The Ben and Emil Show - PP 20: SBF Finally Testifies

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

They finally got the dosage right for SBF to take the witness stand and boy is it a doozy. The boys dive in to find out how badly he got his hiney spanked. The UAW strike is over after 6 weeks. All three major American automakers have agreed to tentative deals. We're going to find out what's in the deal and what's next for the UAW. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, we got an exciting one for you today. Sam Bankman Freed, also known as SBF, also known as Sam Bankman Fraud. He took the stand and the trial finally for FTX and he got brutally spanked by the prosecution. Just his little heinie turned red. The auto workers' union strikes a deal, a historic deal with the car companies. We're going into it. We're going into all the things they won, how they did it, what's next? Yeah, because they're not just stopping there.

They got their, the UAW has their site set elsewhere. They're going to be striking all over the damn place. Also, are electric vehicles really the future? Because they're kind of, maybe not after all. That's pretty awkward, if you ask me. Jesus. Plus, the guy who played Chandler died. Taylor Swift is a billionaire.

And Gavin Newsom knocked down a little Chinese kid. So hit that intro. I like the breadsticks. I like the breadsticks. Breadsticks. Mix. Mix. Mix.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 20 of pay pigs. We got a very special one. Much to discuss. God, we got so much. All right, let's just hit it right off the bat. Matthew Perry died. What do you think about that?

In a hot tub. Could I be dying in any more Hollywood way? Oh, dude. Whoa, you got to give him, like, you got to let the rigor mortis set in first at the very least. Can you not do that? I think it's funny. I think it's fine.

And I think him being a comedic actor would probably appreciate. I mean, that's the thing, folks. That's a tribute. It is. It is a tribute. They still don't know what killed him. It is terrible because he was a really brilliant. You know, he made like $96 million from friends?

Yeah, that checks out. That's insane. I remember it being such huge news when I was a kid. That it ended? No, no. When it was... Oh, they got a million in an episode? Yeah.

And I remember the media made it seem like they were greedy or something. It's like, no, man, they know what they're worth. Their agents are working for them. I know a thing or two about that, don't we? Yeah, we're getting a million an episode. Yeah, we're getting a million dollars per episode. Speaking of making a million dollars... Taylor Swift.

Our girl, Taylor Swift, is now a billionaire. We got to give her a... I got to give her the... You know how sometimes they do the salute that's like... It's the normal salute, but then sometimes they do it like this. Do you think normally they do it with their left hand? I don't know. I'm just doing it for the camera.

My dad's screaming right now. Oh, I bet. I bet. Mr. De Rosa, I'm so sorry, sir. No, I'm saluting like this. I'm doing it even more fucked up so that it pisses him off even more. She just said billionaire status, which is wild. How do we feel about that?

I think that it's solid because she did it all on her own. like from just her from just her art she didn't create a lipstick I like that no headphones most most most most women get

billionaire status by making lipstick that's usually how it goes it's usually also I think I was surprised by the break you know they had a little breakdown of you know touring music whatever and they had her Spotify numbers or whatever it was like a hundred something million

just from Spotify yeah wouldn't you think it'd be more I actually am surprised that it's that much A hundred million? Yeah, because they make like 0.001 I know, but she streams so much. Also, it's just like, what a bad fucking deal. She stays very well hydrated.

She streams, you know. It's a little too early in the episode for a pee joke, huh? Probably. This week. But so, you know what's wild is she could just do, she could just keep doing these damn tours and just get all the way up to Super Billioner's You'd park it all in Apple and collect dividends for the rest of her life and not do shit.

I mean, the demand is so great. Oh, yeah. She could, she would never run out. I would go. She could do Taylor. I kind of wish I went to the Airstore. Well, you still can, I think. Isn't it going to go on?

I'm not going to Tennessee. I miss the L.A. show. I'm not going to travel for it. What was you, Bruce Springsteen? Yeah. I would go to Japan. Who were wishing a speeding recovery to? From what?

What did he do? He had to cancel a bunch of tour dates. He has some, I don't know. It's like 75. You know, these things happened. I saw. He's rescheduling. We'll see him.

Speaking of, I was going to say Obama. Speaking of Bruce Springsteen, I saw one of the Obama daughters just around the corner at that fancy place. You know that fancy hotel? You know which one I'm talking about? Yeah, I just don't like when you link Springsteen and Obama. Well, because they had that podcast. Yeah. We don't talk about the podcast on this podcast.

Homies or whatever it's called. Renegates. Renegades. Yeah, that's right. Jeez. We love when the most wealthy musician and, uh, The president called themselves renegades. Yeah.

I drove by and I saw her head and I was like, oh, that person looks familiar. I was on my scooter and then I was like, oh, shit, that's one of the Obamas. Are you sure? Positive. Did she have security? Nope. Nope. She was waiting outside of the valet.

Maybe the security was right there, but I don't know. You should try to kidnap her and then be like, I was just checking. Yeah, I was just joking. I'm joking, I should have. She must have security. Yeah, well, she had a boyfriend. So boyfriends are security. And speaking of Taylor Swift,

I just wanted to show everybody that my younger brother looks like Travis Kelsey. Did you clear this with your younger brother? Did I what? Clear this with your younger brother? No, but I don't give a shit. I don't think he looks that much like him.

When I first saw this, I thought it was him. I was like, what the fuck was Travis Kelsey doing on my shit? Kind of looks like him. He's got that vibe. Well, go to the next. Is the next one, Travis Kelsey? The next one is probably them laughing in another way. See, I will say, I don't want to give notes

on someone's Instagram post, but you should... do the comparison you give the point of reference oh yeah but i'm not going to do that you know no no no they should have done it oh yeah yeah yeah yeah this was a uh damn look at that smile look at my brother man wait what the fuck does he have hair growing he's got hair my brother's been bald for a long time and he's got a little hair grown oh i got to talk to him that's that's that's messed up that he didn't let any of us know anyway the other news is that Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, went to China and he knocked down a little Chinese kid.

Did you see it? You didn't see this? Oh, brother, brace yourself. So who knows why? Nobody's really sure why, because they didn't tell us. But he's in China, and I think he's doing, a lot of people are saying he's gearing up to run for president. Of China. Of China, yeah.

