breakdown, and that's who they are. That's what they do. You know what you're getting into when you go to work for Patagonia. Or Chick-fil-A or anybody else. That's right.

But let me just say, these Republicans attacking business like this is so ridiculous and so counterproductive in so many ways. And DeSantis doing these bills, obviously now they're going to have to pay for Disney. Disney was paying for itself and now they're going to have to pay for them, which is ridiculous. I do think you're going to see companies, like companies like Citigroup and Yelp have policy in place

to pay for out-of-state travel for employees who need abortions. Corporations do play an important role and should have a say in things. And they're going to get caught in this anyway.

But what is really offensive is this idea of, you know, when I was listening to that Ben Shapiro thing, I was like, offensive is this idea of, you know, when I was listening to that Ben Shapiro thing, I was like, what are you, like, I called him Putin light. I'm like, really? Like, really? Like, there's one thing to boycott, or I don't want to use it, like we left Florida for our thing. It's another thing to pass legislation based on political speech. It just, it's like, this is bullshit. This is like is bullshit. I can't believe I'm defending companies. But

honestly, if they're for free speech, Florida District banned dozens of books from its library. They actually do things. The left screams a lot, but the right really does things. They included a picture book for kids, which Clara loves, called Everywhere Babies, which could not be a more innocuous book. It's insane. There's one gay couple in it, I think. That's it. And it's even, like, you know, it's hardly noticeable. I mean, these people do not like free speech if this is what they decide. Now, look, Ben Shapiro is making a children's part of his empire. Good. He should. He should sell it. If you want to buy that, buy it. Like, good for you. Like, I'm glad that they're doing that. And I will not buy it for my children.

But, you know, other people can. And so that's really where you're at. It's, you know, they just don't want to compete. I feel like they feel like communists to me at this point, the Republican Party. I'm like, you know, or something else. That it just used to pride itself as being business-friendly, almost too business-friendly. And they've been to this Attack the Gays fair before, and they lost badly. So, the other guy, Chris Ruffo, who did the critical race theory, was warning Disney, I'm going to warn you. I was

like, okay, Anita Bryant, sounds good. Good luck, Good luck. At some point, you're going to overreach, and that's where we're going, I think. I agree with you. I think whenever you hear a Republican or especially a Republican podcaster say, I'm free markets, they're about to say something that's ridiculously non-free markets. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm a capitalist. The engine of economic growth and the full body contact and violence of competition, you need those fires to burn. I didn't like the bailouts or a big component of the bailouts because I think they were nothing but cloud cover to keep rich people rich. You need churn. And I don't like it when Democrats do it. And I don't like it when Republicans do it. And when Republicans do it, it's really, really cynical. Republicans do it, it's really, really cynical. And it's because they've always claimed to be the pro-business part of the party. So, I find all of this, it really comes back to incentives.

And unfortunately, our elections now, because of hardening through gerrymandering, and not ranked choice voting, but basically primaries where it's basically who can out crazy the other person. And now everyone's just focused on all of our senior politicians, all senior politicians in Florida right now. Rubio, Rick Scott, and DeSantis are all just literally staring at a 60-plus white evangelical voter and trying to capture his gaze. And they're not governing Florida. They don't care about Disney and taxes and the health of Florida. He's like, how can I convince

this guy with a straw in Iowa that I am fucking batshit crazy? And, I mean, did you know what Rick Scott proposed? That we're going to do away with all federal legislation so we shut down all vets' hospitals, the guys in the space station

can't communicate with us. Yeah, they were unprepared for that. They were unprepared for that. And they're like, okay. And they said, but if it's good, we can reinstitute it. I'm like, are you that far off the deep end where you would actually take a staff of 120 people and all this money that it costs to run a senator's office and propose legislation that we're going to just shut off the federal government and basically there'll be no air traffic control the next day you know who's winning here steve bannon this is his playbook is that right chaos yeah chaos chaos and eventually you start to

wonder like you know who what country are you rooting for at this point you know what i mean which is um i don't know. It's really, if you look at those things, the idea of, it's also Peter Thiel has those elements, let's get rid of it all. Like if you read his stuff, it's down that avenue. And so no government is- Yeah, but let's get rid of it all after I have built wealth- That is correct. That is correct. Based on subsidies of EV charging stations. Yes, yes.

