Elon's First Cabinet Meeting, Trump's Gold Card, and Bezos' WaPo Revamp

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Speaker 7 I don't want to hear about your erections. Can you move along, please?

Speaker 7 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.

Speaker 8 And I'm Scott Galloway.

Speaker 7 Scott, how you doing? I finally finished my move.

Speaker 8 Oh, congratulations.

Speaker 7 Oh, Scott, it's like, oh, I feel like so in need of not moving anymore ever again.

Speaker 8 Well, the good news is that probably won't happen.

Speaker 8 The next move, you won't even be aware it's happening.

Speaker 7 To the grave.

Speaker 8 No, no, no, no, no. You're not that old.
You'll have some Filipino nurse saying, it's okay,

Speaker 8 Ms. Swisher, just follow me.
And you'll be like, where's grandpa?

Speaker 8 You'll just will be so out of it, you won't even notice. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Grandpa and the lesbian.

Speaker 8 You'll literally, it'll be like watching a senator stroll around the halls

Speaker 8 of the rotunda.

Speaker 7 Oh, Jesus, those senators. Oh, I got to tell you, Scott, being in right now, we're like, okay, now we're in Washington.
And like, we're like, should we leave Washington? Because it's just so heinous.

Speaker 7 Although we never see these people, so I guess who cares, right? Who cares?

Speaker 8 I am.

Speaker 8 This is a dark side of me. I hate to admit this.
I'd kind of welcome a measles outbreak in D.C. right now.

Speaker 8 I just think that I think this surrender clown and his cabinet of the best friends measles ever had, I mean, at what point, and of course it hits a small community in Lubbock.

Speaker 8 I mean, at what point does do these literally head-up your ass, cruel, weird decisions come back to D.C.?

Speaker 8 I saw this.

Speaker 8 This statement, I think it was from Corey Doctorow, and it just perfectly summarized.

Speaker 8 I really have a difficult time encapsulating what I think is going on, or the kind of gestalt of this elite class of tech bros and their

Speaker 8 representatives in Washington, the vice president and the president. And he summarized it perfectly.
He said that they believe there's an in and an out crowd.

Speaker 8 And if you read, if you read Alex Karp's new book, it's basically engineers and innovators are the in crowd and everybody else is the out crowd.

Speaker 8 And that essentially the theory is, and I think it's a philosopher, I forget his theory, is that with the in-crowd, they are protected by the law, but not bound by it.

Speaker 8 And the out-crowd is bound by it, but not protected by it.

Speaker 7 Oh, I love that. Corey.

Speaker 8 And I thought that perfectly summarized

Speaker 8 what is going on here. And that is these guys love COVID bailouts.
They love the protections of free speech. They love the law.
They expect the Justice Department to weigh in.

Speaker 7 Contracts, big fat contracts.

Speaker 8 But they themselves are not subject to it. No.
Right? No. I mean, whether it's it's paternity court, they would have a field day with Andrew Tate getting out in Romania, sex trafficking.

Speaker 8 The role model for male abandonment, you know, Doge King.

Speaker 8 I mean, literally, the notion that these folks don't weaponize or don't use the law as a means of transferring wealth and rights from the poor to them, but at the same time don't feel bound to it.

Speaker 8 If you want to see, I'm really ranting out.

Speaker 8 If you want to see a massive amount of corruption, just wait until three years from now when we find out what happened between now and then in the crypto markets. You are going to see so many scams.

Speaker 7 But it's also, Scott, it's in plain sight. Look at they're thinking of switching.
Starlink people are working at the FAA, and suddenly Verizon might be losing its contract to Starlink.

Speaker 7 It's like, it's so like obviously, it's so in the open. Like, that's the thing.
There used to be sort of backrooms where this shit went down. Now it's front room.
Like you're watching it.

Speaker 7 And then they're telling you why you're stupid for not thinking it's smart. Like that's the whole, that's the whole trick.

Speaker 7 It was interesting because I have a lot of federal workers in our school, as I think I've told you, wonder if I always ask what they do.

Speaker 7 And it's always so helpful, like the stuff they're doing, whether it's at the FDA or at the

Speaker 7 one is at the ag department, one parent's the it's just so important what they're doing. And like they don't know what to do about this stupid five things I did this week kind of thing.

Speaker 7 Like, you know, and then

Speaker 7 Musk mocks them saying it's inane and trivial. They should have been able to do it.
And then, so they have an ounce of sense in the middle of lunacy.

Speaker 7 That's what drives, like, sure, they could do it, but why? Or let me give you an example.

Speaker 7 It's not everybody because, look, Apple shareholders voted, so did Costco and John Deere to keep DEI initiatives in the company. They can do that, right? Instead, private company.

Speaker 7 Private company, except now Trump is threatening them. And Tim Cook has to say, we've got to follow the law, even though shareholders who are supposed to be the best friends of these fuckers

Speaker 7 want something else. It's just amazing.
It's amazing.

Speaker 8 These guys, I can't tell you how profoundly disappointed I am in this, these whores trying to protect themselves or excuse their behavior, texting you or other people. I hate myself.

Speaker 8 Well, we fucking hate you more. If there's anybody who has the money and the resources to stand up to this bullshit, Tim Cook.

Speaker 8 It is Tim Cook, Satya Nadella, Cinder Pachai, Sam Altman and his hushed tones and concerns about AI. Fuck you.

Speaker 10 You are literally

Speaker 8 the very principles, rule of law, separation between business and state, systemic laws, not individual laws where you give a million dollars to a campaign for favorable treatment, these ridiculous fake announcements.

Speaker 8 Okay, put out a press release claiming they were spending a quarter of a trillion dollars because of President Trump, even though it's all fucking jazz hands. It's all bullshit.

Speaker 8 Somebody, I'd like to think in the business community is going to reach down and feel these circular things in between their legs and go, you know, no.

Speaker 7 A vagina?

Speaker 8 No. There you go.
Or a vagina and say, okay.

Speaker 8 Let's be honest, though, they're all men and say, okay, no, we're not doing this. And you're right, shareholders brace.

Speaker 7 He might announce a bunch of tariffs until he like except he's got permission from shareholders to do it, right? He has permit. The shareholders have spoken of what they want.

Speaker 8 At Apple, they've said we want the EI.

Speaker 7 They want the EI. So does Costco.
So somebody, like either you listen to shareholders or you're not trying to protect them, they've decided knowing full well what the price is, what they want.

Speaker 7 Anyway, we'll see where it goes. But speaking of which, we've got a lot to get to today.
And the one person we're going to talk about initially is exactly this person.

Speaker 7 We're going to talk, though, about NVIDIA's earnings, which were blockbuster, Tesla's struggles. No one wants to buy their shitty cars.
They're not shitty cars.

Speaker 7 They're shitty because of their owner, their creator.

Speaker 7 In fact, not even their creator.

Speaker 8 I don't know.

Speaker 8 I like the model SS.

Speaker 7 Do you just swastikar? Swastikar? Yeah. Zero to 1939 in three seconds.
All this stuff is so good. It's so good.

Speaker 8 His pronouns are now he and Himmler. Himmler.

Speaker 7 Oh, nice. Himmler.
Often a forgotten Nazi, but very quickly.

Speaker 8 There you go. Played a key backup role.
Character actor in the whole.

Speaker 9 No, he did a lot.

Speaker 7 He was quite horrible.

