The FTC Sues Microsoft and Twitter Blue is Back

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

How's it feel to be 70, Kara?

Happy birthday.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And by the way, Scott was part of a video that was made for me with lots of really cool people, but him and Stephanie Ruhl were, you know, threatening me with taking over the entire podcast.

And, you know, happy birthday wishes like that.

It was really nice.

It was super nice.

And thank you for making me famous, Scott.

I really appreciate it.

It's really nice.

Well, let's be honest, your career was sort of on the wing and I showed up and really I helped you out.

Look, it's nice to

I don't know what to say.

It's really I am Tina Faye to your Alec Baldwin.

I am Quinn Tarantino to your John Travolta.

Both of those are good.

I just thought of those real time.

Yeah, yeah, those were good.

Okay.

All right.

Did you see we won?

We were like the top podcast by the New York Times.

That was nice of us.

They said we have a bad marriage, essentially.

We're like George Clooney and Julia Roberts in that movie or any more of the roses is how i see it now what did they say ex-spouses arguing at a wedding reception i thought that was perfect it was they called you lascivious they called you lascivious yeah i sort of knew what that meant i had to look it up and i'm like lewd and i'm like no i like yeah lewd i like yeah you're lewd and i'm competent really that's pretty much what it was together we're lompenant lompinent uh lascivious i like lascivious that's a nice word for you i think it's a nice it's a nice way of saying dirty that was a good word so wait enough of that how was your birthday It was great.

We had a beautiful brunch.

Well, the week, we had a lady party on Friday, which was full of ladies, which was fun.

On Saturday, I went to this really tony Washington party at Sally Quinn's house and ran into everybody.

It was kind of funny.

And they sang happy birthday to me, which kind of was kind of creepy.

These Washington power people.

And then I had a beautiful brunch with my family yesterday.

We drove around Virginia.

My club, McClubby.

Yeah, it was lovely.

It's my favorite place, which is called Salamander out for brunch in Middleburg.

And then we went to, we drove around my old haunts where I wrote AOL, went to Blumont, which used to be called Snickersville.

And then we went to the White House to see the Christmas trees with the Golden Child and ran into fans, which was really nice in the line waiting to get in.

It was very sweet.

I paid for those.

I told them you were turning 80 just to show up and be nice.

So I want to be serious for a second.

Do you have any reflections on 60 or have you done that?

No.

I mean, you know, as people know, I'm having a pretty major surgery on Thursday.

So I feel really good.

I'm doing it.

I had a stroke 12, 11 years ago, and I have a hole in my heart, which I'm trying to fill with Scott Galloway.

Good luck with that.

I do the surgery.

I do the surgery.

And

they're covering it.

There's a flap that isn't flapping correctly.

So they're doing it through

your groin, right?

And so it used to be open heart surgery.

Now it is a 20-minute procedure.

I may or may not stay in the hospital for for the night, probably not, if it all goes well.

And I'm very excited to do that.

So I was thinking about it because when I saw my new cardiologist and neurologist in San Francisco, they were like, well, if you don't do it, you'll have vascular dementia

eventually.

So I feel like, I feel good.

I need to do this to be healthy for my beautiful family, which I have a beautiful family, and my wonderful work companions like yourself and the whole big range of friends.

It was, it's, it's, I'm reflecting that I feel pretty good about my life.

You should.

I don't know.

I do.

I don't, like everyone says, are you worried?

I'm not worried about the surgery.

There's amazing doctors have, have really taken, you know, it's, things have gone really well

in terms of this particular procedure, which is great.

I don't have to have open heart surgery, et cetera, et cetera.

But I feel good.

I feel good.

Can I play armchair therapist, which I've been doing a lot of lately?

You're more worried about it than you would like to admit because I actually did some research on what you're having done, and it's not, it's pretty minor, actually.

It's come a long way.

It's not really dangerous.

It's not.

That's right.

I am aware of that.

I actually called 10 people who had it.

I mean, that's the kind of person.

I mean, don't they do it?

Do they do it local or do they give you prophanopol or whatever it's called?

I think they're going to put me out the way you like, I suspect.

I don't know.

That's so worth it.

I wish I had a hole in my heart.

Oh, my God.

I'm not going to stick up for that.

That shit is good.

Oh, right.

You love that propofol.

Propofol.

You know, my brother, Dr.

Swisher, has access to propofol at all times.

He's going to roll with the Swish more, the other Swish, Chase Swish.

I know.

He flew to China when I had my stroke and took care of me, and he's going to take care of me there.

So it was very, I just really love my, like my friends and family and people I work with.

So

very happy.

And they're happy.

They definitely love you.

They definitely like you.

They definitely like you.

I had a really bizarre back and forth with my cousin who I like most of the time.

But he

was like, Elon Musk is so funny.

And I don't, we'll talk about this, but this weekend, he attacked this gay guy.

And my cousin's gay.

And I was sort of of like, are you kidding me?

Like, I don't know.

Yeah, people, that's the only negative thing.