He's given Xi Jinping. I love saying Xi Jinping. It just rolls off the tongue. I know. but this is him trying to juke out and break the ankles of this kid and watch what happens. Some awkward moments

during Governor Newsom's China trip over the weekend. He was showing off his basketball move over my God. Mr. Newsom's China trip over the weekend. He was showing off his balance. That's what I call China Trip. For the

For the audio listener, imagine Gavin Newsom who's famously, he looks like a Batman, he looks like a Batman mayor. He looks like a villain Batman mayor. He looks like a president from Central Casting. Yeah, he really does. He's a politician. By the way, look at them, look at those butt cheeks. And he, uh, he goes to juke a little Chinese boy, and he's, he slips, and he just, like, totally falls on the ground with him. And then they just kind of lay there, and he plays it off perfectly.

He does. That rolls. He hugs the guy, and he hugs the little guy. and he goes, there you go, you little Chinese kid. The rule is really good. Yeah, he pats him, and he, like, holds him, and he gives him a slap on the lower back real close to that kid's ass, if I do say so. Also, he cannot finger a basketball. Whoops. He can't spin it on his finger.

Spin it on his finger. What's that move called? Spinning it on your finger? Around the world or whatever. I had a dream. I was talking to a guy about Patrick Ewing and the New York Knicks in the 90s. Is that about it? What kind of fucking?

ESPN-ass dreams that you have. Same dream? You were telling me you were getting rid of your truck and getting a brand new car. I was like, that's so unlike you. I did. Like, it's just time. I had a dream where I was getting rid of my car?

No, this was my dream. You also, wow, dude. Two dreams one night. God. You know what they call that? Plain ass economic dreams. My friend is getting a new car in his dream. In my dream.

I just found it odd. Huh. Maybe it was because it was your birthday. Yeah, it was my birthday. Everyone say happy birthday, buddy. Everybody say happy birthday. It was October 29th. Thank you, Tillon.

And we had a great time. Well, now, oh, oh, by the way, a little housekeeping stuff. Why don't you go ahead and follow us on socials if you don't? On Instagram, Twitter. And now Twitch, twitch.tv slash paypigspod. That's the big one. We're going to start doing some cool stuff. Yeah.

For me, it's been, I played a little mini golf. For me, it's clicking around going, what does this one do? Yeah. No, truly, it's really fucking confusing. But I also played Scrabble the other night, or last night, last night for me, two nights ago, three nights ago for you guys. And it was real fun, fun. So get on in there and have some front with us. Yes, have some front.

And also go watch the latest Ben and Emile on. It's the Halloween version. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy, is it a shit show. We debate all sorts of important Halloween-y things. Such as, is it okay to have people piss in your toilet? No, it's not. Never.

And if they do, just clean up after yourself. Jesus. So let's go Philip DeFranco mode and let's just get right into it, shall we? Sam Buttman, Sam Buttman fart. The moment everyone's been waiting for has finally arrived in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial. That's right. And look, a lot of this stuff is coming from people who are actually in the courtrooms. And I'm so jealous that we do not live in New York and cannot go sit in on these trials.

And so when people found out he was going to be testifying, these past few days have been just people waiting eight hours, nine hours to get in there 4.30 a.m. I think there's about like 21 overflow seats where people can, like for reporters and stuff where they can. And then if you're not in there, you're stuck with the grainy courtroom camera footage. No. Oh, yeah.

The stream. Man, so they just let anybody in there? No, it's press people. Oh. but like you and I would be able to go we that's I thought it was still going to be going on when we

because we're going to New York next week and I thought we could try to get press passes to go the but yeah that there's a lot of people in there now even Judge Kaplan's wife was going to watch um his wife

the mother of the assistant United States attorney Danielle Sassoon I think her mother came to watch she's the prosecutor right yep this is a it's a big deal for everybody um but yeah and hey we thought this day may never come because we couldn't get this guy filled with enough adderall to get on the they finally got him hopped they finally figured out the right dose to get this guy on the stand and it's a very unusual uh turn of events he so i was listening the the wall street journal has

been sending someone pretty much every day and they've been kind of recapping what's going on and they all knew he was going to testify, and then they didn't get to it until the afternoon. They thought it wasn't going to happen because all of a sudden the judge sent the jury home, and they were like, what the fuck? We're not going to get to see him testify. Why did they do that?

Because SBF is such a freak. He wasn't answering questions directly enough? Well, the judge just didn't want to admit evidence that was going to be confusing for the jury. So they said, you know what? Why don't we do a dry run and see how you're going to answer? these questions. Right. Because you're a psycho. So he, um, the defense got to ask him his

questions. The prosecutor got to cross-examine and this was all just for the judge. Press and stuff got to stay, but the jury was not there. That was last week. That was last Thursday. And a big part of that was because they wanted to introduce this narrative that, um, who's they? The defense. wanted to introduce this narrative that SBF didn't actually do anything wrong or didn't have the required intent because he was just following what his lawyers had said. Right. That's a big part of the defense is basically skirting all the blame onto deputies of the company, lawyers, pretty much everyone but himself.

Right. And there's a quote, Judge Kaplan didn't, said a lot of that is not going to be allowed. and he said, he's not persuaded by it. He said, let's assume that somebody robs a bank, knocks over Walmart, whatever, and comes upon a large sum of illegally obtained money, and the person decides it might be a good idea to salt this away and make sure nobody is going to discover it.

The guy says, let me figure out how to do this. And he goes to a lawyer, and he says to the lawyer, I want to buy an expensive condo on billionaire's row, and I want to form a limited liability company, which we ought to call gold dust. And I've got just the apartment. I've got just the apartment in a, like you to prepare a contract of sale and the lawyer is not told where the money came from,

not one word, not one word about why the objective is to hide the money or the source and the lawyer incorporates or organizes the LLC. The lawyer prepares the contract of sale. The lawyer represents gold dust at the closing and now the defendant is apprehended the buyer, the true buyer, in charge with money laundering. And the defense is, well, but I had a lawyer. I had a lawyer who organized the LLC. I had a lawyer who did the contract of sale. I had a lawyer at the closing and I offer this as evidence that I didn't have a criminal intent in hiding the money. I did just exactly what the lawyer said. And how is that different from what you are trying to do in principle? I'm not saying anything about your client's guilt or innocence. So what did the defense say?

