The Best One Yet - 💔 “Bro-vorce” — Elon’s money vs Trump’s power. Hot Wheel’s social surge. Reddit’s upvote power.

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

From power couple to cat fight, we now have Elon’s riches vs. Trump’s power… so we predict who wins.Hot Wheels is surging on Insta, YouTube, and TikTok… with a different strategy for each.Reddit’s huge AI lawsuit reveals its most powerful feature… the Upvote.Plus, JNCO Jeans? DVDs? Lil Wayne?... The hot new Gen Z trend is MillennialCore.$RDDT $MAT $TSLAWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Tommy Bahama’s Beach Chair 🏖️Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.TBOY Live Show Tickets to Chicago on sale NOW: https://www.axs.com/events/949346/the-best-one-yet-podcast-ticketsAbout Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, TBOY Lite is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts NEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Our 2nd show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. Welcome back. It is Monday, June 9th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Well, look you here. The S&P 500 hit 6,000 points for the first time since February. Not too shabby. We are now just 2% below the all-time highs for the stock market. Hope you're enjoying your summer Mondays, which, by the way, that's a real thing. What's a summer Monday? Is that like permission to show up late? It's a story for another pod. We'll get into it next week, Jack. Three stories for today's show. What do we got in the T-Boy? For our first story, Elon versus Donald. The big bro-vorse was the talk of the week and the talk of the weekend. So Jack and I figured out the equation for who will win.

Elon's money or Trump's power. For our second story, the hottest company on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube right now is Hot Wheels. Yeah, Hot Wheels toy cars, that Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels has the most sophisticated, social media strategy of any brand right now. Any of them, we check them all. And our third and final story is Reddit. Reddit stock popped after it dropped the biggest AI lawsuit of the year. Because Reddit controls the most powerful feature in the age of AI. The up though. But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories. Love the mix to kick off the week, Jack.

We have great news for anyone born between 1981 and 1996. Congratulations. You're officially cool again. Finally, Gen Z doesn't hate millennials. In fact, apparently Gen Z is obsessed with us. And we got the data on it, don't we, Jack? According to the New York Times, the hottest trend in every industry among people under 30 is millennial core. Yeah, basically, Y2K Core, from music to tech, fashion, a facial hair. If it was hot in the 90s and 2000s, it is hot again, baby. Exhibit A.

Pokemon card values are up 240% in the last five years. Sex in the City is the number one thing on HBO. right now. In tech, wired headphones just had their best-selling year since 2015. I can't believe I'm saying this, but DVD sales are resurging. They hit $2 billion last year. That's just ridiculous. Doesn't make sense. I don't know why anyone would buy a DVD. I find them looking offensive, Jack. Over in the fashion aisle, for women, big hair accessories are back, like the butterfly clip that Buffy the Vampire Slayer always wore. And for men, the tiny mustache is back. Timothy Chalameh looks like he copied prints. Do you remember Jinko jeans, Nick? The baggy

jeans humanity ever. I wouldn't touch him because I probably drowned. There's like a 50 inch circumference on the leg opening for Jinkos. Well, get this, Jack. Jinkgo jeans now sell for a thousand bucks on eBay, and Justin Bieber just bought himself a pair. By the grace of Lainey Gaga, millennial core is a thing right now.

Jack, maybe a good time to buy some shares of Under Armour. As long as you feed my Tomagachi neck, I'll get you some shares too. Let's hit our three stories. 15 years before this song, Two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm They had an idea that caused a cultural storm It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm

Jack. 50% That's a fat tip. Tea boy city on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, the Silicon Valley White House divorce

between Donald Trump and Elon Musk was made for reality TV. It is real housewives of Mar-a-Lago. But the consequences of this huge split-up are huge on both Wall Street and business. I love at-real Donald Trump as much as a straight man can love another man. That was a tweet from just four months ago from Elon Musk. Ironically now, during Pride Month, they're divorced. That's right. This has become a brovoris. We're talking Maga v. Mars' biggest man split since Drake versus Kendrick. Our thought, after Elon failed to win that random Wisconsin election,

he felt like he had lost the attention of the American public. He noticed that tweets in opposition to Trump got him back in the spotlight, and he couldn't resist the dopamine hit of dropping a few of his own. So he didn't drop just a few. He dropped like a hundred tweets opposing Donald Trump and his politics. And now, Basties, we can only speculate as to why Elon pulled a full 180 on his love for Donald Trump. Maybe he's really just that opposed to government spending. Yeah, I mean, Elon's Doge's goal was to put.

cut government spending and Trump's latest bill massively increases government spending while cutting taxes and blowing up the deficit. So Elon hit Trump where he's most vulnerable, his ego. He said that Trump was in the Epstein files, which is why he hasn't released him. And then Trump hit Elon where he's vulnerable. He said he's going to cut all government contracts for Elon's companies. The result was a play-by-play few days like a Regina George episode of Gilmore Girls. Politically, this is a tectonic shift. But we're going to break down the business. angles. So Yetis, when you check out the numbers, there are huge potential consequences to Elon's companies, the stock market, and entire industries. Let's start with Tesla. The most important regulation for Tesla isn't the EV incentives we've had for decades now. We think it's the

self-driving regulations. That's right. For Tesla to keep its $1 trillion valuation jack, it needs the government to allow autonomous driving. But last week, Tesla stock fell 14% in one day. Yeah, I lost 150 billion bucks in value because Trump could deny all of that. He could stymie Tesla's self-driving plans starting in Austin this month. So that's Tesla, Jack. How about we turn over to SpaceX? Because SpaceX, this one's a little bit tricky. Yes, SpaceX depends on the U.S. government for a bunch of contracts,

but the government depends on SpaceX for rocket launches. It turns out SpaceX has an estimated $3 billion of government contracts at stake. But no SpaceX, no U.S. space program. So they kind of balance out a bit. Like, we don't think SpaceX is actually going to suffer much, even if Trump is as vindictive as he could be. All right. Let's move on to Twitter. Trump doesn't really need Twitter anymore. He uses TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, plus his own social platform, truth, to get his word out. That was kind of the funny part about this whole catfight. Elon was tweeting on X, and then Trump was posting on truth, two different places. The social media platforms were almost

like the lawyers representing the two in the divorce. You know how the divorcing party don't actually talk to each other? They never talk. They never talk. Yeah. But it would be interesting, Jack, if Elon flips his algorithm from promoting pro-Trump content to anti-Trump content. But then you got to remember number four here. Twitter is actually owned by Elon's AI company these days. X-A-I. Good point, Jack. X-A-I acquired Twitter, which is now known as X. And X-A-I could actually be the biggest loser of all of Elon's companies from this breakup because AI as an industry has huge regulatory exposure. I mean, Jack, I don't want to turn this into a love triangle,

but Trump already seems to prefer Sam Altman and open AI as the preferred White House AI company. And the only person Elon hates more than Trump right now might be Sam Altman, actually. Jack, this is not what Gwyneth envisioned when she described conscious uncoupling. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies watching all of this?

It's the world's richest person versus the world's most powerful person, and both lose. Yet he's everyone always asks, who wins? Well, that's an unanswerable question. In fact, we think it might be the wrong question. We think both men lose from this breakup. The question is who loses more?

Let's break it down. Trump loses politically because tech bro voters, they took their lead from Elon Musk. And many could take their lead from Elon Musk again. Abandon Trump, and they could lose the midterms. On the other side, Elon loses financially. On Thursday alone, his net worth lost $20 billion just from his Tesla holdings. Every CEO is desperate to be on Trump's good side, but Elon just voluntarily moved to his bad side.