If that's the worst thing that's happened to you on your 60th birthday, you're doing pretty well.

It was irritating.

It was irritating.

Anyway, we have a lot to talk about.

We have a lot.

You're in Doha, right?

I'm in Doha drinking Budweiser Zero.

And how is that going?

It's probably not a good idea, but here I am, Bud Zero.

Is there no liquor anywhere?

You can have liquor in places, right?

No, there's liquor everywhere, but when we checked in, they gave us a Budweiser Zero.

Oh, because they're trying to push that.

I'm kind of interested to check out non-alcoholic beer.

Anyways, I'm at the W Doha, which is just a contradiction in everything.

The W Doha.

Why?

And it's all

Doha.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Qataris are very wealthy.

There was a great story in the New York Times.

They went inside someone's home who had like seven tennis courts and three pools.

He's like, I'm not rich.

It was incredible.

This guy was.

Well, what I was reading is like, I think there's not that many citizens of Qatar.

They all get paid and get free everything.

But then they have this whole working class group of people who do not get paid, who wait on them hand and foot.

It's really, it was a great story in the Times about this sort of two Qatars, essentially.

Well, as I am here, I'm going to say nothing nice about the Qataris because I am

suitably intimidated.

I'm here to have a nice time.

Please try to behave.

Like, don't be like Samantha in that sex in the city, wherever they were.

Do you remember that?

Yeah.

They're not trading anyone for me.

Literally.

Come for you.

I would do a take-in.

They would not trade anyone for the dog.

They'd be like, oh, a postal clerk who was caught shoplifting at Walmart.

No, we're not giving him up for the dog.

Sorry, boss.

You're on your own.

Yeah, I would come and get you.

I would bring a team of lesbians from my lady party, and we would come and release you from Qatar if they, but you know, I hope you don't get taken.

Yeah, you'd be like the Navy Sealettes, the Navy Otters, they're coming for me.

Yes, the Militia Etheridge, as I've told you.

Anyway, well, have a good time.

It looks like a really exciting, sorry about England, but too bad.

Oh, that was heartbreaking.

That really was heartbreaking.

I was in Dubai watching that game.

That was heartbreaking.

I think Morocco is going to win.

They think Morocco is going to win, right?

You know what?

We're rooting.

We picked a team.

My boys, we have to pick a team.

We're rooting for Morocco and Croatia because I went to the finals.

Oh, Croatia, yeah, that's true.

I went to the finals of France, Croatia, and Russia four years ago.

And the most inspiring thing about the game was the Croatian fans.

And you could just see how much it meant to them.

And I was in Morocco.

I'm not exaggerating.

I was in Morocco two weekends ago, three weekends ago, and our driver was taking us.

As one is.

Okay.

Go ahead.

You're getting surgery.

I'm roaming the world and staying in the Doha.

I was in Dallas, Virginia, as one is, but go ahead.

Keep going.

So we're on our way in our, and we say, he says, do you mind if we listen to the game, the Moroccan?

I'm like, no, we know Morocco's playing.

Morocco wins, right?

The game.

We're on our way to the airport.

The driver had to pull over.

He got so emotional.

Oh, and I'm not exaggerating.

The food carts on the side of the street, everyone was dancing and going crazy.

It would mean so much to either of those nations, Morocco and Croatia.

So anyways, we're rooting for

Argentina.

Argentina.

Oh, those are tough.

Those are tough.

And also Mbappe.

I think France is going to win.

I'm sorry to tell you.

I think that's who's going to win.

Well, there's the World Cup curse.

I don't think it's going to be.

I think Brazil repeated, maybe in the 50s or 60s, but no one else has ever repeated it.

All right, we'll see.

I like Morocco.

I'm going to go with Morocco, I think.

I like that idea.

They have a cool curse.

Anyway, yeah, yeah.

Seems like it.

Seems like I'm slightly interested now in the World Cup now that it's getting down to the last things.

And you can text me and tell me what to watch.

Oh, it's awesome.

Anyway, all right.

Anyway, the FTC, we have a lot to talk about today.

The FTC is finally making a big move.

It's a problematic one, I think.

Also, Elon Musk goes full red pill, and we'll hear from a listener who's very passionate about Twitter.

But first, the Respect for Marriage Act is headed to President Biden's desk.

We're expected to be quickly signed into law.

Even then, there are concerns.

The Supreme Court can still overturn Obergefell.

If overturned, the legality of same-sex marriage would be dependent on states, though through the Respect of Marriage Act, all states will be required to recognize marriages performed in other states.

It's so bizarre.

I'm not sure the Supreme Court will overturn it once this is passed.

Most people think maybe not.

That was the word at the fancy Washington Party.

But, you know, what do they know?

So, you know, a lot of people are complaining that it wasn't enough and this and that.

But you know what?

It's what it is.

They needed 60 votes in the Senate.

And it was the right thing to make it law completely.

But right now, we're in a period of states' rights obsession.

So here we are.

What do you think?

I think on the whole, we're heading in the right direction on this.