No. Well, so that's, they don't get to say anything. The judge said we're not going to allow this to be a part of it. So then on Friday, they took up most of the time in front of the jury and basically were allowing him to paint this picture of, you know, I'm just this goofy guy. I didn't know what I was doing. I was only, yes, I was briefly a part of Alameda, but left as, as, as, I was walled off. I was walled off. Yeah. I told, he said that he, basically, the prosecution is trying to show that SBF lied to the public and to customers when he said that Alameda research would be treated just the same as any other customer of FTS. You remember that Alameda is the hedge fund of sorts, and FTCS is the exchange for crypto.

And Alameda had access to FTCS customer funds that allowed them to maintain a negative... Whereas any other FTCS customer would have a negative balance, they'd get liquidated. Alameda had a special privilege that allowed them to go, not only go negative, but stay negative and go way the fuck negative. Right. And that's the big, that's like the meat of this. And they're questioning whether SBF acted in good faith when he promoted FTX, therefore, as a safer and more transparent crypto exchange, including, and they include some of his investments like paying $10 million a year for a 19 year contract for naming rights for the Miami Heat Arena. It's like, if you were really doing what you're supposing that you were doing, which is having this safe and transparent.

exchange then why weren't you acting accordingly and the defense is basically trying to position it as they are a legitimate company they did they were a legitimate company excuse me they did have all of these uh legitimate business practices it's just that they made a few mistakes they just they fucked up a little bit a little bit of woo right are we not allowed to make a little mistakes are we not allowed to lose a few misplace a few billion dollars i'm sorry i just have i i i I do I have a koala and I have all this wacky hair. I don't have time to get a haircut. That was one of their things.

Oh, they, so yeah, they brought up. They pointed out that SBF's got no time to get a haircut. They also, there was a lot of very funny moments. So that's the thing. Friday was all the defense. And there's another woman, Molly White, who's been going every day. She's a, I think her name is Molly Oxoff on, on Twitter. And she's like just a crypto reporter.

but, and a very fair one, and she's been doing great breakdowns of, like, every day. And she said about Friday, a generous explanation of what happened on Friday would be that Sam Bankman-Fried's defense team was trying to be thorough, asking him to redefine terms that had already been described by previous witnesses and letting him ramble about tangentially related topics. A less generous explanation would be that they were stalling for time. Several of fellow onlookers shared a theory that his team was just running out the clock, not leaving time for cross-examination to begin that afternoon. And so they were hoping that basically the jurors would go home over the weekend and be like, it seems like an interesting guy.

It's a strategy if you got nothing else. Yeah. And so that's the thing. Then on Monday, yesterday, the prosecution finally got to ask him questions. And you got a lot more of the more interesting things. One of them was them talking about his hair. And the funny thing is they repeatedly would ask him about stuff. And he would say, I don't recall that.

I don't know, or some variation of that. And then they would basically show proof of him either saying that thing or a closest associated. A big thing was him, for one thing, talking about how when he got trotted in front of Congress, I believe last year, he spoke highly about the need for regulation, the need for all sorts of fail safes and things like that to bring crypto and crypto trading more into the legitimate into the fold, so to speak. But then behind closed doors, he was saying things like fuck regulators in D.N.

Which she made him read out loud to the court, which is really good. Fuck regulators in a private conversation with a reporter. And he had some conversations where he would refer to some customers as, quote, dumb motherfuckers. And she asked him about that. And he said, well, it was only a specific subset of customers. And to be fair, I think I know who he's talking about. He's probably talking about the-

Me and you. us the type of us types no seriously no no no the small players who are over leveraged and immediately cook their accounts the loser consumer the loser consumer we love the loser consumer basically their exact target demographic the loser consumer watching MLB and looking at the FTX on the on the going to a Miami heat game and going you know what I got a thousand bucks burn a hole in my pocket yeah I'll buy some Solana oh boy what was entertaining to me is how much he was blaming others so including and especially his ex-girlfriend Catherine Ellis Caroline Ellison. He was saying that he instructed her. He instructed her to get short, like get shorter on Bitcoin and whatnot because the price had been dropping to hedge herself. He was instructing her to have risk parameters of which she famously had none. So he's basically throwing her under the bus. Then he, in regards to the negative balance code that was implemented, he said it was to pay.

patch a bug in FTCX's risk management system. And he blamed Gary Wong, Wang or Wong? Wang. They say Wong, but it's spelled Wang. Yeah. Confused the hell of it. Blamed Gary Wang and Nishad Singh for that. He said that he supervised them,

but he left them to make their own decisions. And then they also got him for deleting chat logs. Because that on its face looks really bad. But he insists, the defense insists, that that was just something that he picked up as a habit at Jane Street, the, um, The Quant Fund. Yeah, that him and Caroline Allison met at that.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, they're, so this was just happening all day. They were, they were finding, they were asking him things that he said he didn't remember and then hitting him with the proof. So, yeah, with Ellison, asked if he directed trades at Alameda after stepping down to CEO. He said no, but he did direct company to hedge. Government came prepared with signal chats of him suggesting specific trades. Oh, boy.

SBF objected that he was directing any trades, even though it was clear Ellison was acting at his direction in the chat they brought up. Um, yeah, several past statements to journalists, tweets and a Twitter space's interview have been brought into evidence to show his public statements. He will often say he doesn't recall saying something only for an exhibit to be shown where he says that thing. Wasn't there discovery done by defense where they would have to know that these things are going to be brought up? Yeah, well, that's the thing. They didn't, he made their job so difficult by, you know, when this was all happening a year ago, we were all going, why won't he shut the fuck up? why won't he stop doing Twitter spaces? Why won't he fucking stop doing interviews?