Speaker 7 Anyway, and Trump's gold card, which is ridiculous. But let's start with Jeff Bezos.
Speaking of tiny balls,

Speaker 7 Washington Post opinion editor David Shipley, by the way, who my wife used to work for, where she quit and is thrilled that she did now that this came out, has stepped down after Jeff Bezos announced a significant shift to the opinion page.

Speaker 7 Bezos said the Post will now publish daily opinion stories on two editorial pillars, pretty much, and you have to be for them, personal liberties and free markets. You can't be against those.

Speaker 8 What does that mean?

Speaker 7 I will tell you, yes.

Speaker 7 Personal liberties, I'll do what I fucking want. Free markets, I'll do what I fucking want.
There you go. Okay.
I get what they're trying. They're trying to be the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 7 It's like the Wall Street Journal has intelligent people working for it. And the Washington Post has Megan McArdle.

Speaker 7 The opinion section will cover other subjects as well, not really, but will not publish viewpoints opposing those pillars. What's the point of having them? What does that mean?

Speaker 7 Meaning, if you're against, if you're for social justice or some regulation, you can't write a piece. You can't oppose free markets.

Speaker 7 If even if you do, like if you have a very good argument about why we need guardrails on Amazon's shitty behavior, and I don't know,

Speaker 7 whatever, you can't oppose Jeff Bezos. You can't oppose Jeff Bezos.

Speaker 7 He said he believes the viewpoints in the new categories are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. No, they're not, Jeff.

Speaker 7 They're done by the Wall Street Journal, which does them. Don't always agree, but pretty fucking good.
Sounds like not an original idea.

Speaker 7 The head of the opinion section, David Shipley, who already took a fall, took a, took a, he just fell down when he was doing a Kamala Harris thing, has decided he can't do this.

Speaker 7 I can't believe he didn't go the first time.

Speaker 7 But here it is. And of course, Jeff Bezos, in an interview with Matthias Dochner

Speaker 7 in 2018, said he would never do things like this. And this is exactly what he's doing.
He said he'd be embarrassed and he would feel terrible when he was 80 years old.

Speaker 7 So here we are. He can do what he wants with this fucking newspaper, but it's a piece of shit now.

Speaker 8 Go ahead. But don't, I don't even really understand what that means.
We're only going to talk about it.

Speaker 7 It doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 8 I don't.

Speaker 8 So do you not have an opinion? Isn't the whole idea of opinion is that you're going to be provocative and perhaps upset some people and catalyze a dialogue that perhaps helps craft better solutions.

Speaker 8 I just, what's the point?

Speaker 7 He says the internet has viewpoints opposing those pillars. Hmm.

Speaker 8 Fair point. So why wouldn't the Washington Post? I don't.

Speaker 8 I just don't get any of this. I'm having trouble even making an argument for or against it.
I don't know what it means other than him saying,

Speaker 8 I don't like the way it's being run now.

Speaker 7 I don't. Like, I kind of get it, but it's so

Speaker 7 like kindergarten version of opinion sections. It's like, oh, we need more diverse voices.

Speaker 7 Okay, get them. Publish them.
Do them. Like, have everybody argue.

Speaker 7 You have to have viewpoints opposing personal liberties and free markets if you really want to have an opinion section. But he doesn't really want to have it.
He wants a billionaire propaganda arm.

Speaker 7 I think he's, this is what Penny that I think has dropped in his

Speaker 7 noggin, is that I can use this as a cudgel, right? I can, if, if Musk can use Twitter X as a cudgel, I can use this as a cudgel. So I can, I can do this via now.

Speaker 7 Interestingly enough, the Wall Street Journal has been very critical of Trump, right?

Speaker 7 He's been, they've been very critical about the tariffs, about the behaviors, about the nonsense, and actually making some great arguments. And they've featured those.

Speaker 7 I'll be interested to see what Bezos, well, I'm not interested at all, but we'll see what he does here. But it seems like he'll try to get someone.
I don't know.

Speaker 7 There's a lot of people who think this, who go on and on about say and do what you want. And then when push comes to shove, you don't get to say and do what you want.

Speaker 7 You get to say and do what your billionaire owner wants.

Speaker 8 I mean, the reality is with these newspapers now, there used to be 20, about 60 or 80 million subscriptions in the U.S.

Speaker 8 It's gone down to 20 million. Some have made the jump to digital, such as the New York Times.
But the problem is it's a zero-sum game.

Speaker 8 And so when they sign up, when they said, when they thought, okay, the Washington Post is doing good work, it usually comes at the cost of someone else.

Speaker 8 They are now, as someone who's, I think, got some distance from the Washington Post. I like it.
I have affection for it. But the reality is, it just feels like it's circling the drain right now.

Speaker 8 It doesn't feel like it has a gross strategy.

Speaker 7 Significance. Relevance.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 the people who like the Post are, quite frankly, you know, I hate to use this word, but kind of the cultural elite.

Speaker 7 They don't anymore, actually.

Speaker 8 My view is they're pretty prickly. And when a billionaire weighs in with his views without really understanding journalism, it turns off their readers and their employees.

Speaker 8 And it's probably very damaging for the culture.

Speaker 7 Right. Are they going to get MAGA readers? They're not.
They're not. MAGA readers have really good stuff to read.
They have all kinds of, you want to read Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 7 You want to listen to Megan Kelly scream at you for some, whatever fucking reason she likes to scream all day.

Speaker 8 There's all kinds of great content out there.

Speaker 7 You have plenty of choice in that area. So they're not going to, you know, they're like, there's this so the sensible center is horrified by

Speaker 7 Donald Trump. So kissing up to him seems like the stupidest move.

Speaker 8 The two winners here are, if he had said, I do think there's an opportunity.

Speaker 8 If you look at the amount of media coverage that sports gets, if you look at the amount of media coverage that politics gets, I think relative to its importance in the economy and the consumer's obsession with it, I would argue the opportunity in media and even in podcasts, and I'm thinking a lot about this, is business.

Speaker 8 So if he were to say, if he were to say we're going to focus, we're going to try and really beef up our coverage of the economy and business issues relating to the markets and everyday pricing and how it affects people's lives.

Speaker 8 Because we all are kind of obsessed with Amazon and taxes and innovation and how AI affects us or doesn't in terms of our jobs. I think there's real opportunity here.

Speaker 8 The biggest winner of this move, hands down, are the heads of HR and recruiting at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Speaker 8 Because every talented

Speaker 8 my sense is at every organization, there's between 10 and 20% of the employees that add 120% of the value, and the rest are negative 20%.

Speaker 8 And what I mean by that is you have to have B players to scale.

Speaker 8 I'm not, I know that sounds disparaging, but at every organization, there are generally a group of superstars that just drive a disproportionate amount of value.

Speaker 7 Absolutely.

Speaker 8 Those 10 or 20 people at the Washington Post have their pictures and their names like an FBI mob board at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. And guess what?

Speaker 7 They've already grabbed a, I'm having lunch today with one the New York magazine just grabbed.

Speaker 8 They'll all return their calls now.

Speaker 8 They have never, you're going to see, they are literally the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and some media players are going to come for the heart and the lungs of the Washington Post.

Speaker 7 They are, they are picking and choosing. I've talked to the Times people who do this hiring.
I've talked to the journal people,

Speaker 7 and they're calling me to ask me who's good, what do I think of this person, this and that. And

Speaker 7 they're not going to grab everybody, by the way, even if they're really good, but everyone's leaving. And

Speaker 7 today I'm having lunch with Ben Terris, who's a wonderful political reporter, and he's joined New York Magazine.