Yeah, it needed to be codified.

It needed to be left.

And also,

the nice, or one nice thing about it is it does feel

slightly, even mostly, bipartisan.

And I think we're headed in the right direction here.

Yeah, it is less than.

It is definitely less than, but we've got to have it codified.

And this protects it.

If Oberg fell with the Supreme Court, we'd really be in trouble.

That would be a real problem.

In any case, this is good.

It's the law of the land, and we'll see where it goes from here.

Maybe we can add on different things.

I think one of the things you're going to see, I did a whole show on this last week, is a chipping away at things the way they did with abortion.

Little states will not let you do this, that, and the other thing.

Anyway, and Sam Bankman-Fried will appear before the House Committee on Financial Services.

He just loves being interviewed by people.

He confirmed the appearance in a tweet saying, I still do not have access to much of my data, so there's a limit limit to what I'll be able to say, but this committee still thinks that would be useful.

I am willing to testify.

It's unclear whether the appearance will be in person.

He doesn't seem to like to do that.

He didn't answer a separate request to appear before the Senate.

What's he going to wear, Scott?

He talks, he's talked to everybody, not Kara.

New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, ABC News, Vox, a little-known YouTube content creator,

now Congress.

I did an interview today with Vanessa Friedman at the New York Times, who I think is a fashion and style reporter.

What?

Yeah, she is.

I was like, that's an unusual person, but go ahead.

Oh, I love it.

You forget my back.

You forget, I ran a chemical L2, which was all luxury.

I used to talk to Vanessa all over.

Oh, you're right.

And you're fashionable, but go ahead.

Yeah.

As I sit here with a Budweiser scarf drinking Bud Zero.

I make her room more fashionable by looking at her.

They are not an advertiser.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Anyways,

and she was asking about the whole rap, about the kind of floppy thing, and where you were saying that it's a rap.

And I think more generally, whether it was Steve Jobs and his bare feet or Elon Musk lighting up a joint on Joe Rogan, it's sort of a, I'm such a baller that I can ignore convention, which is meant to signal that I'm bigger than

traditional Moores.

And it really is a rap.

And I mean, we said this before, and I said it to Vanessa.

I'm like, a person of color, a woman, wouldn't get through security if they showed up at BlackRock or the deal book conference like that.

Yeah.

What's interesting, or I think the most interesting thing about that is, you know, where they saw, I think, is her name, Carolyn Ellison, the woman who was running FTX, who was also, I guess, at one point his girlfriend and living with him.

Supposedly she's been spotted in New York, and you know what likely she's doing there.

Get up finding lawyers.

Well, she's already hired a lawyer who was a former regulator, who was supposed to be drafting legislation for regulating on crypto.

It's now in a private practice.

She's lawyered up with a very sophisticated lawyer.

And my guess is, my guess is.

She's dropping the dime.

She's cut a deal.

You know why?

She's smart.

My, she has to.

Yeah.

She's smart.

Yeah.

I imagine her lawyer sat her down and go, well, he's running around town contradicting himself and on a charm tour, which is not going to work.

This is your moment to cut a deal.

And she's going to drop a dime on him.

That's really smart.

Yeah.

She is.

That's right.

They're all going to drop dimes on each other.

There's more than one person there in that group.

And so there's another founder, Ryan Salome,

a whole bunch of them.

So there's too many not to drop dimes on each other all over the place.

And, you know, I think he's the one they want.

They're not going to give him a deal.

I don't, I can't imagine.

There's no one higher than him.

That's right.

So, and they need to make an example of him.

And that's 100%.

That's what they're going to do.

I think she'll get time.

I don't think any of these people are not going to get off with some sort of something.

As you said very early, very little effect on the stock market, anything else.

And someone wrote a column about that in the Washington Post.

And I was like, yeah, I know we said that on, you know, that there isn't, there hasn't been much of a, you know, ripple effect anywhere for this.

Well, it's just the market.

It's like, what happens if there was fraud in the windshield market?

And that is

the entire crypto market is now worth, if you just look at the tokens, it's worth $700 billion.

Amazon has shit a trillion dollars in the last year.

It just, it's kind of, again, it's more, more, more noise than news, more spectacle than significant.

I still will be interested to see what comes out of this, as we talked about before, the innovation that comes out of it.

There is, there, there are pieces, and I think it'll be interesting to see all those investors who put so much money in what they're going to do now.

They're certainly not going to walk away.

And you've seen that before.

I mean, Slack was something, it was a game company and then became something else.

It'll be interesting to see the innovation.

Very briefly, speaking of innovation, U.S.

Department of Energy may have a breakthrough in fusion power.

This is something that's been a joke a little bit.

Like I've gotten fusion, they're expected to make an announcement on Tuesday saying they've generated the first ever fusion reaction with net energy gain.

Could be a significant step, but this is something for the ages if that would be the case.

But it's also

From what I understand, I've been reading up on it, possibly dangerous and yet also the way we've got to go eventually to combine nuclear energy and fusion energy.

But it's going to be a long time, a decade.