Yeah, Bill Ackman, who's, you know, kind of in joint custody here, he's the conservative hedge fund manager who called it correctly on Twitter. Trump and Musk are much stronger together than a part. Sebasties add it all up, and when it's the richest person versus the most powerful person, both lose. For our second story, Mattel's Hot Wheels is the brand social media account of the year with a different story. strategy for each and every platform. Because you don't need a social media person. You need a social media department. And that department deserves raise. But first, Yetis, you're either Duncan or your Starbucks, your McDonald's, or your Burger King. Your Hot Wheels or your Matchbox. By the way, yeah. I'm actually Duncan and Starbucks. Depends where I am. You're regionally indiscriminate,

and that's offensive to a lot of people, Jack. Well, as a Hot Wheels guy, I'm not buying that matchbox, Jack. Hot Wheels cars are actually Mattel's steadiest business. Hot Wheels sales jumped 5% last quarter for Mattel, making up $270 million of revenue. Get this, Hot Wheels are now 33% of Mattel's business. They sell 23 Hot Wheels cars every second, which adds up to 700 million cars per year. Yeah, and one out of three of them are sold to me. I mean, to adults.

I mean to me. And Nick, 93 million new cars are sold every year, which means the toy company Mattel makes eight times more cars than the rest of the car industry. I think what you're saying, Jack, is that Mattel is now the biggest tire maker in the world because of Hot Wheels. That is absolutely true. And perfect timing, Jack, because after the success of the Barbie movie, Mattel has now officially launched a movie studio.

They're planning 19 films. Basically, a movie for every toy franchise in their portfolio. And the next one, Hot Wheels, plus a bunch of TV shows focused on Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels, it's already a show on Netflix. Well, who doesn't have a show on Netflix right now, Jack? Well, we don't. Yes. We'd love to. Yeah. But here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. The hottest part of Hot Wheels right now isn't the financials. It's the social media game. Because in just one year, Hot Wheels added 550,000 new followers on TikTok and Instagram. Plus a million more on YouTube. Besties, this company is 60 years old, but they just

hit their social media growth spurt, baby. On TikTok, HotWing. Hot Wheels has just two types of posts that they make. They do Hot Wheels made into real cars, and then real cars made into Hot Wheels. That's it. Yeah, that's it. So they'll show like a real race car on the street, and then they'll show the toy version of that race car and vice versa. 30 second videos.

Jack, it's like if you're a Red Volkswagen that you drove across the country in, got turned into a Hot Wheel. Like, what if Rosie became a Hot Wheel? It's a satisfying video. I followed that TikTok page. Okay, but this is the wild twist. Hot Wheels' YouTube page is totally different content. There, you'll find five-minute mini-documentaries, basically, each having one million views on average.

How a Hot Wheels gets made, how we design the wheels, how we craft the colors, how we do the chassis. How does the Hot Wheels get made? They say it's die cast. I don't know what the heck that means. And yet somehow, we'll pay a premium for that. But, Jack, here's another plot twist. Over on Instagram, they've got a third type of content that's totally different from the other two. On Instagram, they exclusively show Influeners Hot Wheel Collections.

We're talking one-minute videos of influencers showing off their favorite Hot Wheels. Get ready with me and my Hot Wheels. Come with me while I get a double-digit latte with my favorite Hot Wheels. And the results have been fantastic. In the past 12 months, Hot Wheels beat their internal goals by 88% in the social media category. According to the future social newsletter. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Hot Wheels? You don't need a social media person.

You need a social media department. And they need a budget. Yeah, it is. We're going to say something here that needs to be said. Social media professionals, they're underappreciated. Why are they underappreciated? Because they're completely misunderstood. You see most executives see social media as one big alternative marketing space.

But it's actually a half dozen different marketing spaces. And each is probably more important than the primary space that the executives used to. Just like television is different from movies, TikTok is different from Instagram. Just like musicals are different from concerts, YouTube shorts are different from Snapchat. People outside the social media team see social media as one amorphous place, and they assume the same content just simply gets posted everywhere. But the reality is you need different strategies for different platforms, and often with different content. Hot Wheels has surged across their three social media platforms proves it.