Speaker 7 Fantastic, like fantastic, like did great work at the at the Post. And by the way, let me just weigh one in.
They are doing, some of the reporting has been excellent.

Speaker 7 They did a great piece on Elon being a welfare queen, which you retweeted, $38 billion.

Speaker 7 They did another one. They did like six or seven really great accountability stories

Speaker 7 in recent weeks. So it's just, when is Bezos going to meddle there? Which I think he will 100%.
But you're right. It's an opportunity to pick an area to go into and really drill the fuck down.

Speaker 7 It's what the way he's going is so stupid.

Speaker 7 And the way they're, I would deploy AI in a really smart way. They're doing it in a stupid way.

Speaker 7 They are just going, this is a huge opportunity.

Speaker 8 When did Jeff Bezos become Mark Andreessen?

Speaker 7 That's what I was doing. Oh, he was always like this.
I don't think people.

Speaker 8 I always thought he was a pretty like even-handed guy.

Speaker 7 No, he was super aggressive. He was always, let me just tell you, of all the people I covered, he was the most tweaky when it came to stories he didn't like.
He did not, he does not like journalists.

Speaker 7 He doesn't.

Speaker 7 He never did. Mark Andreessen actually kind of liked journalists.

Speaker 8 But the bottom line is it's because because most journalists just aren't that hot, Kara.

Speaker 7 Oh, I know. That's what it is.

Speaker 7 I'm just saying,

Speaker 7 Bezos was, Bezos came from Wall Street. He was, he worked for whatever, a hedge fund, D.E.
Shaw. I don't know what that is, investment bank, hedge fund, whatever.
He doesn't, he was older.

Speaker 7 He was money focused.

Speaker 7 I never thought he was anything but, I called him Farrell in my book. He was Farrell.
And I think he. broke up with his wonderful wife.

Speaker 7 And look, Lauren's fine, whatever, but it's a different personality. And he had an opinion.
If you listen to that 2018 interview, it is a different person.

Speaker 7 Now he likes wearing those weird, unfortunate shirts that he wears and tight jeans and showing off his chest and living the good life on the yacht. And he doesn't give a fuck.
You know, who knows?

Speaker 7 I think he's a really dull thinker. Anyway, moving on.
President. How do you really feel?

Speaker 7 President Trump hosted his first cabinet meeting, speaking of stupid Wednesday with co-president Elon Musk in attendance, really, truly standing up, talking almost as much as Trump.

Speaker 7 Trump recognized Musk to speak first and surveyed the room on approval for Doge's work and whether they like Elon. Guess what, Scott? Everybody applauded.
Yay.

Speaker 7 Although Marco Rubio looked like he was, you know, having diarrhea at that moment.

Speaker 7 Elon at one point said Doge had accidentally canceled an Ebola prevention program. Let's listen.

Speaker 12 We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect.
But when we make mistakes, we'll fix it very quickly.

Speaker 12 So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola, Ebola prevention.

Speaker 3 I think we all want Ebola prevention.

Speaker 12 So, we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.

Speaker 7 Not true, according to expert after expert. Everyone on the field says nothing's been restored.
It's gone from 60 people to six.

Speaker 7 He's just, he just opens his mouth and he tells, he's disingenuous.

Speaker 7 Trump also addressed efforts to slash the federal workforce, which he's going going to continue, including 65% or so of the EPA.

Speaker 7 He talked about terrorists, the upcoming meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky. He's trying to shake him down for mineral rights.
So it's paper-flay

Speaker 7 military help, which we really have sort of done, but not this explicitly.

Speaker 7 Just the whole thing.

Speaker 7 And getting

Speaker 7 the... the cabinet just to applaud.
They probably were like, they tried to resist some of this Doge stuff, and now they had to applaud in public.

Speaker 7 Like, can you, I wish someone had gone, yeah, I don't like him. He's a fucker, President Trump, but no one did, of course.

Speaker 8 Anyway. Yeah, well, speaking of the Wellster Journal, they did some great analysis a couple of days ago saying that

Speaker 8 they think so far a Doge has saved a whopping $2.6 billion.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 They're claiming 60, right? There's plenty of people.

Speaker 8 They're claiming 60. And by the way, Musk has received subsidies, depending on how you count them, somewhere between 15 and 50 billion.

Speaker 8 So if you want to 6X the Doge savings, just cut off all subsidies to Tesla. Yep.
And it's just, again, it's look over here. And also, I'm trying to do the analysis.

Speaker 8 I believe that these tax cuts will cut, will cost taxpayers more in terms of the treasury, just the benefits that Elon Musk will accrue than the savings he is garnering at Doge.

Speaker 7 That's right.

Speaker 8 So if you wanted to double double the savings of Doge, you would just say, okay, thank you for your service, but you are no longer entitled to the tax cuts.

Speaker 8 I mean, this is, it's just the math ain't math and for lack of a better term. I don't think, I don't think they should focus on the injustice.

Speaker 8 I don't, quite frankly, I don't think it's outrageous to get an email from somebody saying, tell us what you did last week. I think that's how it's.

Speaker 7 That's how it's done, Scott. It's how it's done.

Speaker 8 Agreed. Agreed.
But that's not where our focus should be.

Speaker 8 Our focus should be: okay, you recognize that the Department of Energy has been, Department of Energy, and I forget what the exact term is, has been tasked with cutting 800 billion.

Speaker 8 There's no way they can avoid Medicare and Medicaid. And by the way, when you privatize, okay, so a kid is still going to need his medication.

Speaker 8 Unless we decide to just let them die, they're going to get their medication.

Speaker 7 That's what we're doing.

Speaker 8 Give me some running room. I don't think that's going to happen.

Speaker 8 What's going to happen is it's going to be privatized, and either the employer or the individual or the county or the state is going to have to go into the private market and buy it.

Speaker 8 And then the insurance company and the pharmaceutical and the medical industrial complex will insert themselves, make it less efficient, less cost-effective, such that shareholder value goes up in the industrial medical complex.

Speaker 8 The privatization, essentially what these autocrats or these oligarchs want is they want the privatization of everything. That way they can insert themselves in the middle for shareholder value.

Speaker 8 There are cities that have privatized everything: the utilities, the water, services, they've privatized everything.

Speaker 8 And what happens traditionally or typically is that there are some things that should be privatized.

Speaker 8 But when you privatize the post, as they did here in London, what you end up with is a more expensive service where shareholders and companies get to skim or scoop up that incremental margin.

Speaker 8 And that is what they want here: they want to get government out so they can insert, one, private enterprise and make money, and two, emasculate any regulation or oversight of their near-grifty businesses.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I would agree. And what's happening here is they're really hurting people who voted for you.
Have you seen the space? There's a great one, speaking of which in the Washington Post.

Speaker 7 She hoped Trump's victory would change her life, but not like this.

Speaker 7 Doge cut her job and she was like, oh, I thought they were going to take DEI people. Like, what, you know, honestly, leopards should eat every one of these people's faces as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? They did everything in their self-interest. And then he didn't do anything he said he was going to do so far.
And they're cutting them.

Speaker 7 And so they're going to, they're, you know, no Schodenfront here, but they voted for what they voted. And this is what they're getting.
I agree.

Speaker 8 But the basis of DEI or the arguments against DEI is that it made sense, I think, if you were to steel man this, it made sense at some point to have DEI, but many of these problems, I won't have been.