He was high, dude. Truly. He was truly high. The thing with the hair is so funny. So, like, Sassoon, the prosecutor asked him if his hairstyle was because he thought it was beneficial that people thought he was crazy, which he seemed, you know, annoyed at the question. And he said, no. And then she showed the jury a New York Times article that had one of SBF's colleagues

recalling that SPF said, quote, I think it's important for people to think I'm crazy. Well, because part of the, at first, they, they talk about, or he talks about how he didn't want to be the face of FTX, but inevitably, the more press he was getting, and the more he, like, I remember he was on one of those Nas Daily videos where the guy goes, this guy is famous, he's a billionaire, and he, he, but you wouldn't expect that because he still drives at Honda Civic. And that was his whole thing is, hey, I wear a bag. pants and clothes and I have crazy hair and I still drive a civic despite being a billionaire and that was I think part of what became the allure

is that it is this altruistic company led by this altruistic billionaire eccentric and yeah which we all fucking took the bait for it was all so ridiculous like that's the thing they point out the effect of altruism which was all such bullshit he needed all this money

because for all the things he wanted to accomplish in the world like he needed an infinite amount of money and yeah he drives a Honda Civic meanwhile he spent $15 million on private planes sometimes to send Amazon packages to the Bahamas that rocks I mean man can you imagine at one point she asked him if he took a private plane to the Super Bowl he says he doesn't recall and she says you not remember that's it he fucking does and so she said is that because you fly on planes that often and everyone laughed and it's just like I don't know how you think that's going to like endear you to anyone or help you by being, like, the jury is going to hate you when you're like, I actually can't remember if I flew to the Super Bowl. To the Super Bowl.

Yeah. That puts you way, way head and shoulders above everyone on a pedestal of money. My favorite part was when he told Caroline Ellison to repay Alameda lenders, he said that he didn't know the funds would involve FTX money. when, like, of course he fucking knew. He knew. I mean, my favorite part is all of this stuff, honestly, because, yeah, he's just fumbling left and right. And as of now, the closing statements were made today, I think?

No, I believe they will be this week. And, yeah, this will be the last week of it. That's a fast trial, right? I don't know why I think the OJ trial. Well, there's going to be, it's also going to be a lot longer, but there's going to be other, because this is not going to be pertaining to the, election stuff and oh there's going to be multiple trials great so this one is just for what whether or not he did this is for all the fraud got it and yeah i mean i'm so excited it's it's

crazy i'm so curious what's going to happen uh but can you play the can you play the clip of so this is what just hit no thanks the um this was the interview that everyone that went viral like a year ago but which which clip specific is this just one clip? It says that the digital assets may not be loaned to FTCS trading. They can't be loaned out. There existed a borough lending facility on FTCS. And I think that's probably covered, I don't remember exactly where, but somewhere else in the terms of service. So he was saying that in the terms of service, it explicitly states that your funds may be used to be lent elsewhere.

so they didn't do anything wrong. Yeah. But she says that watching the, watching his testimony live, there was a lot of that. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm taking a moment to kind of. Yeah, so desperate for, I would do anything to see the fucking testimony. Just like. I can't. It's too hard for me to watch because he's such a, he's such an impotent nerd, you know?

Yeah. And I just, I can't watch. Even though he's like wrong, I, I, I just can't. It's too, it's cringy for me. And apparently, Judge Kaplan at one point just said, the defendant certainly has an interesting way of answering questions. Oh, boy. Oh, Babu.

Yeah. He's also, did you see the photo of the Chad version of him, the courtroom drawing of him? Yeah, well, apparently he looks way better because he got a- He got a haircut. He finally got a haircut. He didn't need people to think he was crazy anymore. Oh, boy. Oh, man.

Yeah, I can't deal with the mouth sounds. Yeah, it says the water bottle with which he was supplied Was one of those thin plastic pollen spring bottles Which audibly snapped and crinkled into the microphone As he clutched it to take drinks of water Sometimes mid-sentence He did this so often that I noticed He'd been provided a second bottle the following day

I mean, when you're on Adderall and you're just down in water You got to pee so often I'd be sitting there just having to pee And just nervous energy I'm pissing the whole time But yeah, there was a ton of awkward interactions. This one, people keep talking about where they ask about the spending of the FTCS customer funds. So at another point, the prosecutor had backed him into a corner around

Alameda Research's spending of FTX customer funds. So soon, so is it your understanding that under the payment agent agreement, Alameda was permitted to spend FTX customer deposits. And Bankman Freed says, I wouldn't phrase it that way, but I think that the answer to the question, I understand you to be trying to ask is yes. After pulling the agreement up in front of, of him, Sassoon instructed him to point out which line in the agreement he believed permitted such behavior after pausing for a moment or so to search the document for something he could offer reply. He finally broke the excruciating silence with the funniest thing he could have possibly said at that moment. So I should preface this by saying, I'm... Wait, wait, so this is SBFC. So I should

preface this by saying, I'm not a lawyer. His response ultimately took up an entire page of the transcript published after the fact. Once he was finally finished speaking, Sassoon simply repeated the question. His lawyer objected, arguing the topic had already been covered. Judge Kaplan overruled the objection agreeing with So soon that at no point in his long-winded reply had he actually addressed the question that had been posed to him. Okay. So holy shit, there was a lot there. So basically the prosecution said... She asks him like point blank. Where in the agreement does it say that Alameda... You were permitted to do this with the customer funds. And he takes a long gander at the agreement and then he says,

page long... I think that the answer to the question I understand you to be trying to ask is yes, we are allowed to do that. Jesus. I love that after he just rambled and rambled, the prosecutor just asked the question again. Right. Like, answer the question I'm trying to ask.

She's young, too, right? The prosecutor? Yeah, I will say. We're talking about these people, the judge and the prosecutor as if... They're old? No. As if they're like the good guys in this like I will say judge Kaplan is a piece of shit and like I'm pretty sure he was involved in the um Steve Donsinger case which like we're not going to get into but uh and then I don't know a bunch about Danielle Sassoon I'm pretty

sure she was like a law clerk for Antonin Scalia that's right she attributes her her her skillset to working for Antonin Scalia yeah and is a heritage foundation affiliated lawyer so know, it's all very, and I mean, that has nothing to do with her capability as in China. She seems to be very adept at making SPF squirm, and it's very funny. I mean, to be fair, I'm sure anybody, you know, a wet paper bag could make SBF squirm. I mean, he's, he's given them so much material, and it seems like she's prepared by watching all of his interviews. He's giving, he's giving her so much material, and he's giving nerd. Exactly.

Cunt nerd. He's giving cunt nerd. Yeah. He is giving cunt nerd. He's serving it up on a platter. And she's just lapping it up. I just love Judge Kaplan overruled the objection, agreeing with Sasson, that at no point in his long-witted reply that had he actually addressed the question that had been posted. Billy Madison.