It may be too late.

It could be great news, but interesting.

We'll follow that story.

Do you have any thoughts on fusion?

It sounds like we were both doing research on it.

My understanding is it's actually quite safe, but the problem is you have, I mean, the idea of getting more energy out of something than you put in without creating externalities is super exciting, right?

It's kind of the, it is the, that would be the breakthrough innovation of the last probably thousands.

Alien technology, Alien technology.

But the issue is the number, I forget the term for the coefficient of, all right, this much energy went in and we got 1.2 or 1.4 out.

But if you look at all of the energy required to build the facility around it, so we have a long way to go.

But the fact that they got above one in the, I guess, the

fusion is an enormous breakthrough.

The other thing that it brings up,

is that,

and I don't think this gets enough attention, if you look at the most valuable companies in the world, they're really a thick layer of innovation on top of this type of breakthrough that's been funded by U.S.

government.

Yeah.

Exactly.

What just bugs the shit out of me, whether it's Google, whether it's Apple, whether it's GPS or DARPA or our Rhodes, whatever it might be, or our infrastructure or our laws.

You know, these guys all basically make it sound like they're successful despite the U.S.

government.

They're successful because of the U.S.

government.

And these forward-leaning, massive investments that no private company will make because they're very risky and they take decades.

Show me any trillion-dollar plus company and I'll show you it sits on top of massive government investments funded by the middle class.

And this is another example.

In 10 or 20 years, there's going to be some douchebag VC who refuses to wear shoes, who talks about their genius and is building a company that takes the funding to the business.

Yeah, they will take advantage of.

Of course, everything.

The internet, by the way, folks, you paid for.

Just keep that in mind.

I always say that over and over again.

This will be, I mean, this is where you need government funding.

I had done several interviews with economists, and the amount of money we should be having our government spend on things like that is critically important.

And this is exactly the kind of thing the government needs to do.

Capitalism isn't going to do this.

So

it needs an assist from the government.

And then capitalism can take over for sure.

That is the most efficient way to get it out into the market.

But we'll see where it goes.

It's very exciting.

But let's get to our first big story.

The FTC isn't playing games.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block Microsoft's acquisition of video game studio Activision Blizzard.

It could be the agency's biggest move yet under Lena Khan, but it could be a long shot.

I think it will be.

Courts have largely approved vertical mergers in the past.

In 2017, a federal court let ATT acquire Time Warner, and Microsoft is committed to making the blockbuster game Call of Duty available to rivals Sony and Nintendo.

I have talked to a lot of people this week about this, and I feel like wrong target, wrong target.

I know they sued to stop Meta from acquiring VR Game Maker Within and let Amazon, but then let Amazon acquire MGM.

This is, they are not going to, this is, Microsoft is not the biggest here.

They're helping China and Japan from what I can tell.

And they've hired up some very serious lawyers here in Washington who are fantastic, actually.

And it just feels like this is not the one I would have picked if I were her.

I'd love to hear her thinking about it.

I should probably try to get an interview with her.

But what do you think?

Well, it's an oligopoly, right?

It's Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.

I mean, I guess it's interesting.

Is any trust supposed to ensure competitive markets in America among American firms, or is it supposed to solely make markets more competitive such that consumers benefit, even if the players that benefit from prohibiting an acquisition are foreign actors?

Do you see see what I'm saying?

Because this, you can bet the Chinese and the Japanese are saying, you know, right on, girl, you know, in terms of

Lena going after them.

But I don't, I agree.

I agree with you.

I'm not sure this is where you would start.

Yep.

It is.

I think the way they're going to play it is the FTC is helping China and Japan get better, right?

And it's not a bad argument.

I think that's going to be one of the arguments.

And they own a whole bunch of companies, the Chinese in pieces or wholly,

and that it's not good for U.S.

These are both U.S.

companies, Activision and Microsoft, and I think that's how they're going to play it.

You know, and I think if they share these popular games, then what's the argument?

Like, if they agree to share these and allow them to be and don't make them exclusive only to their platforms, and why would they, by the way, you'd want to be in as many platforms as possible with a game.

I just don't feel like this is the one to go on.

I would have aimed at Apple much harder.

And if she loses this one, it's really not good for the FTC.

She certainly doesn't have the resources given what Microsoft's going to bring to bear here with its group.

So very hard.

And the thing is, she had to do something, right?

She hasn't done anything significant for her Wunderkind

reputation.

Very difficult.

She's under-resourced.

I did run into Senator Klobuchar at this party, and the antitrust bill is just swamped along with her other journalism bill because essentially the internet companies have shut it down so you know that that's the problem there's all this power and yet at the same time this might not be the best thing to go at what do you think this will do for the your prediction that disney will cry roblox your your that was my long shot prediction yeah yeah i don't i like i said i think bob has to do something big and bold yeah yeah i think he's got to do something well ftc only has a few shots here and she's got to take the correct ones on goal you know well why wouldn't disney why wouldn't disney put their hat in the ring and try and do something

no with tick tock oh yeah

if tick tock's going to be spun why wouldn't bob go to these it's not going to be spun it's not you don't think it's going to be spun no no i do not

i think they're still in negotiations with the committee on foreign investment in the u.s but i i think no i think it's just going to have oracle do their database cypheus yeah yeah so much money involved i don't think there's any spinning there's no spinning fourth most valuable company by the end of 2023 you heard it here See, they're getting a lot of pressure.