Speaker 8 I won't say have been solved, but have been addressed in terms of a workforce that somewhat resembles the population.

Speaker 8 the problem is, is the basis of the arguments for doing away with DEI is that you risk economic growth and even safety if, in fact, you're not hiring based on competence.

Speaker 8 Now, that is a real argument, but that argument holds no water when you are hiring fucking idiots to go into your cabinet, when you're hiring Fox News hosts to be the Secretary of Defense, and you're claiming we need to get rid of DEI so we have more competence, that this becomes a meritocratic.

Speaker 8 I mean, it's just so cynical to talk about skills and domain expertise and who earned and deserves the job and who would execute or prosecute the job with most, the most competence when you are bringing in seriously a fucking village, a circle of village idiots.

Speaker 7 First

Speaker 7 measles death since 2015. First one.
Planes are falling out of the sky. Like there's been like seven of them right now, at least seven really dangerous plane things.
I mean, as I say,

Speaker 7 they exchanged DEI for DAF, Dumb as fuck.

Speaker 7 Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back more on Doge.

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Speaker 7 Scott, we're back. Let's talk about some of the notable Doge moments since last we taped.

Speaker 7 The White House confirmed that acting administrative Doge is indeed not Elon Musk, but a woman named Amy Gleason.

Speaker 7 Gleason's LinkedIn lists her as U.S. Digital Services senior advisor.
The CBS News, when contacted Gleason regarding the story, said she was in Mexico and declined to comment. They just gave a name.

Speaker 7 And that very testy woman who does press for Trump gets very testy, very testy. She's got very Megan Kelly vibes.

Speaker 7 Anyway, 21 Doge staffers resigned, saying in a letter they would not lend their expertise to carry out legitimizing Doge's actions. The staffers were pleased to be part of the U.S.

Speaker 7 Digital Service, which was created by President Obama.

Speaker 7 So these are people who were there helping the government update themselves, and they're just not going to put up with big balls and the rest of the crew, the

Speaker 7 idiot doucheboys crew.

Speaker 7 The Trump administration and Doge had a rough week with courts.

Speaker 7 On Tuesday, three federal judges dealt setbacks to the administration involving federal spending refugees in foreign aid, though Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily delayed a midnight deadline for the administration to unfreeze $2 billion in foreign aid payments on Wednesday.

Speaker 7 Scott, I have no comment on this. I'm in Mexico.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 8 But I'm more interested in they're using her as a prop such that somebody, I think someone, I think my guess is Musk's lawyer said, nothing good can come from you having any sort of official affiliation here.

Speaker 7 That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 8 That's exactly. And so we need a figurehead to just prop up and say they're in charge, even despite the fact no one can even find her or get any sort of statement from her.
Oh, she's in charge.

Speaker 8 That way,

Speaker 8 when these myriad of lawsuits actually get to a quote-unquote judge who looks at the law,

Speaker 8 we need to figure out, it's almost like they've created, she's effectively the equivalent of a human LLC, where you create a corporate shield between her and Musk.

Speaker 8 I just can't, I'm trying to figure out the legality.

Speaker 7 She worked for the old service and from people there, she was not.

Speaker 8 She's a figurehead. She's meaningless.

Speaker 7 She was not. She did not impress people with her skills.
That's what I would say is how they talk about her.

Speaker 7 No, she's just a figurehead. It's ridiculous.
I mean, what's interesting is, you know, they do want this to be in court all the time.

Speaker 7 So they just, it's like a, it's like a ground war with these people, right? And they keep pushing back the way they, after the Apple shareholders, and they're going to threaten Tim Cook.

Speaker 7 They just never friggin give up. They're like.

Speaker 7 They're swarmers. I don't know what else to say.

Speaker 7 The strategy is probably very smart, just to keep making trouble and move from department to department, making destruction, and then fixing it will be just impossible, right?

Speaker 7 That's that's the goal, I think, here.

Speaker 8 Can I ask you a question? I'm

Speaker 8 veering from the script, which will drive our producers crazy because we won't get to sell as many fucking ZipRecruiter ads for us.

Speaker 7 Zip Recruiter. That's right.
Link it in. Link it in.
C Biotics.

Speaker 8 Let's party tonight and let's not feel it in the morning.

Speaker 3 Hello, dog.

Speaker 7 Why don't we have any weed ads? You're like the edible, edible ads.

Speaker 7 Jesus, not for you. Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 ED, Truable Viagra.

Speaker 7 Hello. Have you met? E.D./slash/weed weed ads? All right, go ahead.
What's your question?

Speaker 8 What did you think of James Carville's opinion piece that the Democrats should just sit back and

Speaker 8 let, you know, kind of let them have at it and let Americans kind of see what happens?

Speaker 7 He's been awfully wrong about a lot of things. If you really actually follow him closely, you know, he's like, this is how it's going to go for Trump.
He's going to lose this way. And then he did.

Speaker 7 So, and someone noted.

Speaker 8 Well, we said that.

Speaker 7 I know that's true, but we're not James Carville, right? So I think it's not a bad idea, except if it's a very serious thing, right?

Speaker 7 If it's something really hair on fire, we should be hair on fire appropriately. I think we should be obstruct.
I think the Republicans, when they got into office and they were in the minority, just

Speaker 7 speaking of someone who's retiring, Mitch McConnell shut it down. And I think that's what we should do.
I think we should be. difficult, obstructive, not worry about people blaming us for it.

Speaker 7 Just get in the way. Just muck up the gears.
Let them make a mess. I would agree with him on that.
I would agree on it.

Speaker 7 It's no, there's no use saying, can you believe, Like, someone was, I was on CNN last night with Caitlin Collins and she goes, what do you make of this Gaza AI thing? I'm like, I don't give a fuck.

Speaker 7 It's racist. It's obnoxious.
He's doing it to distract us, moving, moving on. It's stupid.
And why are the belly dancers having beards? I don't know. I don't care.
I don't care.

Speaker 7 And I think it's mean and terrible and cruel. But what do you want me to say? That's what I think he is.
So I think that's the kind of reaction.

Speaker 7 We can't like swing at every stupid pitch these people put out.

Speaker 7 I like it. What did you think?

Speaker 8 I'm torrent. I actually, I think I have a little bit more reverence for James.
I think he's brilliant.

Speaker 7 And I do too. I do too.

Speaker 8 I enjoy how sort of courageous he is. I thought his clip on Fox was just amazing.
Great.

Speaker 7 That was great.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I even think of him as sort of a role model. I just like how he's eased into, you know, his eighth decade wearing LSU sweatshirts and just being fearless.

Speaker 7 And also, I went to a wedding with him. He likes to party, but go ahead.
You go. Oh, I'm sure.

Speaker 8 You know that guy.

Speaker 7 He's like,

Speaker 8 I'll have a mint julep every five minutes.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that was essentially. And his wife, Mary Matlin.

Speaker 7 They're an act.

Speaker 7 They were the funniest people at the lesbian wedding, but go ahead.

Speaker 8 They're a pair.

Speaker 8 I worry that if we don't, I think there's a way to respond. I like what you said, become obstructionist and just

Speaker 8 get in the way of stuff. I'm up for actually shutting down government.
I think we should just say, fine, have at it. Nope, let's shut it down.

Speaker 10 But I worry that if we don't

Speaker 8 respond pretty aggressively, that we that we de facto normalize what's going on.