Fully. When I was reading it, I was like, this is the, and we are all dumber for having to listen to it. It's really beautiful. If I have football rules. So, hmm. Well, I guess we're all eagerly away. I think that the jury's absolutely going to find him guilty. We're all eagerly awaiting the conclusion of this insane trial.

Basically, it sounds to me like he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he was hoping that he'd be able to buy himself enough time to fix what was broken and continue going on as legitimate business. Right. And then when he got caught, he just kind of was pleaded this sort of vague ignorance about, well, it's open to interpretation the way that the, In terms of service are structured and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And also these people who I entrusted to do things right, you know,

took it upon themselves to do wrong things, too. Even though my instructions to them were to do a certain thing, they kind of took the initiative and broke the law themselves. I mean, I'm also very curious what's going to happen with all these other, these underlings who made a deal, Caroline Ellison, Gary Wong, Nishad Singh, all these people going, I didn't know. Yeah. I tried.

And I figured if I left, I would make it worse. They need my help. Nishad Singh sounds like a tennis player, doesn't he? Sounds like a tennis player or a golf player. I think I'm thinking to Vijay Singh, who's a golf player. I think he solved it on that one. Yeah, I think we solved that. Well, that about does it there.

Let's switch gears, huh? Can you switch gears? You got to hit the clutch, man. For the audio listener, he's just ruining the fucking transmission here. It's not me. It's the clutch. Much is sticky as hell. Jesus Christ. Well, Stalantis, the car company formerly known as Chrysler, Stalantus, and Ford have reached tentative deals with...

GM as well. GM as well. They were the last holdout. They were the last holdout. With the UAW... It's also general motors. Yeah, I know. What did I say?

Good motors? Yeah. I know. I'm joking. Do you know what Fiat stands for? Hmm. Is this a trick question? French?

is that right no it's an italian brand okay fiat but what is it uh so it's an acronym f a it just let me fucking do the punchline oh man okay what does fiat stand for fix it again tony okay tony like an italian guy yeah that's a okay let us know in the comments i feel about that joke um the jury's out on that one i think that yeah uh i i i i i yeah i i you know that i i you know That reminds me of the whole GM Chevy Ford. Well, right, there's a lot of them.

Fix or repair daily. Yeah. I never know which one's the good one. I just like, I think Toyota rules them all. Because you have one car to rule them all. Yeah, but Toyota's just truly.

Previously, you would have been like Volvo's the best car. No, no, no. I don't. I think old Volvos are good. But even then now, I like them because they're simple to fix

and parts are readily available, but that's kind of changing. Toyotas are famously one of the best brands and Honda, basically any Japanese. It's Japanese, man. They know what they're doing. They can commit an atrocity, and they can, a war atrocity,

and they can build a car. And they know how to cook a fish. And sometimes not cook the fish. By the way, last night, I got some DoorDash. The person left the thing. Some guys just screaming. Talk about the UAW.

We will. We'll get to it. Chill out. They left my sushi outside my gate on the sidewalk, and it got stolen within two minutes. Good. Not good. Why?

How hungry. That means some guy got fed. I was playing Scrabble and I got hungry. And I couldn't. I played for three hours last night, man. Isn't that insane? Scrabble? I felt like I was high on Adderall again.

I felt like the old college shit. I get really pissed because... Because you suck at it? Just if you didn't like grow up playing, it's just impover. You got to learn that your two-letter combination. I just played and I was like, this is stupid. I don't know these fucking words. And I'm like challenging.

because they put E-N or whatever, and I'm going, N, that's not a fucking word. And then we look up in the Scrabble dictionary, and it's like the phonetic spelling of the letter N. And I'm like, what? Yeah. What are you fucking talking about?

Yeah. Well, that sounds like a you problem, dude. You've got to study up on those two-letter words. That's ridiculous. Careful who you challenge. I'm doing, make a new Scrabble where whoever puts the coolest words on. Yeah. All right.

Well, so anyway, UAW, they reached an end of this, six week long strike. It still is pending ratification. The members have to vote on it. Yeah, the members have to vote on it. But let's see, we've got some highlights here. So with Stalantis, the UAW is, they've saved 5,000 jobs and they got a commitment to, so 5,000 jobs we're going to get canned. But so now those five jobs are getting saved and Stalantis is giving a commitment to add 5,000 more jobs by April 28th

by building a mid-sized truck at a recently closed factory in Belvedere, Illinois, and adding a thousand new jobs at a battery plant there as well. There are more details that aren't fully known yet. Right, the whole thing is not public, but there are some huge wins here. They got an immediate 11% raise, and additional raises totaling 25% in four and a half years, which includes... Right, so over the life, like 25% over four and a half years, as well as cost of living adjustments, which is huge.

So with the cost of living adjustments, the top wage is estimated to rise over $42 an hour by 2028. Good for them. It also eliminates the despised two-tiered wage scale for newer hires, provides permanent jobs for temp workers, and boosts retirement income, including 401K contributions, provides a path for workers at electric vehicle battery plants

to earn the same high wages under the national bargain agreement that other UAW members earn. So that was a big one, too. they were trying to um trying to like silo people at their new battery plants like oh well this is a whole different thing they're not going to fall under this agreement and they they were like nope those are still going to be a part of it um they won the right to strike if another plant closes which was a previous uh there was a previous no strike clause that if a plant closes they can't strike but now they can um but yeah i mean pretty huge the top uaW wage would would rise to over

$40 over the life of the new contracts from $32 an hour that would allow them employees working 40 hours a week to earn about $84,000 a year. What was interesting to me is that the cost of living adjustment, also known as the cola, which I like. You like that, huh? I like that. As a cola made yourself. I love a good acronym.