Or I have hired thousands of engineers. I work for the defense department or I do this. That is correct. Based on subsidies of EV charging stations. Yes, yes. Or I have hired thousands of engineers. I work for the Defense Department, or I do this. It's takerist. It's totally a takerist culture. Takerist. All right. Well, that is a perfect thing to bring on our friend of Pivot.

Kim Kelly is a labor journalist, organizer, and author of Fight Like Hell, The Untold Story of American Labor. She joins us to discuss the history and current state of the unionization movement in America and what's next for workers and management. Welcome, Kim Kelly. Thank you so much for having me. So there's a lot. We talk about this a lot, and Scott has a very tough perspective on unions.

Obviously, there's a lot of activity going on, and the Amazon Distribution Center is voting on unionization as we record this. Bernie Sanders and AOC both spoke at a rally there over the weekend. That's across the street from another Staten Island warehouse where Amazon workers voted to unionize earlier this month. They still have to create a contract and do the very heavy lifting part. Starbucks workers have voted to unionize across the country, including in Seattle this week, and an Apple store employees in Georgia have filed for a union election. Apple employees at Grand Central Store in New York City seem to be headed that way too. So give us an overview because Scott and I also felt that the union, these are victories, but it's still hard going. So give us an overview

from your perspective. Sure. I think it's such an exciting moment in American labor. And I think it's especially exciting for people because as I'm sure you know, as you alluded to, we've kind of been on the back foot for a little while. Union density is down. The numbers aren't great. We're just coming out of an incredibly anti-labor administration. Workers have not been having the best time, especially as the pandemic continues, as the minimum wage continues the minimum wage continues to be garbage. Like it's, it's a difficult time to be a worker in America, right? And I think that what we're seeing, this renewed energy, this renewed interest in organizing, that's a very positive thing. It's a positive sign of where people's heads are at. I think workers are starting to really understand the value of their labor and the value of their lives, right? Because as this pandemic has gone on, we know who's been hit the hardest, who's been hurt the worst, you know, the most vulnerable, the most marginalized.

I think black and brown communities were hit twice as hard as their white counterparts. Like I think there's been kind of a re-imagining of what work is and what it should be and what it could be too. And we're seeing these workers at these massive kind of all-encompassing corporations like Amazon at Starbucks, Apple now, realizing that, you know, we work for the richest people in the world. We are struggling. We are being treated like machines or robots or like we don't matter at all. There's got to be something we can do. And there is organizing, unionizing, and the fact that they've been

so successful at Amazon. The one spot, and it still doesn't have a contract. Like, I'm just, let me just interject. And then Scott, I'm sure has some questions. Labor unions are generating more headlines, that's for sure. And I'm not pushing back on the need for it, because I do think there's a massive need for it. But it doesn't mean there's more actual support. Unionization rates, as you know, went down between 2020 and 21, the midst of the pandemic. Just 10% of workers are union members, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But a majority of Americans say labor unions have a positive effect on the country, even though you're back on your foot.

And I think that's being kind in terms of its power, because these companies really do have the power right now. Sure. Yeah. Like you said, the numbers aren't great. And we are coming, we are at a point where the labor laws are not in our favor. We're dealing with a plague of right to work. We're dealing with an NLRB that has been much more interesting and much more aggressive

than it has been in recent years. It still needs more staff. It still needs more resources. It needs more legal bite. But I think things are changing. I mean, the fact that public support is at, I think, what, 68% is pro-union, that's a big deal. And really, the thing is that most workers, I would say, in this country would like to join a union, it's just very hard for them to do so. And that's not their fault. That's due to the laws and the government politicians and, you know, all of this historic red tape that's been thrown up and makes it more difficult to organize. And honestly, I think that is one of the reasons why the Amazon victory, first victory matters so much is because these workers kind of had every odd stacked against them. But they still pulled it off themselves. They didn't rely on existing infrastructure or resources from other established unions.