Speaker 8 And I, I, and I struggle with it because I can see his point. It's a really interesting tactical suggestion.
Yeah. You know, just, well, just to just sit there and say, this is all Republicans now.

Speaker 8 Let's let them have at it. See what happens, folks.
Hey, U.S. citizens, you, you know, you broke it.
You bought it. It's, this is you.

Speaker 8 And not even not give them the satisfaction of being hysterical or responding or swinging back or counterpunching wildly.

Speaker 8 But I think where I land is, I think you need to be smart about how you respond, but you need to just say consistently with facts and experts, we cannot normalize this.

Speaker 8 This is not, measles should not be a thing.

Speaker 7 Yes, 100%. I think aggression is, I think we

Speaker 7 let them own everything and then aggression back. Just be like a fucking pay.
Like, do a Mitch McConnell. Just do a Mitch McConnell.

Speaker 7 You know who I think we need more of?

Speaker 8 I think we need more kind of what I'll call dark.

Speaker 8 I don't want to call it dark MAGA, but dark woke. Have you, one of my favorite comedians, Bill Burr?

Speaker 7 I love Bill Burr.

Speaker 8 It's basically saying this billionaire, fuck Musk, just because he didn't get laid in high school, we have to put up with his hair plugs and his total lack of empathy.

Speaker 8 It's like, how much more money do you guys need?

Speaker 8 He just, you know, when people can't, people, there's so much money in this country and people can't, people have to get a second and a third job and can't be with their kids.

Speaker 8 And he, I think we need more of that energy.

Speaker 7 Just embrace right in their face. You do, because I was, I told you this, I was at an event and one of the stupid tech bros came up to me and they're like, oh, we're beating you, Kara.

Speaker 7 You're, you know, we're beating you.

Speaker 7 That's true. And I looked at them and I said, you're still a dickless asshole.
And they were like, I go, and I still don't want to talk to you. And I moved along.

Speaker 7 And they didn't know what to do. They were not going to get me in any way.
Yeah, you have to still punch them in the nose, punch them in the nose.

Speaker 7 Anyway, speaking of punching in the nose, speaking of not lack of erection, it's been a tough week for Tesla. Tesla shares plunged more than 8% on Wednesday, pushing its market cap below $1 trillion.

Speaker 7 The stock is down 25% for the year. That drop followed that sales, the news that sales in Europe are down 45% from this time last year.

Speaker 7 Elon backlash is being credited with some of the recent decline, but other factors include increased EV competition from China, BYD, and consumers wanting a new model.

Speaker 7 Like, where's the new fucking model, Elon? Why don't you make better new cars? Not better cars. It's a good car.

Speaker 7 And there's lots of choices. And nobody likes this fucker.
And people are putting things on the cars, writing on the cars. People have signs on their cars saying, I hate him too.

Speaker 7 I don't know what stop, you know, taking the air out of my tires and keying. My thing.

Speaker 7 I don't do this, but I think about keying them. I do.
And that's the thing. I never think like that.
I'm like, oh, I should key this fucking car, but I don't. Just everyone know that.

Speaker 7 Is there anything to be done here? Is it just a declining situation for this company?

Speaker 8 Well, I mean, I mean, first off, all these things require context. And that is in the past year, the stock's drawdown is up 50%.

Speaker 8 It still trades at just an exceptional valuation. It's trading at PE today of 145.
I think Ford trades at a PE of like six or seven.

Speaker 8 So I think the market, when a company becomes this overvalued, is looking for reasons to take it down. But there's just no getting around it.
The sales are down in Germany.

Speaker 8 And across Europe and also in California, sales are off, you know, between 10 and 40%. So this is really having an impact on sales.

Speaker 8 And he still gets, I think, about a third of his net worth from his stake in Tesla. I think it's just getting started.
I mean, I think you remember my prediction three weeks ago.

Speaker 8 It was my broke o'clock was that at some point, this is going to hurt the brand so much.

Speaker 8 I mean, I got to think at some point, people don't want to drive into a parking lot and have people flip them off, which is everyone's, not everyone.

Speaker 8 A lot of people's inclination now when you see someone in Tesla is to

Speaker 8 is like, oh, what an asshole, or flip them off. You know, I sold my Tesla three years ago and people said I was overreacting.
It's look, you should stay out of politics as a general rule for brands.

Speaker 8 It is finally starting. I think it got him some loyalty.
I think it sort of is a reverence and a little bit like kind of innovation, politically incorrect.

Speaker 8 Actually, I think that probably got him some additional customers for a while.

Speaker 8 But this feels like a lot of people, even people who probably support him, think, I just don't need the hassle of someone someone judging me by the car I roll up in

Speaker 8 terms of my politics. Now, I want to be judged when I roll up in a Range Rover.
It means that I'm in the midst of a midlife crisis and I can afford it.

Speaker 8 And would you like to jump on, speaking of erectile dysfunction?

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's a good-looking car.

Speaker 7 For people for context, as Scott was saying, year over year, it's up 47, almost 48%. Five-year, it's up 561%, and max 22,000, 23,000% up.
So

Speaker 7 it's six months is up 40%.

Speaker 7 One month is down, but it's down is where it's headed. They just need, look, if they had a great car, people might buy it.
But you're right.

Speaker 7 I like, just, I think that a hassle, even if you like Elon Musk, is a real, is get, it's probably going to bother people.

Speaker 7 And I, I did, I, I don't hurt any of these cars, but I did yell a pin dick to someone in a sidewalk truck recently, which I enjoyed. And I like it.
Pendick. Pendick.

Speaker 8 The interesting thing will be,

Speaker 8 so the stock's overvalued. It's looking, the market's looking for reasons to take it down.
The product lineup feels stale. The interesting thing will be is if his

Speaker 8 kind of off-camera activities here or his extracurricular activities begin to infect Starlink

Speaker 8 because Starlink really is an amazing product and they are signing up new customers like crazy.

Speaker 8 What I'm interested in or waiting for is the first company that says we're reconsidering our deal with Starlink. Yeah.
Because so far it's just impacted Tesla.

Speaker 7 If it goes after, if it starts to infect SpaceX, x space x slash starlink then houston has a real problem and i think you probably are going to see that in the next 30 days a big carrier or a government or someone's going to say we're rethinking our relationship with uh starlink i think one of the things that's important that people should think about is is the product good can save you a lot of stuff although even if the product's good and people think you're an asshole it does affect it you just stop buying it you just i definitely have bought less amazon stuff because i'm like why should i give this guy money?

Speaker 7 I'll give it to Macy's. It's a little harder, but it's not that much harder.
They still have a better product in terms of delivery, but I'm like, oh, I just don't like them. I just don't like them.

Speaker 7 Or I like, you know, I just, I don't want to give Jeff Bezos money. And that's how people, that's how it begins, right? And then you find other alternatives.

Speaker 7 It's a real opportunity for other car makers, that's for sure.

Speaker 8 It's funny to say that because last night I was watching Game of Thrones, I'm watching Game of Thrones with my 14-year-old. Again, and the easiest way to buy it was on, it never gets old, Kara.

Speaker 8 It never gets old.

Speaker 8 and so um

Speaker 7 but last night the easiest way to buy it was on amazon prime and for the first time i thought is there another place i can buy it yeah yeah exactly small little decisions like that pin dick all right scott let's go on a quick break when we come back we'll talk about nvidia beating earnings expectations and trump's plan to woo wealthy foreign investors

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Speaker 7 Scott, we're back. NVIDIA has done it again with another blockbuster earnings report.
Quarterly earnings were $39 billion, a 78% increase compared to Q4 last year.