I love it, cola, love Diet Coke. When it was, it was given up, the cost of living adjustment was given up in the contract when Chrysler was in dire straits. In 2009. Yes. Because they were on the brink of bankruptcy. But now, obviously, since these car companies are posting insane profits, they were able to negotiate to bring that back in and whoa spooky got the mail guys just

scaring the shit out of me up in the mail in the box for the audio listener oh my god i just pete a little bit i didn't really but also so they they also got promises of new products for these two other plants that were facing a possible closure in michigan and ohio um they were an engine plant and a machining plant that makes parts for transmissions and the reason that they we're going to be closed is why electric vehicles electric vehicles and the electric vehicles man those are uh well real fast before we get into that well yeah i don't want to jump there that quickly so as you're talking about the 2009 thing like the so a lot of people are framing this as uh you know the united auto workers like bullied the which and even if that's a fucking good

the sean fein this whole thing has been so great to watch um Ford it seemed like was always going to be the first one to go. They have a better relationship with the UAW. And then Stalantis followed, and GM was a bit of a holdout. And so they were basically like, okay, fuck it. And they struck another

plant, and they were like, okay, Jesus Christ, this is fucking... Because they're losing, they're hemorrhaging money with these strikes. Yeah, so much money. Hold on. I'm trying to find the, how much it cost them. Believe it was one... I saw 600 million getting tossed around. I saw a hundred million getting tossed around.

It just depends on which plant you're talking about and which company. But it's in the tens, if not hundreds of millions. Right. It's crazy. But, yeah, so the way they talk about this can be very frustrating when they frame this in the, you know, what's this going to mean for the carmakers, which is so odd. There's a big New York Times article about it. And so they said, you know, GM and United, the UAW reached deal that mirrored agreements,

the union had reached in recent days with Ford. The strike stretched longer than the White House officials would have liked. Who gives it? The White House can suck my dick. He said it. You can just tuck me off. I don't know anything to get sucked. I don't give a fuck what the White House officials would have liked.

And they like quote Carl Brower from I.C. Cars. The near-term impact of the strike will be relatively minor. But Mr. Brower warned that in the long term, Ford GM and Stalantis would have to have to raise car prices to maintain their profits. Their competitors will follow suit to take advantage of the opportunity to earn more money. This is going to make cars more expensive. And I don't think that's true. That might be true for electric vehicles, but not for internal combustion engine vehicles. But it's tricky because they're getting more and more pressure from the government to move entirely to electric vehicles per the government mandates. Yeah, but they also said they could absorb these costs elsewhere

and they don't have to raise the price. It's very reminiscent. of like the whole inflation debate where what it really came down to was a lot of companies raising prices because they could and then you know just trotting out the trotting out fucking j pal to be like the consumer needs to stop spending so god damn much you're ruining you're ruining everything um but yeah they talk they also talk about how uh this is going to affect other things so mr fain has portrayed the tentative agreements as a signal for the union to begin organizing drives at Tesla, which dominates the fast-running electric car business

and foreign-owned companies like Toyota, Honda, and BNW that have large non-union operations in the United States. The union will organize like we've never organized before, Mr. Fane said Sunday. They're getting, they're high on their own power, and they're high and they're... They should be fucking, I mean, they're showing them, like, look, we'll be able to hit you where it hurts

if you don't want to comply with this stuff. And they said companies without unions can expect the UAW to deploy the same hardball talk. tactics that Mr. Fain used against Ford, GM, and Stalantist, including rhetorical attacks on multi-million dollar executive pay and hourly wages that have failed to keep pace with high inflation. If they successfully get Tesla unionized, man, is that going to fuck Tesla so hard? Because they're already, I mean, with the cyber truck already, admittedly not going

profitable for the next couple years, at least, them going nut-nut. I hope it makes Elon's head explode. Or is Dick explode? I'm sure he's a little bit nervous. And that's, you know, they also point out that, like, even if, even if their next efforts are unsuccessful, right? Even if they're not able to unionize these places or strike for better pay, it could lead to just preemptive pay raises for employees because people are like, okay, let's try to make these people happy. Yeah. So we don't have a UAW situation on our hands.

Yeah, maybe you give someone a little bit of a raise and it might even be less than what they would demand if they struck. Striked. Strike or struck? Striked? Struck. Strike. Fuck. Should we talk about the EVs? Sure. So we got Ford saying that they're going to postpone.

Basically, EVs are proving to be not as successful in terms of customer demand as previously thought. Ford is saying that they're going to postpone about $12 billion in electric vehicle investment as buyers become more cautious. They're learning that people are less willing to pay for EVs because, because they're way the fuck more expensive. They lost about $3.1 billion so far just this year on EVs, and they're not alone. They are, everybody's losing money. GM, Stalantis, they're all losing money, and they're all saying that they are still going to invest in electric vehicle productions. Just they're going to slow down.

They're going to pull back a little bit. Right. That's the main thing. They're like emphasizing we're not cutting back. We're reassessing the pace at which we're doing. Right. So this is CFO John Lawler. We're not moving away from our second generation EV products.

We are, though, looking at the pace of capacity that we're putting in place. We're going to push out some of that investment. And there were a couple interesting things just this week. Again, just dogpiling on Tesla. You had Panasonic, who is the battery maker. They cut their domestic battery production, and they cited specifically Tesla demand weakness. Then you also had, I think it's O.N or on. Oh, the running shoe company.

No, good, good guess, but no, semiconductors. They just reported a guidance miss. So basically whenever a company reports their earnings, they also guide for the next quarter. And they issued guidance lower than previously expected. And so what they do is they sell silicon carbide chips, silicon carbide chips to electric vehicle makers of whom have over 50% share. You're telling me a silicon carbide this chip?

Let us know in the comments. That's really good, dude. That's really good. That's really good. That's really good. They sell silicon carbide chips to electric vehicle makers. I believe they sell to four of the five top EV manufacturers, most of whom are in China. But they noted an increased risk to automotive demand due to high interest rates.

So you got this, all these confluent events? Sure. Panasonic lowering their guidance due to lower demand. The Ford is saying that the prices are too high and that people aren't wanting it. And then O.N. Semiconductor reporting a miss and saying that, hey, we're just seeing less demand. So it's all like, hey, maybe the air is starting to come out of these Tesla tires, so to speak. And I've been harping on it.

But also, real fast, there was a Trump administration economist, Steve Moore, who had some commentary to Fox business. So I take this with a grain of salt because he's from the Trump administration, so he's naturally going to be shitting on anything clean energy. But he said that the entire electric vehicle experiment has been an utter failure, as we're starting to see, and that it's just been a bad idea. And he said he was speaking to dealers around the country who've told them that their lots are full of EVs, despite the government throwing money at people to buy them with subsidized.

things and tax credits. Yeah, but that's where I like, sorry, keep going. Well, I just, he does say companies would best pursue hybrids, but the government is pushing for EVs. I personally would fuck with a hybrid before I fuck with fully electric.