In any case, let's go on a quick break.

And when we come back, Elon Musk throws some red meat at QAnon.

We'll hear from one of our biggest fans.

Welcome to Only Murders in the Building, the official podcast.

Join me, Michael Cyril Creighton, as we go behind the scenes with some of the amazing actors, writers, and crew from season five.

The audience should never stop suspecting anything.

How can you not be funny crawling around on a coffin?

No, that's true.

Catch Only Murders in the Building official podcast.

Now streaming, wherever you get your podcasts, and watch Only Murders in the Building, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers, terms apply.

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All right, Scott, we're back.

Twitter Blue is back.

Apparently, they rewrote the code and it's all fantastic now.

I'm sure he did a lot of work.

That is one thing he's good at, like software.

Twitter is once again and pushing people to do things beyond their limits.

Twitter, once again, is rolling out a subscription product with some small changes.

Users will now have to provide a phone number before getting verified.

They'll also lose their check mark if they change their name and photo until their account is reviewed by hand, apparently.

I I don't really understand it.

The most interesting thing is the price, Twitter Blue will cost $8 on the web, but $11 on iPhone to pay for the 30%.

You know, we'll see.

There's blue checks everywhere.

I don't even, and they're such assholes.

Let me just say, the ones that attack me.

We'll see if it works, if more apps will build an iPhone price premium and do the web thing.

I think a lot of people are doing the web thing.

This is not a new fresh thing again.

I used to be one of these people that always thought anytime Elon Musk did something strange or didn't make any sense, I thought, well, there must be some genius I don't see.

This move just doesn't make any sense.

I like the idea of identity.

I've gotten people upset, but I do like the idea of enforcing some form of identity.

The thing that I found most interesting about this, and that will have, I think, the biggest ramifications, is the $8 versus $11.

Yeah.

And

that is a direct middle finger to Apple and Tim Cook because

Apple does not want a two-tier pricing world.

It does not want to highlight or bring attention to, it does not want companies creating multiple tiers to basically say, avoid Apple, and we'll give you 30% off.

So what I took from this was Tim Cook is taking notes and plays the long game.

And I wouldn't be surprised in the next 12 months, given the fact that Elon Musk is saying stupid things like my pronouns are prosecute Fauci.

Yeah.

That Apple does weigh in at some point and say, you know, you violated our terms of service.

No, I don't think they're going at him.

You don't think so?

They're just going to try to keep him at arm's length.

That's really what they're going to do.

Yeah, just ignore him.

Yeah, there's no, there's getting in a fight with him is like he gives him everything he wants.

I think they'll try very hard.

Yeah, if you don't fight him directly, you don't take him on directly.

You don't say anything.

You're just like, oh, you violate our terms of service.

I would, that would be a big move by them.

You know that.

He shut down Facebook.

He cut Facebook's value in half.

That's true.

That's true.

Yeah.

He might do it here.

Musk is a little more volatile and dangerous, I think, to Apple, only because of his stance.

Mark Zuckerberg's not

as

well liked by his fans.

Like a lot of people really despise Elon Muskow.

I think it's so changing.

I think it's changing.

Yeah, it's changing.

We'll see.

He's certainly making a spectacle of himself.

We'll see if it's a big business.

Everybody welcomes a better software.

Twitter, I say it's glitchy and not working as well.

I don't know.

Have you noticed that?

I haven't noticed that.

You've noticed that.

Super glitchy.

Super glitchy.

Like things you click on that you used to click on that would work.

But maybe, you know, maybe they'll make better software, making stuff longer, not a new fresh.

Again, none of them are new fresh ideas, but better software is always better.

And then he can say, I rewrote the software.

They love to do that, these tech people.

I redid it.

It sucked before.

And now it's fantastic.

There is certainly room for improvement here.

And we'll see if he can sell it.

I would not, again, pay for any of the things so far that they're doing.

And they can take away my blue check if they want.

They probably will.

Is there a seniors discount?

for the check?

No, ha ha ha ha.

No.

No.

You look good, by the way.

You look rested and good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Musk is moving in on 60, just FYI.

He's not a young man either.

Also, as you mentioned, he went on a right-wing rant.

I I think it'll be interesting.

I think more is this continued right-wing thing, which is, again, a lot of hand-waving and kind of grotesque.

The Fauci thing was grotesque.

And the particular one was the attacks on Yoel Roth, who has become sort of a right-wing straw man for everything wrong with Twitter, which is ridiculous given how loyal he was.

He posted some stuff about a paper that Yoel as an academic wrote out of context and put Yoel into danger in physical and personal.