Speaker 7 Profits spiked 80% from a year earlier to $22 billion, beating Wall Street's expectations. The company projected revenue in the current quarter will rise 65%

Speaker 7 to $43 billion, a little less than $78, but still good. Has NVIDIA put these deep seek fears to rest? Remember, just a month ago, NVIDIA had a $600 billion wipeout when DeepSeek burst on the scene.

Speaker 7 It seems like nobody's talking about that now. Thoughts on this?

Speaker 7 Because, you know, again, by the way, for people to understand, it really, the stock market rises and falls on NVIDIA's shares right now. And only, speaking, you know who I interviewed? Aswath.

Speaker 8 Oswat de Monoran?

Speaker 7 Yes, he talked all about this, but it's seven stocks that are moving the stock market. And NVIDIA is at the top of the list.

Speaker 8 Yeah, some would say 10, but yeah, the magnetism at seven are the...

Speaker 7 He sold his NVIDIA, just so you know. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Look, what's interesting about the market right now is with respect to NVIDIA or some of these other companies, their expectation or the expectations are that they'll beat expectations because what happened yesterday was

Speaker 8 Again, NVIDIA beat expectations. It came in at 39.3 billion versus a projection of 38.3.
Its earnings were 89 cents versus a projected 84 cents, and the stock is down 1% today.

Speaker 8 People have gotten so used to, or the market has gotten so used to these companies just blowing away expectations that when they only slightly beat expectations, they kind of, if you will, actually don't meet the expectations.

Speaker 8 So this company has gotten just so incredibly valuable.

Speaker 8 The unusual thing about this company, and people like to compare it to Cisco, is that Cisco's price earnings multiple went crazy.

Speaker 8 And the price earnings multiple has expanded here, but it hasn't expanded nearly as much because their earnings growth has also been exponential. So like

Speaker 8 it does appear to have, I don't want to even say flatline because the gains here have been so extraordinary, but the stock is down 5% year to date.

Speaker 8 And it's just flat for the last six months after what is like a hundred X increase over the last

Speaker 8 decade. It really has been the stock of the last decade, but the expectations around these companies now are that you're going to beat expectations.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 what? What's going to happen here? You still feel people are going to start spending less on it? They're also seeing competition. They will see competition as has other companies.

Speaker 8 I'm of the mind that

Speaker 8 there's a non-zero probability, maybe a one in three chance, where AI ends up being more like the PC industry and the airline industries where consumers capture the majority of value because they're not able to create sustainable moats.

Speaker 8 And I think DeepSeek was the first sort of signal of that. And that is, arguably, jet transportation and PCs should be the most valuable companies in the world.
They're not.

Speaker 8 And I wonder, I mean, a lot of these LLMs are beginning to feel pretty, pretty similar.

Speaker 8 Although I can't stand Anthropic. It's so fucking PG-13 thing.
I can't make recommendations around this.

Speaker 7 And then we'll talk about

Speaker 7 penises. Okay.

Speaker 8 And also, I think it's just going to be, this could be, in fact, one of those industries where, and this is a good thing, the winners might be us. The winners might be all industry.

Speaker 8 Industry has garnered enormous citizens' shareholder value from jet transportation and the PC, but very few companies were able to create moats such that they could capture a lot of the value for specific shareholders.

Speaker 8 And I think if there's evidence of that this year or there's a slowdown, I think you're absolutely going to see a real correction. And

Speaker 8 all I can say is what I'm doing, because I don't think anybody knows. I am rotating out of U.S.
stocks into foreign stocks. Because if you look at U.S.

Speaker 8 growth stocks, which have really carried the day for the last 15 years, relative to their historical averages, they are at

Speaker 8 the 98th percentile right now. So there's only 2% of the time in history, like basic sometime in 1999 or 2007, have they been more expensive.

Speaker 8 At the same time, large cap value companies in Europe, Latin America, and China are at their 2%,

Speaker 8 meaning that they've been hired 98%

Speaker 8 of their historical or in history, they've been higher 98% of the time. So I am rotating out.

Speaker 7 Interesting. Interesting.
Let me, can I tell you?

Speaker 7 Aswath said not to do that. He said, he thinks these U.S.
companies are global companies. And so you are investing.

Speaker 8 You're investing globally.

Speaker 8 And by the way, if it's, if, in fact, you're dumb enough to listen to any of us absolutely listen to aswath but when you he's on my podcast today but yeah go ahead but when you have apple uh trading at a pe of 39 and it traditionally trades at 18 i mean it's just not a bad it's not a terrible idea to think about taking some chips off the table and some are in cash like warren buffett is much more in cash

Speaker 7 but but aswath said don't do that because you're you can never time it correctly and you're you can you can be too slow or too fast like you were saying the other day anyway uh speaking of cash president trump is unveiling a new visa to attract rich foreigners to the U.S., the gold card.

Speaker 7 For $5 million, very high-level people will get legal permanent residency and a new route to citizenship, according to Trump.

Speaker 7 The gold card would replace the current EB5 visa, which requires investors to put in a million dollars and creates at least 10 jobs.

Speaker 7 The new initiative is set to be rolled out in two weeks, although some experts are skeptical that it can happen without congressional approval.

Speaker 7 I don't know, more than 100 countries do offer golden visas to wealthy investors and individuals, including Australia, Greece, Italy, and Spain. It's not a new idea.

Speaker 7 I don't know. It just, it's

Speaker 7 another hand-wavy distraction. I don't know.
I just feel like, whatever. Like, rich people always get to live where they want.
So, okay.

Speaker 8 That's right.

Speaker 8 Rich people can go not only shopping for clothes or experiences, they can go shopping for rights.

Speaker 8 So, if they're back to the statement, or these people are protected by the law, but not bound by it, if you're a wealthy person, in fact, you are,

Speaker 8 you are, the law has kind of gotten fed up with you, you can go somewhere else. Or if you're worried about persecution, but you're right, this is nothing new.

Speaker 8 The EU has taken in approximately $23 billion selling visas across

Speaker 8 Greece, Malta, Portugal, Spain. The UK used to have a golden visa, and then the populace got pissed off by it.

Speaker 8 What's unusual about this is the price point at $5 million. I would think that that probably just appeals.
So I'm on on a visa here in the UK.

Speaker 8 I'm on what's called a tech talent visa, where I had to say,

Speaker 8 I bring specialized, differentiated skills around technology. So give me and my family a five-year visa.
And they agreed.

Speaker 8 The notion that you can buy in is not new. What's weird is the price point, because what I think this says is you don't have any other options, and maybe you're a little bit on the run.

Speaker 7 Yeah, right, exactly. We're at the bad ones, like the kind of skitchy ones.

Speaker 8 Or the tax authorities are closing in on you.

Speaker 8 Because if you look look at one of the reasons the British economy, or London specifically, has done really well, or I would argue has done well over the last 30 or 40 years.

Speaker 8 I mean, London is the most, Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. London is the most handsome.

Speaker 8 And when you came here in the 80s, I've been coming here since I was a kid because my parents are from here. It was a shitty city.
Bad food, ugly rundown. It was just infrastructure was collapsing.

Speaker 8 It was really a mess.