I would love a hybrid, but they are also more expensive. More expensive than an EV? No, more expensive than a just regular standard internal combustion engine. How do you say it, by the way? Hybrid? What did I say?

No, say it. Hybrid? Good. I, people, some people say hybrid. I was so nervous when, you made me said, I was like, please, I don't, I don't want any more ridicule on the internet. We both get ridicule. We both, fuck.

We both say shit wrong. You say silicon wrong. I say shit wrong all the time. Yeah. But the, that's the thing. Like, I don't think it has as much to do with demand as like, it's a pretty simple. When you're going to buy a car and they're just like, well, do you want this way more expensive version that's electric? And you're like, yeah, it looks sick.

It's fucking sleek, and I plug it in my house. And I'm like, great, it's 10 grand more. You're like, well, that's a lot of fucking money. That's a lot of fucking money. And then they're like, but at the end of the year, when you do your taxes, we'll give you $7,500 bucks back. And it's like, well, I don't. It's not everyone.

Remember the Meet Kevin commercial where the Ravre 4 is not eligible for some dumb fuck reason? Because it's not made here. Yeah, because it's not American. But even if you're eligible for everything and you're going to get your $7,500 or whatever, whatever credit you get. It's like how many people are like, oh, easy. I'll just wait for my $7,500. Who, like, the average consumer is not like, yeah, I don't need this. Most people are like, no, I do need this money. But then there's also the people like me who live in an apartment

where I don't have the outlet, I don't have the power capacity to set that up. Sure. Also, I love my fucking truck, man. Also, I don't, I don't think I'm ever going to buy a brand new car. It still blows my mind how they sell millions of cars a year. So that many people are just cycling through cars. How do we not just have cars piled up everywhere? Honestly, you brought it up and I think about it all the time now. Right? How are there, how are we not, how are we not just?

I never thought about it before. And then when you said it, it's like every time I see one of those fucking trucks with all the cars on it, I'm like, ooh, is, how? Yeah. It's like proof that we live in a simulation. Because if each car company is selling millions of cars a year, there should be they should just be piled up in a corner

because there's so fucking many of them yeah it drives me nuts who's it nuts me driveal dude it nuts me driveal fuck but yeah I wanted the fuck I wanted the Subaru I wanted the hybrid but it was way more expensive how much more expensive

it was probably about 10,000 more dollars which is crazy I still get driven nuts by the and your car has it but there is an off switch for it the turning off when you turning off thing where you stop and it turns off the engine and then if you start to go it turns it on it's just i can't imagine that that's good for the spark plugs if the spark

no it's fine i've looked into it really i believed you folks i believed him he looked at me he winked at me and i believed him typical typical man he's out here just worrying about spark plugs i'm worried about spark plugs because you know you're you're they're rated for only so many starts before they start to wear out i imagine they would have uh accounted for that or it's just a ploy to get you to buy an electric vehicle no no to eventually the spark you're going to have to buy more spark plugs and they're going to sell a million cars yeah millions of cars i'm not going to google i'm i can't be bothered to google like how do we not run out of space for cars or like you know along the lines of the chicken conversation we had weeks ago how do we not run out of chickens it's like the opposite problem cars all the way

know well speaking of cars that crews just got banned they're they got their well not banned they got their driverless car permit suspended in california by the dmv which rocks it does rock actually you know st francisco seems like a bit of a fucking nightmare really no shit what's been going on there i mean that's it's just like this you know this breeding ground for experiments run on its population. You know, this was from market watch. It's a case of technology, of a technology company moving too fast and breaking things, which is every single one of them.

But this time, the detriment of the industry and, but this time to the detriment of the industry and consumers, Cruz miscalculated by trying to roll out its technology before it's ready for prime time, especially in the highly regulated world of auto safety. And it sounds so scary. Earlier this week, the company got punished by the California DMV for failing to give complete video of an accident earlier this month involving both a human driver and a cruise vehicle that sent a pedestrian to the hospital

with life-threatening injuries after the cruise car trapped her. A cruise broker person said the company gave the DMV and other regulators to the full video and reached out proactively. Trapped her? Yeah. Pinned her somewhere? Yeah.

Under her because it says... She was under it. What? She was under the car, you mean. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And because, so they used to do it With the, they used to have cruise vehicles all over the place and it would have the human driver in. Yeah.

Or not the human driver. The human. Fail safe. Right. Yeah. And they said, you know, had the human been in there, it would have known that another human was stuck under the car. And they could move it. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And then you see the, the traffic jam. You remember the traffic jam that was created where they're just all these dumb little dipshit cars just going, I don't know where I go. And the other one's going, I don't know me either. It's just, fuck you. the DMV specifically said, it cited four reasons. The department determines the manufacturer's vehicles are not safe for the public's operation. The manufacturer has misrepresented any information related to the safety of the autonomous technology of its vehicles.

Ooh, that's a big one. And any act or omission of the manufacturer, which the department finds makes the conduct of autonomous vehicle testing on public roads by the manufacturer. an unreasonable risk to the public fully fucking yeah of course it is an unreasonable like that's that's kind of the conundrum i see these companies face because on paper yeah driverless vehicles in a utopian society that that'd be pie in the sky man but you can't make that happen i just don't know they're just so far they're so far behind from where they say they are but uh i'm looking up they love to lie i'm looking up the actual news story of the woman getting trapped under the car.

It's like that Rihanna song. I love the way you lie. All these VC nerds looking at Tesla and shit, they're hypnotized Rihanna style. San Francisco. A woman is seriously injured after being struck by a human driver that launched her in front of a cruise autonomous car in San Francisco Monday night, the Robo Taxi Company said. Oh, so someone hit her and her body got tossed and then a cruise ran her over. After being struck by a human driver that launched her in front of a cruise autonomous car.

I guess their practice runs didn't account for that. What if a human body gets launched at your freaking car? So police say at 9.31 p.m., officers responded to 5th and Market Streets and discovered a female pedestrian trapped under a cruise vehicle. San Francisco Fire Department says they had to use the jaws of life to lift the car off the woman who was trapped underneath. Jaws of Life would be a great name for it. He's doing real Austin Powers. I fell over and...