That was really vile.

It was vile.

I don't even want to repeat the nuance and the accusation because it's just so out there, it doesn't warrant attention.

He has a particular fixation on pedophiles, just like you and I.

I thought that was really upsetting.

Here's a guy I worked at a company.

And you're going after his PhD.

I just thought, you know what?

Why would you say something like that?

Because this is the horrible thing about these types of accusations.

No matter how ridiculous, no matter how little veracity a little of it sticks because it's so heinous yeah and so you really should be nobody you really should like keep that resources near him he's had to move out of his house so you know and death threats etc etc These people are crazy.

The QAnon people are crazy.

Oh, you think?

And it's pizza, it's pizza gators.

And guess what?

They showed up at the pizza place.

So it was just, I don't even understand it.

He shot into the pizza place.

It's so sick.

It's, it's actually, um, you know what?

I, it's just, I don't even understand why you would do this to someone.

And it's all, all, all for attention.

And the people around him, let me just say, all you people around him that are helping this, it's, you're sickening what you're doing.

And, and you cannot possibly believe any of the these are some of the people were like, Yoel's the best, Yoel's the best, and silence when he did this because all they are doing is are on the gravy train of Elon Musk, and they're, they're almost worse, not worse, but almost worse, as far as I'm concerned.

It's gravy training.

I don't, I don't, it feels like the train's come off the track.

So I'm like, I'm just trying to think, why is he

planning to run for president?

Like, why?

No, he can't.

He's from South Africa.

Let me say one thing.

They've been trying to do this reporting on the Twitter files, which it's really enlivened the right wing.

And I'm not going to go into it because I think there's no news there.

I know, just sorry.

And I keep getting attacked.

I was like, I'm sorry.

This was all reported.

And Nicole Perlroth talked about it, like stuff that she'd reported.

Mike Mazdick, all the really smart tech people are like, this is nothing new.

And they, but they love to talk about shadow banning when it was filtering people who broke rules.

That was just showing the filtering system.

You know, they possibly could have been more transparent, I guess, but why?

Other companies aren't.

And so

this idea that they have to say that there's all this nefarious things going on, it would be, what I thought would be really nice is that real reporters got a hold of this stuff, good investigative reporters.

It would have been a fascinating look into how content moderation is done.

And what the real issue is, is that the idea of not giving people reach, right?

Amplification.

And lots of ex-Twitter people are like, we were de-amplifying people.

And there was no, never a secret.

It just was a secret of which ones they did, right?

And so they're calling it shadow banning, which sounds more scary, but it's all it is, is de-amplifying.

And by the way, they made mistakes.

FYI, guess what?

So does most of Congress every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

But one of the things that was interesting was Elon himself was saying the new Twitter policy is freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.

Negative hate tweets will be maxed, deboosted, and demonetized.

So, no ads or other revenue to Twitter.

You won't find a tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from the rest of the internet.

So, he was

really reiterating the policy of Twitter.

Nothing fresh and new.

But even the conversation, I think, creates this false banner of what they're obligated to do because

they don't.

I mean, that's like revealing the notes from a meeting at CNBC or at the Wall Street Journal and finding they were biased.

Okay.

Yeah.

And, I mean,

and I found they were very not, not biased, but really troubled about what they were doing.

Like some

debate.

They were trying to be thoughtful.

And not only that, all the research, every, every academic paper done on social media platforms shows that it's almost like they're,

I don't know, self-conscious about a liberal bias and they are actually biased towards conservative voices.

They err on the side of conservative voices in terms of

what gets reach and circulation and what they're less likely to take.

Anyways, it's the whole thing, but we engage in this argument.

It's like we forget

they can do whatever the fuck they want.

I mean, they're a media company that's privately held.

They don't even need to,

they should have policies because it's scale.

They should be able to say this is why we did it or didn't.

But some notion that it's a smoking gun, no, it's not even a squirt gun because every media company gets to make editorial decisions about what content makes the network and what doesn't.

And these guys literally wring their hands and try to be thoughtful about it.

I was shocked and kind of pleasantly surprised at how the level of resources and how thoughtful they try to be around this stuff.

Yeah, I did too.

Here's what I think is going on now.

I have a new theory.

Hear me out on this one theory.

I think...

I was thinking about it.

Why is he doing this?

Why is he doing every day?

It's something.

Tomorrow, it's like today, yesterday, Fauci.

Today will be what?

Biden's age I don't know whatever whatever in enlivens this crowd with these Twitter files or this particular crowd is I think he is buying he's creating the next right-wing media organization I think he thinks there's a there's a opportunity with Fox being you know not going as far as he will I think uh Newsmax and the other own are weak you know what I mean they're weak companies and and don't have a lot of things and he's creating the next

if you think about it if you think there's a couple of people in Silicon Valley that would like to own media, they've tried.

Andreessen Horowitz has tried with future.

They want to own media.

David Sachs has talked about that.

They want their own media, right?

And that's why they brought in some of these,

I'm going to use the term reporters very loosely for many of them.