Speaker 8 And Tony Blair basically did something similar in that he passed a series of incredibly airtight private property laws that said, you can be an African warlord or a Russian oligarch, but if you bring in a million, $10 million, or a billion dollars into the UK and you buy property here and you invest your money with British banks, no one can come for it.

Speaker 8 It's here.

Speaker 8 No one can come take it away from you. And as a result, London basically became, even more so than New York, I would say, every wealthy person's second or first home.
Right.

Speaker 8 And it has catered, it has become a butler economy.

Speaker 7 And one of the But it's kind of the sketchy ones, right? It feels like there's a lot of like mobsters from Russia.

Speaker 8 Well, I'm not sure that's fair.

Speaker 7 Some of them, but it does, it definitely, I think the rich people, the very fine rich people are already here. I just think this appeals to the people.

Speaker 8 Well, that's a great point because here's the difference between London and America. People go to America.
to make their billion. People come to London to spend their billion and protect it.

Speaker 8 And that is my biggest criticism or observation of the london economy and this is the question i spoke with the royal academy of arts last night i needed an excuse to drop that so i'm doing it right now fancy so fancy oh my god you say it like this fancy i sat next to this i sent i sat next to this lovely woman named dame rothschild last night who's actually a quite successful author she gave me the whole rothschilds rothschild story

Speaker 8 dame rothschild yeah anyways um it was by the way that is an

Speaker 8 that is an incredible menu that's i think that was part of the highlight of my learning experience so far. But anyways, people always ask me, how would you distinguish London from the U.S.?

Speaker 8 And one of the things I say is that

Speaker 8 this entire economy in the UK is serving wealth created elsewhere.

Speaker 8 And that is the wealthiest people I know here. are people in money management.
They own great hotels, great restaurants.

Speaker 8 They're servicing wealth that was built and created or inherited somewhere else.

Speaker 8 Well, I think that's a little unfair. I think the majority of these people, well, the majority of the people I know here

Speaker 8 are money somewhere else. Okay, anyways, whereas in the U.S., people go to the U.S.
to make their money.

Speaker 8 And there's so much risk-taking and so much aggression.

Speaker 8 Again, my collective distillation or summary, having molested the earth for the last 30 years, is America is still the best place to make money and Europe is the best place to spend it.

Speaker 7 Butlers. Butlers, they're good butlers.

Speaker 7 Can I give you a piece of information? Dame is an honorific title given to women who have been admitted to certain orders of chivalry. Well, it's like being a sir.
It's a theme. sir.
It's a sir.

Speaker 8 Yeah, it's like being knighted. You're knighted, except you have indoor plumbing.

Speaker 7 That's correct. Well, whatever's Trump, sell your stupid gold things.
You're not going to make much money at it. But whatever.

Speaker 8 It'll be really interesting to see how many people do it and who it collects. If you need to spend $5 million to get into the U.S.,

Speaker 8 that's not a great forward-looking indicator of why you need to do that.

Speaker 7 I feel like we're getting the sketchy dipes.

Speaker 8 Someone will do some investigative reporting and find out the first hundred.

Speaker 7 David Fahrenhold, calling David Fahrenhold, the New York Times.

Speaker 8 The first 100 people that are willing to pay 5 million bucks to hang out or hide in the U.S. or avoid local tax authorities.
All right. It's going to be very interesting.

Speaker 7 Yeah. All right.
Come on down, you sketchy people. All right, Scott, one more quick break.
We'll be back for predictions.

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Speaker 7 Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Speaker 8 I think Doge is going to be over and done by the end of the year. I think the reason that Musk invented it and came up with it is for money.
People talk about patriotism or

Speaker 8 every time we dig further into these things, we find out that these individuals are doing everything to try and get richer.

Speaker 8 And I think he thought I can get in there and under the auspices of some sort of fucked up perverted means of patriotism or getting out my

Speaker 8 anger or whatever it is or getting more news about me, I'll also get a twofer because I'll basically fire everybody who's getting in the way of my autonomous car.

Speaker 7 Yeah, he's got his work is done.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I'll get in the way. I'll defenestrate anyone around trying to get in the way of space launches.
I think it's all about money.

Speaker 8 And I think he saw an opportunity to clear out the regulatory hurdles that's between him and a trillion dollars.

Speaker 8 Having said that, I think over the last 30 days, he's found out there's a tax to this, and that is

Speaker 8 I felt a noticeable pivot in the last 48 hours of the narrative around all this shit.

Speaker 8 I think people, well, you tell me, because I'm in a bubble and I don't understand the American people anymore and I realize how out of touch I am.

Speaker 8 But I felt like, okay, people want to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. He should get to pick his cabinet.
A lot of people voted for Musk.

Speaker 7 They don't like Musk. Nobody likes Musk.
Right.

Speaker 8 People think, okay,

Speaker 8 government is too fat. I kind of like it.
It kind of tickles some of my sensors. They're feeling some of the pain of the private sector.

Speaker 8 It feels as if the narrative has turned just in the last 48 hours, where all of a sudden Trump and Doge are on their heels, and people, including Republicans that voted for Trump, are pissed off.

Speaker 8 They're like,

Speaker 8 we wanted more efficiency. We wanted, you know, leadership.
We did not want this type of kind of heartless recklessness. This does not appear to make any sense.

Speaker 8 And I think with Musk, I think the straw that's going to break the camel's back here is when people start canceling contracts at Starlink

Speaker 8 And he says, wow, I'm actually losing money doing this. And I think that is about to happen.
I think he's a brilliant guy, but it's all about money.

Speaker 8 The math is going to show that he is better off pulling a Vivek Ramaswani and it's like fate. Remember Vivek? Vivek was the co-head of Doge.
Remember him?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 8 And so this is what's going to happen. It's going to be like what happens to old actors.
They don't die. They just fade away.

Speaker 8 He is going to Doge and Elon Musk are going to fade away because you can be sure he's doing the math. And he's like,

Speaker 8 even if I can get rid of all those pesky regulators, I'm still losing money here because my sales are plummeting.

Speaker 8 Because the general public across the U.S., much less Europe, when they see these idiots surrendering to Putin and when they see the type of recklessness and they see that they're not saving any money, all they're doing is making our government less competent.

Speaker 8 You're going to see Tesla sales continue to plummet, Tesla stock continue to go down. And again, the pivotal moment here is when it starts to infect Starlink.

Speaker 8 And I think he's going to fade into the, he's going to fade back to the corporate sector.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's interesting. People like the idea of the government efficiency thing.
So do you and I. Well, Clinton Gore did it.

Speaker 8 Almost every president's done it.

Speaker 7 Yeah, right, exactly. But listen to this.

Speaker 7 This was Puck's Peter Hamby wrote a piece, not just about the polls, which you can take the White House is saying polls show people love him and love it, which isn't true.

Speaker 7 Hamby looked at focus groups and swing voters. Who cares about the MAGA people? They're going to like Nomad.
He can shit on the stage. They'd like it.

Speaker 7 Recent focus groups of swing voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. They like the idea of efficiency.
They hate Elon Musk.

Speaker 7 And this is some polls, for instance, don't tell you that Musk is a weird nerd, which is how Adam, a Trump voting hockey fan from Macomb County, described the billionaire last week, or that he's a complete tool, as Michael from Milwaukee put it, or scary Taisha from Toledo, or selfish DeAndre from Milwaukee, just looking to enrich himself.