Over. Jesus. Chaws of life would be a great name for a dentist office. No, I actually wouldn't. I don't think so. Can I take that back? We can cut that. Well, yeah, there's not, I'm trying to figure out what the fuck happened.

It sounds like she got hit and, like, got tossed under, and the stupid cruise car probably was like... Okay, the impact of the crash was so severe. The victim was thrown into the way of the cruise vehicle before she was run over. Jesus Christ. Crews officials said their vehicle operated as designed and started breaking moments before impact. We ran that woman over just as we designed it too.

Yeah, but then the vehicle was probably instructed to like, okay, you've been in an accident. Stop. Stop. Lower onto the woman, trap her. That's, but that is something that now the nerds have to account for. Well, pedestrians can get stuck under the car. And normally you'd have to like, I don't know,

would you move in, I don't know. fucking, no, Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah, yeah, they should put springs under it. Make it kangaroo style. It could just bounce off. It could just launch itself off and splat onto another person. The way they talk about this, too, it's like, yeah, it's obviously not ready. Part of the doing an automated driving system is the detection, having to use the sensors to detect what's around you,

predicting what's all the other road users are going to do in the next several seconds, which is basically impossible. Engineers try to plan for every possible scenario, even ones that involve collision. with pedestrians. There's literally an infinite number of potential scenarios that could occur. This is certainly one of those. Yeah. What's the name of that company that operates here in L.A. Where you see them all the time now?

Waymo, yeah. I believe that's Google's. Yeah, that's Google. Yeah. I'm curious. I'd like to ride in one. Do they have a human? I want to sabotage it and then sue them.

Seriously, we should create, we should brainstorm and think of a scenario that the engineers have not yet thought of. Oh, I've got one. You let a car hit you and launch you in front of the driverless car. No, no, no, no, that's already been done. See, that's already been done. Oh, now they account for that. Let's, uh, what if I, what if I were to, um, have some kind of, um, medical emergency,

but since there's no human to communicate that I need to go to the hospital, I piss and shit myself or something. And I go, like, I've suffered pain and suffering. I've got this pain and suffering. I can't wait until, uh, you just get, stuck with a cleaning bill from Waymo. Or, or I roll down the window and I stick my head out because I'm, I'm going dog mode and I'm like, ooh, I'm having so much fun.

There's no human driver to tell me that that's not, I'm going to plead. And you hear your head knocked off by that. I'm going to plead ignorance, SBF style, and go, I didn't know that I wasn't, and then I balked my head and I get hurt. I don't want to lose my head, brother. You probably look. Remember that woman on a bachelor at party? Oh, I'm thinking of the movie, September 11th, midsummer.

no the other one by that guy that freak hereditary hereditary yeah yeah man oh man no the bachelor party she's sticking her head out the limousine window yeah australian screaming having a time of her life it's always an australian i don't know if it was Head knocked clean off by a bridge Damn, dude By a Brit? A British person? Oh, a bridge, a bridge. Got it. A bridge's person.

A bridgeish. Bridges. Bridges Jones's diary. No, I can't go there. No, don't worry. We're not going there. Why can't you go there? Because it's just too much.

Bridges Jones's diary? Bridges Jones's diarrhea. No, but really, though, we should think of something where we can get ourselves in a situation where Google is there than liable. There is a situation. Maybe I put on my seatbelt wrong because I actually don't know how to put on a seatbelt. And if there were a human driver there to help me, I wouldn't have cut off the circulation to my neck or whatever body part. The problem is to really get a lot of money, you've got to really get hurt.

That's true. That's true. What if I try to get out of the car while it's moving? straight up plain and simple Oh I thought that the car was stopped I have a friend The driver didn't tell me there's no driver There should be a voice that says

Car is stopped get out I have a friend Why don't you brag about it I just did He was in the car with his father A truck jackknifed sliding towards them Obviously his

You know reaction is to Brace yourself Put his hands up like this and he was mostly fine but his arm got all fucked up here his dad or him his dad was fine his dad ducked smart

but yeah so his right arm is now a truck yeah it's a bit of a spider man situation when you get injured by a truck you turn into a truck

when he goes like this to shoot his web it's just a horn it's just honks but like a lot of of the muscles and nerves are just kind of gone but

huge payout yeah and it kind of just you always go God would I trade my right arm for yeah

tens of millions of dollars yeah that's what that's what I think whenever I'm on my scooter and I I well not whenever I'm on it but you know you hear the

sweet James who's an accident attorney here in Los Angeles oh I was in a motorcycle accident and sweet James got me million dollars i'm like all right but what did that really cost you like your dick or your knee or

something right exactly so i don't know i i'd i'd want to be a pioneer though for sure like a footnote in wikipedia history like the woman the mcdonald's lady who spilled hot coffee who got a really bad rap by the public she did yeah she it was like oh you stupid bitch didn't you know that coffee's hot and like no it was truly way too hot she scalded herself there's a difference between going, ooh, I burned myself and spilling it and giving yourself third-degree burns and having nerve damage. And they were able to come to the conclusion that McDonald's was keeping the coffee at such an unreasonably hot temperature. It's like that they were like, the liquid should never be this hot. Yeah, it doesn't need to be that.

Just molten lava. They're putting in styrofoam cups. Certain hotels and shit, you go and you turn on the hot water and it's like, what are you trying to do? What germ do you think needs to be killed? there's no way you should be running your water heaters this high, folks. I have a theory that my landlord's doing something to my water heater. Really? Why?

We had a bit of a contentious thing with the water heater. It's the whole thing. He was pissed he had to replace it. But now all of a sudden, any time someone is here to do something, I go to take a shower, and it's so fucking hot. And then I look at the thing that's turned up. I'm like, who's doing this? Interesting. You look at the thing.

You mean you look at the water heater? The water heater. I see what temperature's at. Oh, man. Trying to burn my skin off. Maybe you should be, maybe you should think about that before you, you should think about that, man. Well, I guess that probably just about does it, folks. Again, a reminder, subscribe and watch us and all that shit.

And patreon.com slash paypigspod, because we're going to be going nut nut in that. Also, remember to comment on, I can't remember all of them there. But there was a few jokes we're going to need to know. Yeah, we're going to need to know. if you guys liked them or not. All you need to know, KNX-1070 News Radio. Thank you, Dylan.

Okay, we'll see you in the bonus. See in the bonus.