But

I think they're doing that.

They're creating their own journalism.

I just got this feeling that maybe he's creating a media company so that he will sort of supplant others.

it's it's so much calling out to the right and engaging with far-right personalities uh talking about the woke mind virus etc it's just it feels like performative in that regard so i'm wondering if that's he's trying to out you know speaking of another famous toxic immigrant um uh rupert murdoch he's trying to out murdoch murdoch which i don't know just just but if he'd wanted to do that what he should have done was buy parlor he could have bought it for 45 million not 45 million yeah but it doesn't twitter's bigger twitter's more yeah but it's kind of it's, the business isn't plotting.

Care, the way it's going, his creditors are going to own it.

I mean, it's just.

I don't think so.

I think he's going to buy the debt.

I think I have this feeling.

It won't be that easy.

The people who own this, the people who own this debt aren't stupid.

They're not going to let him come in and buy it on a discount.

I know some of the people that own this debt, they're not just going to come and go, oh, well, you've taken the revenue.

They'll be like, no, just continue paying our interest payments, please.

Anyways, I do not see genius here.

I do not see logic.

I do not see some secondary objective that we are not privy to because, like I said,

this is going to cost Tesla shareholders a third of a trillion dollars because he's alienating.

If he wants to alienate progressives off of the Twitter platform and pulse and cement the conservative

conservative factions on Twitter, okay, you could sort of make an argument for that.

Media's become polarized, pick a lane.

I want to be the new fox.

But he is so inextricably linked to not just that brand, but the Tesla brand.

And Tesla Tesla owners are center left.

And I think they're going to stop buying Teslas.

For now, there's trucks, there's things like that.

I just, I don't know.

I just was sitting there going, what is he like?

He's creating the way he's going to be.

I think you're falling into the camp of, oh, there must be something there.

No, there's not, but it's just like there's a meeting, you know, and by the way, there's, they're more than the right.

Like, look, he got went on stage at Dave Chappelle's show in San Francisco.

Did you see that?

Got booed.

And then, of course, they're pretending he didn't get booed.

You know, like, did you see that?

Did you see the video?

Yeah.

Well, let me just read this so people don't know.

He gets on stage at the end, and Chappelle invited him and said, Make some noise for the richest man in the world, not for much longer.

The booze got louder as Musk waved at the audience and raised both hands, prompting Chappelle to quip that some of the people recently fired from Twitter may be in the audience.

A negative reaction as Musk continued.

Chappelle took a shot at his own audience, saying that all the people were booing had terrible seats.

Then he joked about Musk's space travel invest things, saying, Fuck Earth, I'm leaving anyway, I'm going to Mars.

The segment ended with a callback from a segment from Chappelle's show in Media made Musk shout, I'm rich, bitch, which was kind of weird.

And then in the morning,

he tweeted, it's 90% Musk did, 90% cheers and 10% booze, but he heard a lot of booze.

It's almost as if I offended San Francisco's unhinged leftists.

Unhinged leftists don't go to Jabe Chappelle's shows, FYI, but he's got allies like Chappelle and things like that.

So I don't know.

I just have this feeling.

Anyway, go ahead.

Sorry.

I thought it was really interesting because the thing I registered from it was he was genuinely shocked at how negative his response was.

Yeah.

I just think these guys are totally out of touch.

I don't think there's a grand strategy here.

I think you're watching a man child come undone.

Yeah.

All right.

That's what I called him.

My pronouns are broken man child.

That Chappelle thing was just, I mean, it was a definition of awkward.

Yeah.

He kept waiting for the booze to stop.

They didn't.

Chappelle did his best to try and, you know, make light of it.

That was embarrassing.

And

Musk just sat there like, oh my God, I can't believe they're booing me.

And they wouldn't stop booing him.

I thought the whole thing was, I mean, it kind of defined the term cringe.

One, that he thought that was a good idea.

Right.

And I can't, what was Dave Chappelle thinking?

I don't know.

I found the whole thing very weird.

I know.

He's very hurt that people don't agree with him.

Anyway, whatever.

I happen to think Dave Chappelle's a great comic, but he really needs to stop being so butthurt about things.

Oh, I shouldn't even use that expression.

Anyway, Dave, calm down.

You're very talented.

Stop being an asshole.

Anyway, let's listen to a listener mail.

You've got, you've got.

I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail.

This comes in via voicemail.

Let's play it.

Hey, Scott and Kira.

I'm Derek here in Santa Barbara.

You know, could you stop talking about fucking Twitter?

I'm sick of fucking Twitter.

I don't give a shit about Twitter.

You hung up about it.

You talk about it all fucking day.

Nobody uses Twitter.

It's a small percentage of the country that even uses a fucking thing.

And it's a piece of shit.

It's gone to hell anyway, from what I hear.

Although I don't use it, so why should I give a shit?

Nobody cares.

Fuck Twitter.

I'm going to stop listening to your show if that's all you fucking talk about.

Oh, God, Derek, we love you.

Derek, you're our favorite fan.