Right, which was interesting. I was talking with an Amazon board member, and they're like, they did it with weed and pizza. They were fascinated by it. So what do you think? Scott, go ahead. So nice to meet you. So I need a preamble here before I bust into my questions. I've been a member of two different unions.

I was a member of a union when I was a box boy in college at San Vicente Foods. When I started at NYU as an adjunct professor, I was a member of the AFL-CIO. I'm not entirely sure how we ended up in that union. But anyways, I think unions are right. And I think a lot of Americans are in favor of unions. But the numbers are not less than great. The numbers have been abysmal. I mean, we've gone from 20% union membership in 1985 to 10. We lost a quarter of a million union members in 2021. And granted, they do the right things. But haven't

unions been sort of the perfect enemy for corporations and right to work in that as they give the illusion they're helping? And it just feels like this construct of a traditional union is right, but not effective, that it's not doing its job. And I worry that these small victories are nothing but continued head fakes, that we need a different construct than unions to protect the American worker. I apologize for the speech. I'd love to get your response to that. I don't know how many union workers would agree with you, though, that it doesn't matter, that it's just headlines and whatnot. Like, if you've ever bargained a union contract or seen what that difference feels like between going from pre-union to post-union, like, that's a big deal. Also, AFL-CIO is a union, it's a federation. Oh, excuse me. Thank you. What's the difference? I'm not sure I know the difference.

AFL-CIO is a federation of different labor unions around the country. Right. Thank you. What's the difference? I'm not sure I know the difference. Oh, the FLCIO is a federation of different labor unions around the country. Right. Thank you. Kind of like an umbrella thing. Got it. Hey, I pay my dues. I pay my dues. And I think we can't really discount the impact of right to work, too, especially in states where there isn't a strong pro-labor legislator and there isn't a great tradition of people being able to organize. Like the folks in Alabama that tried to organize their warehouse, they got crushed the first time around. And, you know, they didn't have that much outside help. They were trying really hard to do this amazon crushed them amazon was found of union busted them in a way that wasn't really legal that's why they got their second election i mean it's interesting to hear

like kind of not anti-union but sort of union skeptical things like this because that's not what i'm hearing from within the movement that's not what i'm hearing from workers and honestly i think maybe that matters more. You know, like people, we can, we can, we can opinion, we can analyze, we can think and talk about what's happening, but what's happening on the shop floor, what's happening in the warehouses. So talk about that because your book is subtitled, The Untold Story of American Labor.

What did we, what do we forget about the labor movement? What lessons should current organizers take as they're moving forward? Like what works? Because it looks like it's different everywhere. Is there some thing that you think will re-energize it? Besides the skeptical part, we get that, we get that. But Amazon is super aggressive. Starbucks is, I'm guessing, going to be super aggressive. Apple, I suspect, will be very aggressive the same way. And offer workers, oh, we're going to give you this much money. We're going to give you – you don't need those people to do that.

What is the construct in order to push back at those efforts that they're going to make, which is going to be a sort of velvet – an iron fist in a velvet glove approach is my guess. Sure. What really matters, what has led to the victories and the half victories and all the positive change that we have seen because of the labor movement, because of workers, it's solidarity. I know that sounds like a bumper sticker, but honestly, building real relationships and community between workers, crossing barriers, crossing over whatever manufactured divide the boss puts between one another because of whatever differences there are between you and your co-worker.