They have totally different content for TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Sebastis, you don't need a social media person. You need a social media department. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, last week, Reddit sued Anthropic. It's the biggest AI lawsuit of the year. Because Reddit is a farms dealer. Yes.

And it actually has the sweetest fruit on the entire internet. Oh, Yeti's Reddit. They got some of the most authentic human conversation on the whole worldwide web, baby. My favorite subreddit's made in USA? frugal men's fashion, and buy it for life. That's right. You're heard of here first. The way to Jack's heart is buying him a cheap waterproof sweatshirt designed in Arizona. Nick, if that product actually exists, I certainly would buy that.

Would I get you anything else, Jack? It is in each of Jack's favorite subreddits. You would find real people with no ulterior motive, sharing real opinions on real useful topics. Emphasis on the word real, okay? Because we're in the world of artificial intelligence. So real is Reddit's differentiator. And real human intelligence, it happens to be the most critical of materials for artificial intelligence. Which is why the Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman, is not happy right now.

That's right, because without permission, AI companies have an eat-in-up Reddit's content to train their artificial intelligence. So Reddit is like a content farm, if you will. And the CEO has become a shotgun-toting farmer protecting his crop of content from the AI- wolves. In fact, Reddit's CEO said just last year that blocking AI has been a real pain in the ass. But there's one AI company that Reddit has not been able to block, and it's a big one. So they're suing them. And this was such a big deal. Reddit stock jumped 10% on that move. The company being sued is Anthropic. Anthropic is the AI company behind Claude, which is the number two chatbot in the country after ChatGPT. And according to this lawsuit, Claude has visited Reddit

100,000 times each time without permission. Anthropics said they had stopped consuming Reddit content a year ago when Reddit asked them to stop. But then they did it a hundred thousand times more anyway. According to the lawsuit. So why is Reddit so mad? Well, licensing content to train AI models is key to how Reddit makes money today. Get this. Google and OpenAI are paying Reddit or reported 60 million and 70 million bucks every year to read their Reddit posts. So there's no chance Anthropic is going to get to eat from Reddit's content farm for free. And now interestingly, maybe there's a strategic move here, Jack. Like maybe Reddit is suing Anthropic in order to force them to the table, if you will. Yeah,

maybe the lawsuit ends with a negotiation and a deal just like the one Open AI has. Because if Anthropic wants to feast on Reddit posts, then it's going to have to pay for the privilege just like everyone else on that content farm. Because Reddit is a farms dealer. And there's a, and Their content is top quality stuff. Sweet, sweet stuff. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy is over at Reddit? The more AI slop, the more valuable Reddit is. Yeties, the $130 million a year that Reddit makes an AI licensing deals,

that's just 10% of Reddit's annual revenue. The rest is ads. One analyst thinks Reddit could charge 10 times as much for access to its content from AI companies. The reason? Well, every Reddit post is vetted by a human being, and then it's upvoted or downvoted based on the quality. And that upvoting and downvoting by a human user of Reddit, that is Reddit's most valuable and most differentiated feature.

Yeah, the upvote, downvote is huge. The upvote downvote by a human is critical to AI because it tells the AI what is good or what is bad information. Like, Nick, if you ask Claude, where can I find a made-in-America low-price? waterproof sweater. Yes, Jack. If they've consumed Reddit's content, they know exactly what to respond. Based on the upvotes. So besties, that's why Jack and I think in the future, Reddit could easily be making a billion bucks a year from AI because it sells the sweetest of content fruits. And the more our internet gets filled with AI slop, the more valuable Reddit's content.

Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us to kick off the summer Monday? For our first door, it was Trump and Elon their boss. bromance has broken up. Trump is hurt politically, Elon is hurt financially. It's a bro-vorse. The world's richest person versus the world's most powerful person, both lose. For our second story, Hot Wheels is a 60-year-old brand thriving on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube with different content for each. Hot Wheels is proof that you don't need a social media person. You need a social media team. And our third and final story is Reddit. They sued Anthropic last week for feeding their AI model's Reddit posts without Reddit's permission.

The more artificial our internet gets, the more valuable Reddit's real content becomes. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, a happy worldwide developer conference day to all those who celebrate. It begins today. Apple's big annual event for developers begins today. And I remember last year, Apple invented Apple intelligence, their attempt to rebrand AI. This year, Apple still hasn't delivered on that.

So we'll cover more on WWDC in tomorrow. And second, growth in the cannabis industry is being driven by one particular demographic. Your grandmother. In the last four years, cannabis sales to Americans over the age of 65 are up 46%. That's right. Get this. Nearly one in ten nannas and nannas, or senior citizens, if you will, now use cannabis products. They're popping edibles at 430 for the early bird special. Not too shabby. And finally, the latest alternative recession indicator, Jack and I be keeping track for you, summer rentals in the Hamptons. Summer rental demand in the Hamptons is down 30% this summer compared to last year.

And the more expensive the house, the bigger the drop. The biggest houses have seen demand fall by 75%. Side note. Do you know how expensive a summer house in the Hamptons is? Okay, talk to me, Jack. Seven bedroom estate, Bridge Hampton, what kind of numbers we're talking here? 200 grand a month. Yeah. 56 grand a week.

And that doesn't even include the 87 bucks for the Cittarella lobster salad. Now time for the best fact yet, which, because of the... It's Monday, we got some T-Boy trivia for you. What do we got, Jack? Trivia. What is the only product to at one point make up 10% of all eBay sales? I love how you say trivia. I'll repeat it.

What product once made up 10% of all eBay sales? Jack, what are the options? Is it A, Rolex watches, B, Beanie Babies, C, iPods, or D, Magic the Gathering Trading Cards? Okay, one of those four products was one. the top seller on eBay, more than any other product ever in eBay's history. What is it? Drop a comment. Which one of those products made up 10% of all of eBay's sales? Yeties, you look fantastic out there. Jack, you are looking stunning in that cheap waterproof sweatshirt made down in Arizona designed in Michigan. For it last for life. I'm interested.

Very millennial core of you. Very millennial core. Yeties, you look fantastic today. If you haven't yet tap to follow us, make sure you get T-Boy every day, and then tell a buddy, hey, H-Y-H-T-B-O-Y. Have you had the best one yet? Nick and I, we will see you tomorrow after you share our show. If you know, you know. And before we go, happy birthday to legendary Yeti Paul Brown over the pond in Nottingham, United Kingdom. Happy birthday to Jeanette Pagan in Puerto Rico. And Ahmad Saeed over in Berlin, Germany.

Congratulations on the big birthday. Happy birthday to Jack Enkama from Boston, Massachusetts. who also just got a promotion at Mathworks. Just outside Boston. And Rima next, turning 30 years old. Congratulations on the 30th down in Hotland. Congratulations to Julia Levens and Ross Kando, who got engaged in Chicago and are coming to the live show.

Guys, we can't wait to see the ring in person and meet you there. Thanks for coming. Congrats on the Big Day. Congratulations to Dylan Lester and Natalie Wiggins in San Francisco, who got married over the weekend. Congratulations, guys, can't wait to see the picks. And Kevin Goodwin down in D.C. just got promoted. big time manager. Shout out to David Pierce, who's on the best walk yet right now in Atlanta, Georgia. And a five-star Friday's shout-out to Squirrel Thug, who wrote this review of T-boy.

T-boy is the best morning routine I start every day with Nick and Jack. It's the only daily business news and econ-oriented news I rely on. Squirrel Thug, thank you for the five-star review. This is Jack. I own stock of Reddit and Netflix. Nick and I both on stock of Apple and ETFs of the S&P 500.