You're right.

We shouldn't, but it is important.

I'm sorry.

This guy's got his hand on rocket ships, which this week is very important.

Tesla's a very important car company.

I'm sorry to give you that news.

Rockets, particularly, there's all kinds of things going on this weekend that SpaceX is integral to.

He's up in our grill in the Ukraine and everything else.

So it does matter what he's evolving into.

So that said, I get you.

I love you.

I feel you.

I feel him.

We do talk about this.

We do.

We do.

But it is a backdrop of

one thing.

Let me just tell you, Derek, I agree.

But let me just say at this party was that, there's a lot of defense people telling me, and they are concerned about

the dependence on SpaceX,

very much so in terms of our government

in a much more significant way.

And I hadn't thought about that.

But you're right.

We love you, Derek.

We love you.

We agree with you.

We hate ourselves.

And we're going to address this on Thursday in a listener mail episode.

You're fucking great, Derek, as you like to say, but it's always nice to hear from our fans.

It is always.

And we appreciate any feedback, even negative.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Well, my fails, what we talked about before.

I think whenever you in any way intimate that you're grooming or involved in anything related to pedophilia, I think that's slander, full stop.

And I think that people should be just show more

caution because nobody recovers from that.

Your Wikipedia page will say so-and-so, the richest person on earth, insinuated insinuated that you did X in your thesis and it was later proven that there was no connection.

But the bottom line is it's in your Wikipedia profile.

And that's just not, I don't know, the whole point of being an adult and living in a modern society is there are just certain lines.

And how do you know where the line is?

You decide there is a...

Let's save the pedophilia accusations for actual pedophiles.

How about that?

There you go.

And everyone says, well, where is the line?

Well, the first step in knowing where the line is is to decide there is a line.

And this is a line.

There is some decorum.

Anyways, that's my fail.

My win is Team Morocco and Croatia.

This Luka Modric, who I think is arguably, he's not underrated, but he's one of the, he's, he's, he is one of the most iconic players in the history of the game.

He's an incredible playmaker.

And I love, I saw Croatia lose to France in the final four years ago.

I just, I was so inspired by the fans fans the last time.

I'm super excited to watch them play.

And I really hope, I really hope Morocco,

I'd love to see Morocco beat France.

William Mbappe is the best player, arguably, in history right now.

But I'm very excited about watching 200 Dogs play on this global stage.

I may watch From My Hospital Dead.

I mean, when is the game?

When is the game?

Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Tuesday night.

Oh, no, I'm not in the hospital yet.

Yeah, Tuesday night.

I'm still watching if you're not in the hospital.

No, no.

If I was in bed and we had nothing to do, I would do it.

But no, I think not.

Sorry.

You tell me.

You'll tell me.

I'm so glad you're there.

You're having a good time with your sons.

My fail is, I think, the similar thing as you is just really stop it.

Like, stop it.

It's really, this is real lives that are being affected.

And I, again, with the marriage thing happening, I'm very pleased it's being signed.

The danger is real.

And it's not being a whiny liberal or, you know, unhinged leftist.

Fuck you.

Like, we have families that

have suffered because of this and there's no reason for it.

There's no reason for this.

We've moved on.

Most of America has moved on.

And by the way, most of America supports things like gay marriage.

And to take these kind of shots and call people names like this is sick.

It's actually sick.

It's really weird and sad.

And I'm so sorry for people who feel the need to do this.

I'm so sorry you had such a bad childhood that you need to hit back all the time.

But

it's depressing.

And for the win, my family, I really appreciate it.

And let me just say especially my mom I have a real troubled relation with my mom not not you know she's we have a hard we've had a hard many years for lots of reasons But she really came through this weekend and threw me a beautiful brunch and I really appreciated Lucky

She gave me gave me a beautiful

speech

She looked great.

She had a dress on Poochie Bucci.

I don't know.

She looked fantastic.

You know, she's had some health issues, but she

really looked great and she gave a great speech.

And instead of calling me difficult, as she does in every speech, that she ever does at any of my birthday, speech, she called me determined, which it was a real plus, mom.

I really appreciate it.

I know I graduated to determine, which is a version of difficult, but that's okay.

I really love you, mom, and I appreciate what you did.

That was really nice.

That is nice.

Anyway, we want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51 PIVOT.

Scott, that's the show.

We'll be back on Friday to answer listener questions about social media etiquette, what to do with a billion dollars and more.

We'll also have special end-of-year episodes during the rest of the month.

And so keep coming back to Pivot.

And then we'll be back in January, including with a European tour that Scott and I are taking.

That's right.

A grand tour of Europe, the two of us, because we are the divorced couple that we are.

We like to travel together.

And Scott, have a beautiful time there.

Have a beautiful new year.

And I'm sure.

we'll be talking into the new year, but I appreciate you most of all.

I appreciate you.

All right.

Today's show was produced by Larry Neyman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Intertot engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Meal Silverio.

Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech in business.

You can take the America out of the dog, but you can't take the dog out of America.

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