That is how we win. That's how we've always won. That's how they won at Amazon. They had people who spoke different languages and prepared different kinds of food and met people on a human level, person to person, worker to worker. I mean, there's an example I can think of from 1946, back in the day, in Hawaii, the Great Sugar Strike. When there were, it was a situation where there's these massive sugar cane plantations, the workers were predominantly Asian immigrants and native Hawaiians. The owners were white guys from the mainland. And when it came time to strike, the workers were in

a position where they were separated. There were different camps for different workers. Chinese folks were here, Filipino folks were here. The bosses treated them differently, paid them differently, tried to make them feel as if they had nothing in common. And the way they won was by coming together and getting translators and building strength kitchens and realizing

they had more in common than they did than they had that separated them. It might even sound a little Pollyanna, right? But crossing over through these divides and realizing that, honestly, it is us against them, the working class against capital, that is an important lesson to learn. And that is how we have gotten anywhere,

by sticking together, by building collective power, by really sticking to the real principle of solidarity. That's how we're going to win. That's the simplest answer. Like, that's how we do it. How have, say, these tech companies tried to put differences between people? I'm assuming giving bigger salaries than, say, a restaurant or something else. Talk about what they've done that's been effective

and maybe something that looks like it's effective but isn't really for the workers. Well, just to come back to Amazon, one of their most fatal flaws that they made was trying straight out the gate to paint Christian Smalls, the president of the independent Amazon labor union, and they, you know, they tried to paint him as inarticulate, as uneducated. They were being a bunch of racist classes jerks about it, and wonder of wonders, that did not resonate with the working class black and brown membership of that union the workforce at that factory like this is they they've tried to find a scapegoat and they birthed a leader you know this is the kind of thing the companies do because they don't

understand what it's like to do those jobs they don't understand what it's like to be struggling in that way they haven't had to break a sweat in 20 years, probably. And one of the things that they would do at the Bessemer Warehouse that did unfortunately prove effective because folks maybe didn't have as much of a firm understanding and base in the union tradition because it's so hard to unionize there, they third-partied the union. They put out all these flyers as propaganda saying, oh, this is a New York City union coming down here to Bama

to try and take your money and tell you what to do. And in some ways that worked. And it was really unfortunate. But it was also BS, we'll say. And we can see how those kinds of divide and conquer tactics, sometimes they work. But if you inoculate against them, if you have something to show for it, if it's easier to shut that down, then like, it doesn't, it's not as effective. You know, before Scott gets an expression, when they did that to Kristen Smalls, I know a lot of, I was like, stop it. He's fantastic. I had spent some time talking to him and I was like, this is a huge mistake. He is

not, he is so effective. And we had had him on Twitter spaces a bunch of time. I talked to him a bit and it was really amazing how stupid that was. I remember saying, this is the stupidest thing. Like, do not discount this guy. He's really sharp as a tack. Like, literally, how would you not want a leader like that who comes from the community, who's like handsome, who's cool, who like doesn't wear a suit? Like, that's the kind of labor movement I want to be a part of. I don't care what guys in suits have to say. And a lot of people don't either. He also was nobody's friend.

Like, you know, he pushed back against AOC and others, too. He wasn't—that was what I thought was super effective about him. He was going for the worker. I thought that was a very interesting—he's a very interesting leader. Scott, go ahead. So, last administration, very anti-labor. We'd like to think this administration is very pro-labor. What would you ask for from the Biden administration that they aren't doing?

Or what are you hoping to get out of the next two and a half years from the Biden administration, or hopefully six and a half years? Assuming they do anything. They need to pour resources into the NLRB. Beef it up. Make it tough and strong. This is the National Labor Relations Board. Oh, yeah, National Labor Relations Board. They need staff. They need to pour resources into the NLRB, beef it up, make it tough and strong. This is the National Labor Relations Board. Oh, yeah, National Labor Relations Board. They need staff.

They need money. They need support. They need to be able to enforce these contracts and to be there for workers that reach out to them and file elections. I mean, there's like 200 Starbucks across the country that have filed elections and are going through elections. Like, that is a lot of staff and a lot of lift. And they need to, I mean, obviously, raise the wage, raise, like give people health care, actually do something about the climate. It's not like if you want to be for the workers, do things that help workers instead of like make nice headlines or make the Republicans hate you a little bit less. You sound disappointed in the administration's efforts to date. Is that accurate? Am I reading that accurately? I would say the one good thing that the – well, I don't know that much about it.