Speaker 7 Perhaps Eric, a real estate appraiser from Pittsburgh, put it most poignantly, extremely radical, scary. I just shudder that Trump has given him carte blanche.
It's really, these are the big things.

Speaker 7 Musk and Doge are treated with skepticism. They like Trump because he looks strong when Biden was weak.
So it's not affecting Trump.

Speaker 7 They just don't like Musk, you know, and eventually it will affect Trump, and that's when he'll act. But swing voters do not like this fella, no matter how you slice it.

Speaker 7 Anyway, we'll see. You're right.
That's a great prediction.

Speaker 7 Elsewhere in the Scott and Carrie universe, this week, Scott spoke with David Burnett, the ME-winning executive producer behind HBO's White Lotus.

Speaker 7 They discussed the making of the hit series, the shifting landscape in Hollywood. And wait for it, Scott's surprise cameo in the next episode of White Lotus.
That's right.

Speaker 8 The big screen. It's about time.

Speaker 7 I'm so excited. I'm going to watch White Lotus.

Speaker 22 Tell me, Clint Eastwood Dog.

Speaker 7 I am going to download it. I'm going to Australia Saturday, just so you know.
I'm going to.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I am. I'm going to listen to White Lotus so I can hear your voice.

Speaker 8 It's a long way, someone your age.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I know. It's true.

Speaker 7 Selling, moving the books. Okay, let's listen to Scott.
Let's listen to this interview.

Speaker 22 I was in Kosamui.

Speaker 22 You sent me

Speaker 22 your first recordings.

Speaker 7 I listened to it.

Speaker 22 I almost shit my pants because I was like, I don't know if this sucks.

Speaker 7 This sucks. I don't know if this is going to fly.

Speaker 22 And I think I had, then I heard you mention it on,

Speaker 22 I think, on Pivot. And so I was extra nervous that I was going to somehow disappoint you.
And I did not want to disappoint you.

Speaker 22 And so I called, I think I got, maybe I was back in LA or might have been still in Thailand. And then I was like, I had the smart idea of sending Jason Isaacs over to your apartment.

Speaker 22 Just, you know, I was like, maybe Jason could help you read with you.

Speaker 22 And I remember I was like very anxious. I was like, Jason, call me as soon as you get out of there.
Jason called me and he goes, we did an hour of takes. It could be all dog shit.

Speaker 22 Maybe there's something in there. And I have to say, genuinely, you are great in the show.
In that, in those hour of recordings, we found gold.

Speaker 22 I'm hoping this is the beginning of a long Hollywood career for you.

Speaker 7 Let me just say, I came to your apartment. I go into Scott's apartment.
I walk in and there is Lucius Malvoy. sitting there and the guy from the asshole from the Patriot.
I was like, oh my God, hello.

Speaker 7 And he was lovely. And you and he were running lines, whatever.
He was in the kitchen. You were in the studio.
And I was like, hello, Lucius Malfoy. What the fuck are you doing here?

Speaker 8 He's a tall drink of lemonade.

Speaker 7 He's a handsome man.

Speaker 7 Handsome man. Yeah.
So this is great. This is great.
I'm excited to hear you. I'm excited to see you.

Speaker 8 So I got to add some color here. He called me and said, Would you consider doing a cameo? I'm like, Yes.
How much will it cost me?

Speaker 8 I mean, I'm so excited about it.

Speaker 7 And they love Pivot, the whole white.

Speaker 9 the whole thing.

Speaker 8 Yeah. And he basically I did, I read my lines and I thought, oh, he's like, kind of own a room.
You're a lawyer giving some very bad news to someone. It's just, of course, face radio.

Speaker 8 It's just my voice. And I thought, oh, my God, I nailed it.
And I sent it. And they wrote back, well, we love it, but we think it can be even better.

Speaker 8 And I later found out that they were thinking about cutting it out. I was so bad.
Oh, God. And Jason took me into the studio.

Speaker 8 And it was such a learning experience for me because he would do stuff like I'd do a line and he'd go, no, he's like, you're scared of this dude, but you're also angry.

Speaker 8 Have you ever been scared and angry? And he's like, Think about it. And I talked about it.
He's like, Okay, now hit it. He's like, No, no, no, no.

Speaker 8 And then on another line, he'd be like, This dude is banging your wife, and you are now really pissed off. And you just found out, and you're going to tell him this, hit it.

Speaker 8 And we did this back and forth where he was trying to bring out emotions to me. And he'd be like, No, no, no, you're reading to an eight-year-old, a comic book.
Be more animated, hit it.

Speaker 8 We did this back and forth for an hour, and I was practically sweating. I was so exhausted by the end of the hour.

Speaker 8 And it made me walk away with such an incredible appreciation for just how fucking hard acting and directing is. And this guy literally turned my chicken shit into what I'm hoping is chicken salad.

Speaker 8 And it was so generous of him. He's not a director.
He didn't get paid to do this, but he wanted the scene to be grand.

Speaker 7 He was lovely. He was lovely.

Speaker 8 And he was the guy.

Speaker 8 He's the lead in the show. By the way,

Speaker 8 Parker Posey was hilarious.

Speaker 7 Oh, my my God. There's a great article about her

Speaker 7 New York Times today. I love Parker Posey so much.
I get so thrilled she's getting native. She's fantastic.

Speaker 8 I think Jason owns the screen whenever he's on it, but obviously I'm a little bit biased. But he was so,

Speaker 8 it just gave me an appreciation. You think acting is like they're really good looking and just act like themselves? That is hard.
That was one of the hardest hours I have ever.

Speaker 7 You were a little bit shook up, but you loved it. Let me just say he still is handsome and has a great head of hair.
Scott, I'm excited to hear you.

Speaker 7 I'm going to listen to White Lotus because of you while we're at it let's put this question on threads which one of us would survive an entire season at the white lotus and who would get killed off scott or cara and you don't even need to put that question out it's going to be 90 10

Speaker 7 you auto i'm asphyxiating that's really where it's happening it's going to be you doing the david caradine out 100 in thailand that's what's going to anyway just weigh in if you could think of something by the way we're killing it on youtube we're growing like crazy and i'm very excited we're all over the place So visit us at Pivot Podcast Official to Answer.

Speaker 7 Scott, before we go, this just came over the wires. Katie Perry, Gail King, and Lauren Sanchez are going to space on the next launch from Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' rocket company.

Speaker 7 It's not really a mission. They're calling it a mission, but they're going to join three other women as the crew of the

Speaker 7 set to launch in the spring.

Speaker 7 I thought it would give you a chance. It's the 11th crewed flight of the new Shepard rocket.

Speaker 8 I wish them the best of luck. I mean, I wish them.

Speaker 7 Okay, all right.

Speaker 8 If there's an explosion in the capsule,

Speaker 8 we got to be quick to judge.

Speaker 7 Oh, I knew you would do this. That's okay.
I allowed it. I allow it.
I allow it. Anyway, good luck.

Speaker 8 I'm a fan of fake breaths, and I have found so far that they taste real.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 God's.

Speaker 8 That's why the people come here, kids.

Speaker 7 Godspeed. That's why they come here.
Godspeed. Okay, Scott, that's the show.
We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out.

Speaker 8 Today's show is produced by Larry Naman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Corinne Ruff. Ernie Intertod entered into this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Ms. Severo, and Dan Shillon.

Speaker 8 Nishak Kura is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine of Vox Media.

Speaker 8 You can subscribe to the magazine nymag.com/slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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