I don't really care what the Democrats get up to, right? But one of the most positive things I've seen from this administration is the pro-labor stance and some of the pro-labor moves. And the appointment of Jennifer Abruzzo as general counsel to NLRB, that is a big deal. That is great. If they can just keep doing that kind of thing, that will help. That will get us to closer where we need to be. They just have to put their money where their mouth is and also go after these tech oligarchs that are trying to grind us all into dust. I love that. So talk about the minimum wage. Scott has a thing where he talks about the ridiculousness of the minimum wage going from $7.25 to $7.25. Well, these oligarchs make a lot of money, which is really astonishing. Talk about what needs to be done there. It seems like that would be the most important thing

government can do. Tax all the rich people that are oppressing us. Take their money and give it to the people that made it. These people that sit in C-suites and issue press releases and play footsie with the government, they're not working. They are exploiting. They are benefiting from the labor of the working class. $7.25 is a joke. $15 an hour is nothing. I'm not an economic expert, but things cost more.

And Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are fine, whereas workers in the picket line are struggling to pay their bills or buy food at the grocery store. That is not fair. Like, the minimum wage should be at least $25 or $30 an hour. People can't live like this. And after a certain point, the people at the top that expect to benefit from us and our work and our labor, they're going to find out that, you know, you can only push people so far before they either do something about it or they dip out entirely, you know? Scott? So, first off, word. I agree with you. At some point, a comity of man being American means

dignity and work, and inflation is up 30%, the Nasdaq's quintupled, CEO pay is up 7x, is up 30%, the Nasdaq's quintupled, CEO pay is up 7x, and minimum wages exploded from 725 to 725. I worry that when we turn it into what feels like a class argument, I mean, you said tax the people who are exploiting us. I worry that we lose allies and that we should make more of a capitalist argument, that we need to bring people back into the labor. It's allies. This is class war.

Well, if we position it that way, I think we lose. Because I'm on your side, but I'm trying to figure out how we position it as a capitalist argument that we need more people to be drawn back into the labor force, that when we don't pay people a living wage, they end up in the emergency room, they end up with mental health problems, they end up in a vet hospital, that this is just smart economically. That rather than going after the morality of hospital, that this is just smart economically, that rather than going after the morality of it, that we go after the economics. Look, I would say, just to build on what you're saying, a union worker is a happier and better

paid and healthier worker, right? That's the worker you want in your workforce, in your factory, in your shop. It makes good business sense to make sure that workers are healthy and mentally prepared to do their labor. They're not stressed. They're not falling apart. They're not worried about making it home to pick up their child. Tormenting and exploiting workers doesn't help anybody. We should have learned that back in the Gilded Age,

but here we are in the sequel. Yeah, the sequel. It's interesting. I know you've got to go. One of the things I always tell a lot of these people, you've either got to figure this out, and soon, with cooperative working with workers

and paying them what they deserve, or you might as well armor plate your Tesla, because that's where it's going. There's a lot more of us than there are of them. All right, we'll leave it on that. This is a book by Kim Kelly. Her book is called Fight Like Hell. It sounds like she's going to.

The Untold Story of American Labor. There it is. Thank you for putting it up. You can find Kim Kelly on Twitter at Grim Kim. Is that right? Grim Kim. Good for you. That's a good one.

I like that. All right. Thank you, Kim Kelly. And thank you so much. Everybody should read it. It's a very important topic. And it is absolutely true. We have to figure something out here because it's not going to stay the same at all.

And these workers deserve much more attention in the whole, in the entire stack that happens here, rather than just celebrate the tech oligarchs. And I think that's the perfect name for them. All right, Kim, thank you so much. Thanks, Kim. Nice to meet you. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, let's hear some predictions.

Go for it. What do you got for me? Besides, you're not going to be on CNN Plus for the future. I'm definitely off. I'm two Scaramoochies and one quarter of Quibi. By the way, I want to apologize to everyone at Quibi. I was like dancing on their grave before it was over, and now I'm getting attacked rightfully for saying that. Look, I think what you're seeing in the growthy part of the market, I mean, everything from PayPal to, you know, you talked about it, to Netflix, all this stuff's off 70%. The streaming market, the content market is about to get taken to the woodshed.

It's just going to be so fucking ugly. There's going to be so many layoffs because all of a sudden everyone's figured out spending $3,000 per household to deliver these. There has never been a better time to have a couch and be into edibles, and the party's over. You're about to see enormous consolidation and radical cost cutting at the biggest and strongest. I mean, it'll be everyone, maybe with the exception of Apple TV Plus and Amazon Prime Video, because they have just literally infinitely deep pockets. Which might take advantage of the situation. Yeah, who knows? They might come in.

And also, I think Discovery stock with a $55 billion overhang, gosh, I think that's going to be an interesting stock to watch. And my prediction comes back to the same place. What about Netflix as possibly being bought? Boy, would Apple love to pick that up or Amazon? Well, I think Google and Facebook would have liked Twitter. But the problem is the logical buyer of Netflix probably can't because of antitrust. Yeah. But, I mean, I think what you're going to have here, and I've said this before and I'll double down on it, the current structure of discovery does not survive 24 months.

There's just so many great assets, so much debt, a weird shareholder base, and a single class of shares, meaning you can get an activist, and you've got a CEO who's gone Hollywood and has moved to LA. This is Bill Cohen's column today. Is that right? I haven't read it. Yeah. No, I know. It's like he has different thoughts, but he thinks they have a real rough road ahead of them, I would say. Yeah. And I think they're going to have to find ways to monetize some of these assets, and that the disposition of some of these assets will be accretive. And similar to what happened to Stanky, where Stanky woke up and had too much debt and assets that aren't performing to the expectations of when they bought them, I think Discovery is going to wake up and realize that these assets, that the whole here is less than the sum of its parts. There's some amazing assets within this corporate structure.

There is, yep. And anyways, my prediction is discovery. Enjoy it while you're the dog that caught the car. And guess what? That car's not slowing down, and it's going to get away with you. They're going to have to make some moves other than cost-cutting here. And I think you're going to see an activist come in when the stock hits. Interesting.

All right, but let me just, let me make a picture myself. Yes. You don't have Scott Galloway to kick around anymore. That's right. And let me just, let me tell people something.

I'm going to make a statement. That show was terrific. And you know I insult you when they suck. I didn't like your other shows. Thank you for saying that. This was a really well done show. I didn't like every bit of it.

Did I give you like pretty good criticism of the parts I didn't like? Just like I did with Jon Stewart. You were casually insulting. Let me just say it was a great show. Thank you for saying that. Anyone that wants to like kick Scott Galley better, you got to go through me.

That's right. That's right. I am such the chick in this relationship. I am sensitive and needy. I know. Do not fuck with me on this issue. Thank God. Seriously.

Yes. Your opinion and affirmation means a lot to me, Kara, so thank you. No more man in the street for you, but we are going to make a hit show. You'll see. You'll see. We will. Don't you worry. Old man with erectile dysfunction in the street?

No? Yes. No? But it was a good show, and there were several good shows on that network, and I think those people deserve, and the people who helped make them deserve kudos. It was not anything to do with the content. It wasn't terrible content. Same with Quibi.

By the way, there was some very good stuff on Quibi. So for those creative people, you'll be fine. It may be a little hard for a little bit, but stop kicking them around. They didn't, the content wasn't the problem. It's economics all the way. There you go. Anyway, so don't forget, we want to hear from our listeners. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for us or call 855-51-PIVOT. The link is also in our show notes. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more.

Can you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Jatot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Severo. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems.