Twitter and Elon Head to Court, The Uber Files, and Guest Mark Leibovich

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher from San Francisco.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

And you have been, what?

What happened to you today?

Oh, that's right.

So I got blocked by Elon Musk, which is unusual because I wasn't following him.

So it was what I call a proactive block.

But you know, Kara, let's be honest, this sexual tension is palpable.

And if I had, if I was more in touch with my feelings, I would have said, Elon, block me harder, you want

bitch.

Too much?

Too much?

You know what?

It's just right in this case.

It's really weird.

You weren't following me.

I wasn't following the guy.

I wanted to find out what he had said about way back when about the bots.

So I went to his Twitter account and it says, you're blocked.

And I'm I'm like, no, do you need help?

And he hasn't blocked me yet.

I was like, you're going to ruin it for me for everybody, aren't you?

I'm going to get blocked because of you.

You're speaking in the future tense.

It's already over.

Yeah.

It's already over.

You've broken bad.

You have broken bad with the dog.

You're in.

Yeah, Chuck Mate.

He had a good one today with Chess with a picture of Chuck Mate.

Get it, Chuckmate.

He had a picture of Chuck Norris.

I won't.

Yeah, but he's already trolling Twitter.

Did you see the thing where he had a cartoon of himself?

And anyway,

whatever.

So I'm blocked.

Whatever.

I'm blocked.

Yeah.

Well, well,

you'll live somehow.

We'll talk about that more, obviously.

The legal battle is brewing between Elon Musk and Twitter because that's the real deal.

None of this nonsense.

The big revelations about Uber under Travis Kalinik in the Washington Post.

And our friend of Pivot is a friend of mine, also Mark Leibowitz, who's a wonderful reporter.

He used to work for a whole bunch of places, New York Times, I Washington Post, I think.

And now he's, I think he's at the Atlantic.

Yes.

He's the author of one of the buzziest books in the post-Trump era.

It's called Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission.

That sounds very, very sexual tension, palpable.

But first, let's talk about a few things.

Klarna is no longer Europe's most valuable private fintech company.

The Buy Now Pay Later pioneer, who you've talked about, among others, has been slashed to around $7 billion after a very difficult funding round.

That's 85% down from $46 billion just over a year ago.

That is just astonishing.

I'm seeing VCs here and they're really saying everything.

The bottom's falling out.

U.S.-based competitor firm is also down almost 90% from a November high.

I mean, wow.

I mean, the investment, every investor I've met here has been like, this is really bad.

And although they're trying to find good in it.

So, what do you think about this?

They're trying to find good in the private markets declining or specifically the VBC.

Yeah, just like it's good because now we can really get them focused, that kind of thing.

It's good for business kind of thing.

Well,

VCs can't,

A, they have to be optimistic because to invest in companies really early requires just a level of consensual hallucination and optimism that is really admirable.

I could never be an early stage investor.

I hear everything.

I'm like, that's fucking stupid.

And these guys,

you have to give the venture community credit.

They venture.

They really, they find someone they think is intelligent and an idea, and they're willing to pour.

millions, if not tens of millions, behind it.

And it's also something that really is uniquely American.

The problem is,

and this is just part of the the cycle, we're in the part of the cycle where things got so frothy and VCs were able to raise so much money on the backs of incredible returns that they kind of woke up.

I would imagine that two-thirds of the investments made, and this is conservative, allocated in 2021 are dramatically underwater.

And that all the vintage, you know, they all have vintages.

Once they get to a certain point, they just raise, once you get to fund five, you're sort of bulletproof.

Because even if fund five is terrible, you're already raising fund six.

It's the VCs, VCs, the VCs that will go away are the VCs whose first fund was raised in 2020 or 2021 because they've had to compete at these irrational, unsustainable valuations.

Yeah, which they didn't like, which they didn't like.

You heard a lot of grumbling from them when you talked to them.

But they're going to be swept off

the point.

They're just out of business.

Do they have any level of ability to be differentiated by the way they is there anything they can value add to these things that makes them okay?

It's all, this is, there's very few markets, Kara, that are a better case study in the power brand because while they all claim to add value and they're operators and they all love the entrepreneur and are emotionally supportive of the, they all say the same goddamn thing.

97% of them, their value add ends the moment you cash their check.

There's very little differentiation.

A good VC can't save a bad company.

A bad VC can absolutely ruin a good company.

But the majority of them are kind kind of, they're capital providers.

And some, I've done work with General Catalyst.

They have so many resources, whether it's looking for compensation,

compensation benchmarks or an operator to help you.

They have that kind of reach.

I think Andreessen Horowitz has that kind of reach.

But more than anything, it's like a college degree.

And that is, it's not the value add of the education, it's the certification.

I get that.

But the services, they spend a lot of money on services on the side, or that they are, they're someone, you know, there's someone there that can really understand them recruiting is an important thing I know for a lot of startups but a lot of these services seem ridiculous like I have a lot of friends who are startup people and they're always like I would like my VC to shut up like that's what they really say like

VCs and VC is one of you you should expect generally speaking when you put a VC or a hedge fund guy on your board they will be the smartest person you've ever met that knows absolute and lootly nothing about your business and keeps forwarding you interesting ideas and because they're an investor on your board you got to respond so i've stopped unless it's really important, I don't bother the CEO because the board has decided that that means that they can just send crazy batches weird ideas.

But once Sequoia, once Andreessen Horowitz, once General Catalyst is in your deal, everybody else plows in and your financing is oversubscribed because everybody thinks that they're smarter than us because of their previous success.

But there's not, there's not, I would, I always tell entrepreneurs when they take money, be clear, this is on you.

They will assume they will do nothing and you won't be disappointed.

It's the same way with, do you have a publisher?

I know you're writing a book.

I write books.

I supposedly am with the best publisher in business, in the business book world.

And I just assume they're going to do nothing for me.

And I'm not disappointed.

I would agree.

Although I haven't turned in my books, so I shouldn't say things, but I agree.

I used to play a game of that game where everybody dies, but two people that are critical.

And I was always living, me and Jeff Bezos always lived.

And everybody, I'm like, I don't need any of you, the kind of thing, which wasn't a very good selling point.

I'm sorry.

You've decided the two people that are going to inherit the earth are Jeff Bezos and you.

Well, no, if you're making a book, I was like, you put people in the room, the publisher, the publicist, the editor, me, the seller, and I was Jeff Bezos was the seller or Walmart or whatever.

So would you propagate

a generation of people in permanent midlife crisis stasis?

No, but I'm saying

he was running Amazon at the time.

So I needed Amazon.

I couldn't replicate that.

And they couldn't replicate me.

So that was all that was needed.

That's all.

I give you that.

It would be hard to replicate you, Kare Swisher.

I'm still fascinated by by the two people on earth that are going to be Kara and Jeff.

I know, exactly.

So then everybody dies but me.

It's that game of, it's called like werewolf.

Anyway, let's move on.

You were right.

This reckoning of VCs is really coming.

I got that feeling when I was here.

After you said that, I went and visited a whole bunch this weekend.

Well,

they're blessed with, and this is important in life.

You got to be careful around the scorecards that dictate your life because when you have public stocks or you have a Robinhood account and you're checking your stocks every five minutes, that's an investment and a level of stress you don't want.

The nice thing about privates is that they don't have to mark them every day.

So you can pretend that your investment in this cute little company that's a SaaS platform is still worth a billion dollars.

All right, we're going to move on.

Liberal advocacy group is offering up to 200, this is a thing you're going to like, $250 to D.C.

service industry workers if they report sightings of Supreme Court justices.

That's the reaction to Justice Brett Kavanaugh fleeing a D.C.

steakhouse when abortion rights protesters showed up outside.

The group shut down D.C., DC, specifically targeting the justices who overturned Roe v.

Wade, tweeting out an offer for $50 for a sighting and $200 if

the judge is still there 30 minutes afterward.

I don't know what to think of this.

I believe in protests.

I'm not surprised given how they've decided to really stick their necks out on things that are very controversial and

lie when they were in Congress about what their intentions were.

The money thing, it makes me uncomfortable.

Very uncomfortable, I would say.

So, and Twitter told Axios an email that shut down DC's tweets were not in violation of Twitter's safety policies.

What do you think?

So, Amy Cunning Barrett, in my view, over the next 50 years, is going to be one of the most damaging people in the history of America.

And I think she's not going to pay any attention to legal precedent as she claimed she was with Roe versus Way or established precedent.

I think she's going to decide to dictate all her decisions based on her notion of what her Christian God believes.

And she could be there 50 years.

So

it tickles my tribal censors to think that people are making her life uncomfortable and protesting her.

Having said that, I think this is bad and we're going to need new laws to protect that basically say protest is fine.

If you want to be at the restaurant and outside and maintain a certain distance, that's fine.

But anybody who is not broken the law, which she has not, and especially people who occupy positions of government of importance, which she does, should be afforded a certain level of privacy and ability to go about living their lives.

So I don't think you do away with free speech, but I think that if you're a paparazzi and Heidi Klum is checking into the Equinox, they can photograph her.

She there's nothing she can do about that, but they have to maintain a certain distance.

They can't go inside private property.

And also, as it relates to people offering bounties for sightings, I think it should be made clear that if anything happens to those people, you are liable.

You're the person that incited this potential violence.

So I got to be honest, as much as it kind of tickles my tribal sensors to think that Justice Thomas and his wife have their dinner interrupted, the bottom line is they should be able to dine in peace.

I don't like that.

Yeah, but you know,

a lot of people talk about this.

Peaceful protests are fine.

Noisy protests are fine.

It's when they tip over into what happened on January 6th.

And

that's why I don't love the

trying to bribe people to telling people, but that happens in Hollywood, like every five minutes, right?

With celebrities.

And sometimes celebrities call in their own paparazzi.

Yeah.

That's right.

They're alert.

So I think they should be able to protest.

I get the issue around judges, but

it's a very fine line here in terms of the money thing makes me deeply uncomfortable.

And

I don't think it's a violation.

I just think it's a very bad practice.

Protesting, if they see them or somehow find out where they are, but not through bribing people, is fine, I think.

Yeah, but there's safe.

There's some nuance here, Kara.

There's some nuance.

There's some nuance, and that is you've seen those inflatable rats in front of buildings in New York.

I bet they have them in D.C., but in New York.

Yep, uh-huh.

Yeah, the rats.

Yeah, I've seen the rats.

If a restaurant or a business goes non-union or is not being cooperative with unions trying to establish membership, they inflate a giant rat in front of the building and they have protesters.

The police put up a police barrier.

You're not allowed to restrict people's access to their place of work.

They are not allowed to go inside.

They are not allowed to follow people home and make them feel unsafe.

So protest is one thing, but I do think people have a right to go about their lives when they have not broken the law.

So I think there needs to be standards here.

And

when you start providing bounties, I don't know.

It's bounties.

That's right.

It's bounties.

It's scary.

It's not.

Yeah.

I'm not, I think there's going to, just as technology is creating a host of questions we never had to answer before, this is one.

And that is, if you say, oh, Justice Thomas is at this national park hiking with his wife and he's alone and has very small or little or no security, I would imagine at some point these people don't want security.

I don't think they do that.

I've spoken to a justice.

They are with their security all the time.

All the time.

Yeah, especially in this environment.

When you're doxxed,

this really is just a form of doxing, these bounties.

I think the people and the plat, maybe the, I don't even want to say platform because it brings up all sorts of, but the people who do this, I just think you're legally legally liable if anything then happens.

I think it's a bad look if something bad happens to especially judges, you know, especially after this Abe assassination in Japan,

which is very odd what happened there.

But it's just the homemade gun and the, that he had no security, really, that he was so exposed.

It's a very, it's a very dangerous society and there's too many guns in this country.

That's what we're, you know, but what if, okay, so Justice Barrett knows what a little bit what she's gotten herself into.

Does that mean she shouldn't be able to go to Chuck E.

Cheese with her kids and have a peaceful birthday party?

She can, but she cannot not expect protests.

I just, I'm always on the side, you know, people always like, oh, I want to censor people when I talk about dangerous stuff online.

I think protests are,

I've been protested.

I'm fine with it.

I'm fine with it.

I just like the idea of her having to go to Chuck E.

Cheese because I don't like the woman.

And I think that's a punishment worth induction.

And anyway, it's unfortunately the price of admission into democracy right now.

And that's the way it it is.

I don't love it.

I'll take my one time, a group of people protested at my brother's house.

He runs one of our companies, and he brought out lemonade to them.

I mean, just, you know, he was like, hi, guys.

Good to see you.

I was in a fraternity, and we used to get protested right, you know, justifiably all the time.

Ridiculous shit.

We should do a little Elon protest to your blockage.

Anyway, finally, very briefly, Therano's CEO, Sonny Balwani, was found guilty on 12 counts of fraud.

More than his partner, Elizabeth Holmes, sentencings will come in September for Holmes and November for Balwani.

Not a surprise.

Both face 20 years in prison as well as millions of dollars in payments to victims for Balwani.

He seems to be the brains of the operation, even though she was the face.

It seems like it.

I don't know.

Yeah, look, I don't, I wasn't familiar with the case, but it would have been very strange and brought up a lot of very uncomfortable comparisons if the man got off.

Because it doesn't appear, I don't know if he did anything.

You say he's the brains of the operation.

I don't, I don't know enough about, yeah, my sense is I don't think he was any better better or any worse than her.

Is that a general, you know, you look at the case and you're like, I mean, we, we always say, well, it's the top guy or gal, but he entered into a relationship with her when she was very young.

And it sounds like whatever wrongdoing happened here, they were co-conspirators.

That's exactly.

They were a pair.

They were a pair.

The larger question, or I think the thing that's most interesting about this is that this is a function of pissing off the wrong people.

And that is, I think,

so people will say, well, Adam Newman exaggerated and they lied.

And there's a distinction.

And I agree with that.

But the real distinction here, the reason why two of them are headed to prison and one's headed to Coachella, is that

Masayoshi-san was never going to legally go after Adam Newman because it would have involved a loss of face.

Whereas the investors on the board of Theranos went after Elizabeth Holmes and Balwani.

And I think it would have been an entirely different situation for Adam Newman had Masayoshi-san, a billionaire, decided that Adam Newman had committed fraud and committed a crime.

And so this is the reality.

The law protects the protected class who the law is willing to go after people is old, rich investors.

You do not want to piss off Secretary Schultz or Larry Ellison because if they decide you've committed fraud, there's a good chance a lawyer is going to make a good case for it.

And the reason and the reason why Adam Newman got to leave with $1.5 billion

was because Masayoshi-san didn't want the company put into bankruptcy and have an American vulture buy it for pennies on the dollar.

It would have involved a loss of faith.

So he had to say, no, I wasn't fooled.

I wasn't fooled.

I just made a bad decision, but I'm going to save the company, which involves buying his single-class shares back at a premium.

So Adam Newman, every time he's surfing or

lighting up, he should be really thankful.

He got, in my view, he got very lucky.

He pissed off the right people.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's speaking of that, pissing off the right people.

Let's get to our first big story.

Ian on Twitter headed to Delaware Court.

We talked so much about.

I have talked about it a lot this weekend.

Um, meet the press with Karis Wisher

with Chuck Todd.

Meet the press.

I wasn't expecting it.

That was, I watched Meet the Press very late at night when I'm alone, which is my favorite time.

No dogs, no kids, just nothing.

And I pulled up Meet the Press, which I watch late at Sunday nights, and I was so happy to see you.

You look nice.

I thought you did a good job.

Thank you.

You were very calm.

You have that sort of you have that sort of, the way you answer anything, it's like this thin little, like, well, your questions are really, they're so stupid.

They're kind of cute, Chuck.

Let me tell you what's going down here.

But you say it in a polite way.

Let's play a little clip.

Is he still going to own Twitter anyway?

Well, if a court makes him buy it right now, I mean, I think that's where it's going to go to.

It's all a legal proceeding now.

And I think it'll be hard for the court to force someone to pay that much money for something.

And it's a little unprecedented.

And of course, they have Elon Musk who likes to fight.

And so he's going to fight with the Delaware courts.

He's going to fight with Twitter.

He's going to fight publicly.

And so it could be a big mess and everyone might want to just have him pay the billion-dollar breakup fee and go.

But it could be a lot higher.

He may have to, if Twitter presses it, he may have to pay a lot more for trying to get out of this deal.

Ah, see?

There we go.

I thought that was very reasonable.

Twitter is assembling a legal team, a very tough one.

And as of our taping on Monday, has plans to sue Elon for dumping his $44 billion takeover of the company.

It's a necessary step here, but we'll see where it goes.

Elon is said to have hired the same firm to defend him previously in his pedo-guy defamation case in the aftermath of his funding secured tweet.

Twitter shares dropped as much as 7.8% in pre-market trading on Monday.

We'll see where it goes in the next few days.

Donald Trump even waited on the situation at a rally in Alaska over the week, and he's lost his friend Donald.

We're going to play that clip.

Elon,

Elon is not going to buy Twitter.

Where did you hear that before?

From me.

From me.

Fake accounts.

He says fake.

A lot of them.

Nah, he's got himself a mess.

You know, he said the other day, oh, I've never voted for a Republican.

I said, I didn't know that.

He told me he voted for me.

So he's another bullshit artist, but he's not going to be buying it.

He's not going to be buying it.

Wow.

He actually called Elon Leon at the beginning of that.

He was like rambling quite a bit.

So what do you think?

Very briefly, Twitter co-founder Ed Williams tweeted, if I was still on the board, I'd be asking if we can just let this whole ugly episode blow over.

Hopefully, that's the plan.

And this is ceremony.

Let's move on.

Like you just said, like Masioshi-san.

What do you think?

Lower price?

Anything?

New prediction, Scott?

No, he doesn't want a lower price.

They're not going to give him a lower price because they can't trust anything he says.

I don't,

I want to be clear here.

I have a bias and I might be projecting, but what I know of these board members, what I know of the abuse he has subjected them to, what I know of the literally thousands of man and woman years he has wasted.

Do you realize he had every banker on the debt side or the capital market side at Morgan Stanley roaming the earth to raise $12 billion, of which they would get nothing now?

And I don't think they had an automatic fee.

Yeah, they've not made.

Bill Cohen pointed this out.

They're pretty

much...

The bankers are pissed.

As always, the truth is in the details.

When he first, quote unquote,

referenced concern around the bots, right?

Exactly 30 days later, he withdrew from the deal, and there was in the agreement a 30-day

waiting period.

And then, from which point you gave notice to back out of the deal.

So, this is all cooked.

This is everything you said.

If you look at the list of information requests they made, they included things like as esoteric as, what was the valuation method used by Goldman Sachs to issue the fairness opinion for Twitter to get approval from the board?

That serves no useful utility or insight other than to create more tripwires so he could say they didn't live up to their information transfer requirements and I can back out of the deal.

So I would imagine, and I might be wrong, that two things are happening here.

And

I don't understand the law, but I understand human nature among very confident slash narcissistic men.

The majority of this board and this organization called Tesla are run by.

And that is, he has abused these people.

And I don't think they're going to do anything, Scott.

I think you're wrong.

Okay.

They're not.

Okay, they don't.

I don't think they're gonna be in the courts.

I think they're scared and they want to get out of this.

They want to get him away from them.

What I'd ask is he sells back his shares.

He sells his shares, maybe at a loss, pays the billion dollars and goes.

I wouldn't let him just move.

I know it's like we're like justice against Elon, but I think this board wants to get out of this.

So

let me just acknowledge.

Employees are pretty pissed, too.

Let me just acknowledge the majority of smart, thoughtful people I talk to agree with what you just said.

I believe that there's a lot of ego involved here and that these Twitter board has said, here's $50 million to Wachtel and said, pursue this guy to the end of the earth.

And the other thing I don't agree with that's in the narrative right now is that this process will be distracting and damaging for Twitter.

I think it's going to be much more damaging and discovery will be much more damaging for Elon Musk because all that will come out is that he's lied consistently and been a bad actor.

I think Twitter, if you look at the Twitter board here, they, in my opinion, have handled themselves perfectly.

They did exactly what they were supposed to do as fiduciaries.

There's a lot of anger within Twitter, within the employee base saying everything will be fine.

A lot of them are focusing on the money that the management would have made if this deal went through,

which is substantive,

including the CEO.

Anyone with options would have made money.

They would have done well, let's just say.

And so they don't love hearing general manager Nick Calder wrote a memo to staff saying, I do think we'll be okay.

I think they're sick of that.

Like they, they, there's very, there's a lot of rancor.

A lot of people are looking.

Casey Newton wrote a lot about this really smartly the other day.

I do think they want it.

And some of the board members I could see being like, let's get this.

There's a couple of them who have not been through something like this.

I think they hired Wachdell to scare him and that.

to into settlement.

And I think that is where it's going to go is a settlement of some sort sooner than you think.

I don't think they want this to go into court by any means at all.

It's not good for anybody.

Even if it's bad for Elon, I don't think, I don't, I think there's no hurting this guy.

Like, right?

I mean, he blocked Scott Galloway.

He doesn't have any sense whatsoever.

Look,

I have a real bias here, but I think this represents on so many levels this idolatry of innovators that needs to stop.

I don't think it's an idolatry.

It's like he's like trouble.

Like, let's just get him in our rearview mirror.

I don't think it's anything you don't.

Being shameless is a superpower.

Elon, Donald Trump was able to get away with all sorts of illegal behavior because the judge and the person on the other side go he'll just continue to lie and come up with different reasons to appeal and just

just just keep fighting and say whatever is required and lie to people and start shitposting us i don't know care i think i think that i don't think they're the sheriff going to do this maybe someone else will have the balls to do it to this guy but i just think it's a waste of their time ultimately you have to like do a cost-benefit uh analysis and there's no benefit from fighting with him publicly there isn't it the drama needs to end there's way too much drama on this company i i believe me i think he's acted abominably but

i don't think they put him off that easily you want all right we'll see we'll see about that i think lawsuits he's gonna be swimming in lawsuits though you know it's gonna be shareholder lawsuits you know yeah all these shareholders are like okay you have significantly damaged my economic well-being by doing a hit by a not disclosing that you were buying shares when you were supposed to so a lot of people sold sold shares for less than they would have gotten ahead.

He made the disclosure.

And a lot of shareholders, there's going to be all sorts of shareholder lawsuits.

What'll be interesting in Discovery is if it goes far, I think we'll get to find out if there were other bidders and who they were.

Yeah, I don't think there were them, right?

Who knows?

And the other thing is the SEC should have stepped in a long time ago on Elon in a much more significant way.

They didn't, they let this happen in a lot of ways, this kind of behavior.

So I think the Delaware, if it does go far, the Delaware Chancery Court is the sheriff that is needed.

That will probably slap Elon back to last Sunday.

But we'll see.

We'll see what's going to happen.

But nonetheless, I'm so sorry he blocked you.

I will keep you informed of his movements if you'd like, but, and others can't too.

It's a cry out for my attention.

That's, let's be honest.

I almost tweeted, he may be insufferable, but he's not a numbskull.

He was right about what you did.

But there you go.

I did not.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're just, you know, I guess I have a new name for all these people that they give them on, which is the HaHa Boys.

Like,

you know, this is funny.

They're the broiest bros in Broville.

Honestly, they're just so exhausting.

They're exhaust.

They exhaust me in many ways.

Anyway, we'll go on a quick break.

We come back.

We'll talk about the Uber files and we'll speak to a friend of Pivot, Mark Leverowitz, about his new book, Thank You for Your Servitude.

As a founder, you're moving fast towards product market fit, your next round, or your first big enterprise deal.

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Okay, Scott, we're back.

We knew Uber wasn't the world's most ethical company, but new revelations show just how ruthless they were in their efforts to expand into cities around the world and how many top politicians helped them along the way.

Color me shocked.

Over the weekend, The Guardian published the first of many upcoming articles on an investigation of the five-year period when Uber was run by co-founder Travis Kalanik.

The investigation is based on what's called the Uber files, which they love to slap on whatever documents they have.

A leak of sensitive texts, emails, invoices, briefing notes, and other documents exchanged by top Uber executive bureaucrats and world leaders.

This is no surprise.

Some of the big revelations include Uber's alliance with Emmanuel Macron when he was France's economy minister.

He runs France now.

The company used covert tech, which we knew, which they called a kill switch, to keep regulators from accessing data data during raids.

They had done this to Apple, so this was a...

technique they had to keep information out.

Geofencing was one.

Travis, and one of the guys who did this is in some legal trouble right now.

Travis Kalanik dismissed concerns over driver safety, telling other execs that violence guarantees success, not a surprise.

Again, sociopathic, I find.

I don't know if there's any fallout because Uber, of course, said, well, that wasn't us.

That was then.

This is now.

A spokesman for Kalanik said, Mr.

Kalinek never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety.

Any accusation that Mr.

Kalanix directed, engaged in, or was involved in any of these activities is completely false.

What do you think?

What do you think?

Well,

there are some advantages to youth.

And the reason why venture-backed companies tend to be run by people who are younger than other companies is that their

lack of what I'll call knowledge, concern, adherence to traditional norms is an advantage.

And that is, they're like, why can't I have people drive their own cars and pick people up?

I mean, why can't we do that?

And the one thing I will give Uber, I do love Uber.

I interact with it a lot.

I remember taking taxis from downtown San Francisco to SFO, and the thing felt like it was about, if it went over 50 miles an hour, that it was going to fly apart on the freeway.

The driver was rude, and it'd be like 110 bucks.

It was just so taxi service in the Bay Area was so terrible.

It was such an opportunity.

The approach that Travis bought to his business,

I mean, one, it sounds like he went overboard.

If there's illegal behavior, I think the company should still be subject to that scrutiny.

But what I, I think that, I think that the press and media and people who have not been in a startup don't understand is that if a small business is to be successful, it's not about necessarily being just really good people and letting people have two or three days off for pet bereavement and

just being, just being awesomely nice people.

The startups I've run, and maybe it's because I'm a bad manager, it's been like fucking Vietnam.

And I'm not actually equating it to actual Vietnam, but you have to be harsh, scrappy, and almost rapacious.

You have to get more, you have to be more nimble, more aggressive.

quite frankly to a certain extent more in some ways uh more violent in the sense that if someone's not doing their job in a startup, you got to fire them and find someone right away.

If you're about to lose a client, you have to do anything possible to keep that client.

And I'm not suggesting unethical behavior, but there's this cartoon of what it means to have a successful small business.

And I've never been in a small business and never run a small business without a certain level of full body contact violence that a lot of people would shudder at.

This kind of crosses the line.

Travis pushed it.

There was, there's this, and then there's Travis.

I mean, he really was incredibly aggressive and pushed lines.

The stories we wrote that got a guy fired was around rape victims and sort of using their medical reports unethically.

He crossed lines constantly.

Whether he crossed legal lines or not is a big question.

I think we'll see more of these, but none of this should come as a surprise.

I have never seen.

Apple was livid about the stuff they were doing.

It was all line crossing almost continually, even their parties.

You know, I published a memo where he's like, don't vomit on each other or throw, you know, liquor, throw kegs from the roof.

And I can't fuck anybody because I'm the boss, but I would like to.

You know, it was sort of like, that's overstating it, but he pushed lines more than any other.

He was unusual, let me just say, in terms of he took everything and made it bigger, like all those bad tendencies.

Just so you know, the company's official statement on the report reads, we have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that's clearly not in line with our present values.

Instead, we ask the public to judge us on what we've done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come.

They're just sort of like, goodbye, you know, see you later, Alex.

They've got, I mean, I think this will just go away.

There's,

these stories are perishable, and people aren't going to want to, I don't think people are going to revisit the past.

And Uber's got bigger problems, specifically ride-hailing is a shitty business that can't seem to make money.

That is correct.

But still, it's good to know we were all right when we were right.

This is the beginning of the revelations.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists says more than 180 journalists at 40 media outlets will follow up on publishing series investigative reports about the tech tribe.

It seems a lot for this company, which has moved on.

And again, like you were talking about with Elon, I think these people get to move on.

I don't know him, but I went to a party he hosted, and it was like 100 guys and 700 models.

I was so offended, I stayed until 4 a.m.

I just

found it really inappropriate here.

Just awful.

Just awful.

Anyway, you know, what I think we're This is ridiculous.

What's your name?

What's your name?

It's the same haha boys.

They were the worst.

They were toxic.

They were just a toxic, nasty group of pricks.

I don't know how else to put it.

Just honestly.

And they would go for anyone.

They went for their own PR people.

They went, they just went, they went to the mattresses in a way that was so untoward and grotesque that it was hard to,

at the time, I was like, you bunch of fucking assholes.

Like, so anyway,

so we'll see, but soon, but we will move on.

We'll see.

I think Travis will be be just fine.

So now we're going to go to our friend of Pivot.

Mark Levovich is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author known for his incisive profiles of politicians, media figures, and DC society.

His new book is called Thank You for Your Servitude, Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission.

He is also a very old friend of mine.

Welcome, Mark.

Thanks, Kara.

It's great to be with you.

So, so much to talk about.

This is a really funny, funny book.

So, you didn't focus on Trump, but his enablers.

There's a ton of Trump books out there, obviously, and everything, every awful thing he did.

So, let's, so let's, I love that you focus on the enablers because they're really almost worse in some weird way.

Um, so who is the worst enabler of all from your perspective?

Kevin McCarthy, hands down.

Uh, you know, I'd say that Lindsey Graham may be 1A or something, but I would say Kevin McCarthy is my personal favorite because he,

well, first of all, he knows better, but then they all pretty much know better.

better.

And by they, I mean the elected leaders, Republican leaders in Washington mainly, who despise Donald Trump privately.

They are living in fear of him.

Publicly, they will praise him to the nines and are just this panting adulation that you see on TV and have seen for six years.

McCarthy is, I think, first among equals because he just works at it so hard.

He is constantly on the phone.

He was the first to really do a very public ring kissing down at Mar-a-Lago after January 6th.

And he is a pretty good bet to be the Speaker of the House in November after the midterm elections, which will make him the second or third most powerful Republican and chief enabler among equals as we sort of hurtle towards what could be a

return engagement from this nightmare in 2024.

Why are they doing this?

Why does Kevin McCarthy Lindsey Graham is particularly slavish?

What's the end game?

Just power?

It seems power.

It is good for them.

Yeah, I think a lot, it's just very sad.

I think they're bottom line, they're very weak people.

Donald Trump, when I profiled him in 2015, towards the end of the year, he said, look, these are very weak people, and I'm going to exploit their weakness.

And by them at the time, it was like the other 17 Republicans who he had just gotten off stage with.

And I know where to seize weakness in people, and I know how to.

bring it to my advantage and I will bring it to the country's advantage.

You know, essentially, that's his, if he has a superpower, and he's got maybe a few and none of them are good.

But if shamelessness is one of Donald Trump's superpowers, being able to detect weakness in people that he can dominate is another one.

And in this case, he can dominate or did dominate an entire repo,

you know, entire political party with some exceptions, but not many.

And continues to, in a sort of

Scott?

Mark, nice to meet you, and thanks for your good work.

It struck me when Boris Johnson stepped down that it wasn't him deciding to step down.

It was so many of his subordinates and ministers who said, this is unethical.

I'm stepping down.

And it struck me what a contrast that is to our government, that these folks never step down.

They're so horny for proximity to power.

I don't know what it is.

But have you thought about what distinguishes our culture or the construct of our government that creates such an incredible contrast where these people,

regardless of

how much they're abused publicly by him, regardless of even the laws they may be breaking, continue to show up and just kiss ass?

That's a great question.

I mean, I think, I mean, all around us is an example of the cowardice that we see in the Kevin McCarthy's and Lindsey Grahams of the world.

You know, the British one right now is front and center.

But even the contrast to Cassidy Hutchinson,

you know,

Liz Cheney, I guess, in some ways, but just the anonymous sort of state election officials, White House officials who are now beginning to come before the committee, showing courage at a very late moment of this, but a very pivotal moment,

is, I mean, look, it's a very basic duty.

I mean, I like the basicness of Cassidy Hutchinson's story.

It's like, if you're going to tell the truth, you have a story to tell, tell it.

So I don't know what it is about the system, but I do know that the people that Donald Trump has allowed to remain in power, that he hasn't sort of kicked out of office, have been extremely easy for him to sort of manipulate like silly putty and um you know it's everywhere and and you write about them everyone being in on the joke like the entire gop seem to say behind foot they say it to me the man is an idiot they they literally i'm sort of like and the people who say it i'm like you're i don't know what to do it's like so ridiculous um and i refuse to talk i'm like i'm not talking to you anymore um

what what When is that going to actually come out?

It's obviously Liz Cheney has spoken the quiet part out loud a lot.

And they've suffered.

Everyone who has done that has suffered.

Obviously, maybe that's why they don't say anything.

But I even hate that they're saying bad things behind his back.

Like, I'm like, it gets, yeah, it gets very, very tiresome.

And look, as a journalist, these are the things we can, these would be the ethical quandaries we confront.

And basically, you know, I could blow the lid off all of this, but that would involve violating every ground rule upset with these people.

And even though they might be objectionable and hateful people, you know, you can't be burning people on your ground rules.

I mean, that's, you know, we all know that.

So,

look, I mean, there are tapes coming out.

I mean, people are being caught on tape.

McCarthy was caught on tape.

Graham was caught on tape.

I mean, it's happening a lot.

And, you know, look, I think after a while, and a while in this case is seven years, but maybe, you know, shame does creep in or at least exhaustion creeps in and you have some kind of critical mass reached and some change.

But right now, it's a really depressing picture.

I apologize.

I'm going to skip books.

The book that

I know you for is Big Game.

And my son's out of nowhere, all of a sudden, fascinated by the NFL.

And I would just be curious.

Mark wrote an interesting book about the Patriots and the NFL.

I would just be curious.

The NFL is the most successful league in the world.

What are two or three insights you gleaned from studying the NFL and the team that might surprise people about the NFL?

Well, I mean, a lot of them are very seamlessly applicable.

But I think, you know, again, shamelessness is a superpower to use a great way.

I mean, I think that that applies in this world.

I mean, I really do think that, as you all know, billionaires and politicians from my world, they're not like us.

There is always some kind of screw-loose.

There is either, you know, there's often a pathology or a trauma or something either in their background or in just the voraciousness of their hunger for whatever it is they're looking for.

I mean, people sort of number it very simplistically in wealth or

stock price or whatever, but

it goes so much far beyond those metrics and elections and so forth.

But I think

it's just Lindsey Graham sort of spoke to it maybe explicitly, which is that it's fear of irrelevance.

It's fear of being forgotten.

I got to put myself out there.

If the light's not coming on, it's,

you know, you're dead.

I mean, I remember in a different context, Larry King, who I did a profile of for the Times magazine after he was, yeah, after he was like kicked off CNN a few years later and bin Laden was killed a couple years later and he's like oh I have to go somewhere it's a Sunday night I need a car to come pick me up I need a red light to come on in front of me or else I'm dead I feel like I'm dead but no I don't have Larry King has nowhere to go and I think that was the working title for a while but essentially it's sort of the same dynamic with with people in the public eye people of great wealth people of great power it becomes an addiction and they also think the rules don't apply to them right the rules don't apply we were just talking about elon in that same genre.

Let me get back to the book, though.

It is the same.

It's the power dynamics, whether it's Bob Kraft or any of them.

So do any of the Republicans you've spoken to actually want Trump back in the White House?

You actually said they want him dead, essentially, die or go away.

Yeah, there's a Republican.

And dead would work.

I mean, this is just so we're clear, this is not me talking.

This is a Republican congressman saying to me, look, we have no plan about how to deal with this guy going forward, just like we didn't two years ago.

Our only plan is just sitting around waiting for him to die.

And I was like, are you serious?

He goes, I am 100% serious.

That is our only plan.

I've heard that.

And yes, I mean, it's.

Maybe he'll die.

Maybe he'll die.

Maybe he'll die.

I was like, that's

profiles and courage right here.

Just sit around.

Just do that plan.

I mean, you know, Liz Cheney, I mean, at great expense to her.

I mean, her career, at least in the Republican Party, is pretty much done.

But, you know, you could say, oh, well, she got a profile and courage award at the Carnegie Library in Boston a month ago.

And then she got another award at the Reagan Library in in Simi Valley a couple of weeks ago.

I mean, and she'll get a lot of those.

Yeah, so she should.

But, you know, what's that going to get you in the real world?

I mean, I, you know, I'm all for it, but it's

board seats.

Yeah.

Sure.

She'll be fine.

You know, she also has a security.

Possible presidential run.

Oh, absolutely.

Possible presidential run.

Yeah.

In which she could probably get 15% of the Republican vote and, you know, and be great, though.

I'd love to see her voice in there.

But, Mark, as you talked to these people, did you get a sense for who who they would like to see in that position?

Not Donald Trump.

I mean, I think, you know, as a default, it's a very lazy default.

They say Ron DeSantis, but they don't know Bron DeSantis.

They don't like him.

They don't like him.

I mean, people, that's two Republican congressmen and women who served with him.

This guy is a weird dude.

He does not scale well.

He does not wear well.

Same with the other Republican governors I talked to.

And he's also not a slam dunk to be re-elected in Florida at all.

And Charlie Crist, his Democratic opponent, is a very flawed character, and they're basically neck and neck.

So

I can't imagine he would hold up well to.

He's funny.

Who, DeSantis or Chris?

Chris.

Yeah.

Santis is humorless.

That's why he's not going to hit.

Christ is like

the host

at the diner I go to.

He's a very lovely guy.

And, you know, Florida diner owner.

But no, he's impressive, though.

He's a former governor.

You know, the expression, you're likable enough.

She's likable enough with Hillary Clinton, as you know?

He's not likable.

And I think that's going to get him.

He's a weird dude.

He's not not likable and he's not i hate that you know he doesn't smile enough

even that they say like oh he's trump with a brain i mean he's obviously very smart but he no trump is funny trump is

very charming to his audience i mean funny if you're into that even though he's appalling but he's also funny all right let's pivot to the january 6th hearing slat to finish up and biden uh do you think a lot of people do think there really has been they've gotten liz cheney has gotten some real licks especially liz cheney has got some real licks in uh bannon now says he's testifying what do you think the impact?

I think they're playing it beautifully.

This committee has done a great job.

Yeah.

I mean, first of all, I do think the impact certainly beats my expectations.

It's also a great template of how a hearing should be run.

I mean, don't let everyone give your little speeches and then give all 20 people or even six, however many people,

10 people in this case, a turn to talk.

You know, very short.

directed questions, a couple of people doing the questioning,

very thematic presentations, video friendly.

And, you know, they've gotten a lot of good material to work with.

So I like that it's making the right people nervous.

All right.

Scott, finish up, union.

I know you want to ask a Biden question.

Scott has decided Biden is too old to run.

I'm just

from an insider who, or my sense is you are an honest bystander with great access.

I'd just be curious to get your rundown on how the Democratic side of this is shaping up in terms of, it feels to me like everybody's publicly says, just as they say they they they like trump and privately say they don't i get the sense on the democratic side everyone's saying they're supporting joe biden and meanwhile they're getting their own you know kamala harris for president posters ready what what are your thoughts on the democratic side i'm hearing the same thing except without the kamala part um you know the uh

i mean first yeah joe biden's too old i mean i i'm happy that my mother stopped driving at age 78 or 79, however old he is.

And I don't want her to be president either.

It's obviously not an optimal situation.

You know, there's no natural error apparent.

I would, you know, personally, I've heard, I've talked to a ton of people who,

and some have said this publicly, some more will say it publicly, I think, as Biden becomes more entrenched in his

mid-30s approval rating

and just the sort of swoon continues, is, look, he really needs to step aside and throw this open to a field of Gavin Newsoms or Stacey Abrams or AOC or, you know, J.B.

Pritzer, I mean, whoever.

I mean, just like, just anyone new, just like, let, let, just bring, just open the gates and you cannot be as afraid of Donald Trump as the Republican Party is.

Because basically, the inherent

risk aversion that put Joe Biden, that made him the Democratic nominee a few years ago, is a product of Trump, too.

It's like, no, we can't afford to lose this.

We're going to throw grandpa out there and hope he can take one more spin around the block.

Yeah, because he he beat him.

He beat him.

And the others did.

And the other thing is, why should he give up power on some level?

Like, he got to be president.

Yeah, let someone beat him.

Screw you.

Exactly.

I mean,

I think the complaints about his age are not being made to Biden.

I just think they're stating objective truths.

He is down 64% of Democratic voters say they would prefer a new standard bearer in the 2024.

It's a new poll.

And also, he's down at 33%.

Although I don't think people are necessarily linking him to some of the candidates, he's not dragging candidates down as much as

I thought.

Yeah, maybe.

So it depends.

It depends on the river.

Not in Georgia, not in other places.

You know, we'll see.

Is there anyone we haven't mentioned?

Is there, I mean, there's always, Kara and I always like to

bet on horses, but typically in this part of the cycle, if you bet on a horse, that only guarantees they're not going to win.

Are there any unknowns we're not talking about?

Yeah.

Remember your bet.

Speaking of Elon Love, remember your Betto love?

Oh, we love Betto.

I love Beth.

No, we didn't.

We didn't.

Karen's.

Tallinn is handsome, which makes him a little bit more.

Karen called him a man boy.

He's not a handsome man.

I think she should be present.

Tall and handsome is important for our leaders, Kara.

Anyways, Mark, go ahead.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think Chris Murphy of Connecticut,

he's been very successful in the gun control, you know, getting this done.

Very charming guy.

I like him a lot.

A lot of people like him a lot.

Amy Klobuchar doesn't get mentioned a lot, but probably should.

She had a decent race the last time.

checks a lot of boxes, definitely qualified.

You know, so I'm sure there are, I mean,

I don't know.

Mitch Landrew is a name I always hear.

Me too.

What do you think of like a Mark Cuban or even if someone like a Jon Stewart, do you think that Donald Trump has paved the way for kind of famous private sector kind of funny?

Yeah, um, it would be interesting, but man, I, I, if Donald Trump paved the way, it's a rocky pavement in my mind.

I mean,

oh boy, I mean, that, that is, I mean, obviously, Donald Trump is sort of a unique figure, but um

I'm you know, one one thing I do appreciate about Joe Biden is he kind of knows how to do this.

You know, Jared Polis, Colorado, is another person you hear a lot.

So, yeah, I mean, I.

I'm on Team Cuban because I'm his enabler.

All right, fine.

I'm just, I think he'd be hysterical.

The theme of enablers is actually.

My goal is to get Scott and I on Air Force One quite a bit.

That's my goal.

I know.

That could probably be arranged if the right things happen.

But first, Kirby

must emerge.

Yes, it must emerge.

Maybe Elon will run.

No, he can't actually, because he's not not an American citizen.

I mean, he is an American citizen.

He's not born here.

I'm going to be Ambassador Australia.

Anyways, they'll love me.

They will love me.

And they just send me a lot of people.

Go to street parties.

Go to Australia.

Last question, Mark.

What are you writing about next?

What's your next topic?

Well, I do have this book thing for the next couple of weeks.

Still trying to figure that out.

I mean,

I might write about,

you know, I want to write a story about baseball or basketball.

This is my little thing.

I need a little break sometimes after a big sort of

exhausting topic and cycle.

You know, if you can jump off for a little bit, right?

And, you know, I have a little more freedom now, The Atlantic, the New York Times.

I was much more

politics.

Yeah.

So, you know, maybe I'll get the freedom to do that.

But, you know, vacation in August if there's, if there's time.

But right now, I'm just sort of focused on this thing.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for your servitude.

It's out now, Mark.

We really appreciate it.

Can I just say that shamelessness remains a superpower?

Nothing has has changed.

Nothing like this has happened, changed in the last 15 minutes.

Thank you, Mark.

Good work.

Good luck.

Congrats on your success.

Thanks.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

That was great.

We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear a good prediction, a nice prediction.

Besides the fact that you and Elon will be getting married, I'm very excited.

I've got to pick out what I want to wear.

You know, I'm finally, I'm glad that he's finally becoming more in touch with his emotions and his anger towards me.

I get it.

Anyways,

look, my prediction is a boring one.

You believe, and I think you're on the side of most people, that they are going to look at this

drawn-out, ugly mess and want to just get out and move on.

My prediction is that's not the case, that they have

a lot on their side here.

I think discovery is going to be really awful for Elon.

And so my prediction is this is going to go on further and that this lunch, I think that Elon is going to be served a colder lunch than people are currently anticipating.

The other thing I think will be really interesting is I do think there were likely,

and I think they're going to have to disclose this if the case goes long enough.

There were other suitors who wouldn't pay this price, but would say, we'd be interested in talking.

Like who?

Give me a name.

Don't be like all Koi.

Disney, Salesforce, private equity firms.

Oh, Chapex not wandering into this neighborhood.

No way.

You might be right.

I asked Mark Benioff directly.

He said no.

Like he wasn't even, he didn't even like go, well, you know.

Well, given also Brett, the co-CEO is the chairman, it would have created all sorts of issues.

Yep.

I think it's going to be hard.

They're going to have to be on their own.

Actually, I would recommend recommend a Bill Cohen column speak about this.

Being on their own might be the best thing that ever happened.

They could make it into a, you know, they had some freedom and some ability to do some things,

they could do pretty well.

They could, they could, they could.

So we'll see.

It's certainly a wake-up call for this company, which has sort of floated around for the longest time.

But we'll see.

I'm going to take the other side of that.

I think they're going to settle.

Yeah, that's what you said.

And it's also, it's also an opportunity to do what they should have done a long time ago, and that was move to subscription and actually clean up the platform.

But anyway, payment i think your payment idea was important i just know these board members and they are not pugnacious by not one of them not one of them no maybe egon durbin is he still on the board i don't even know if he's still on the board he's a big enforced person he's treated them like such just

he's he literally has abused these i think no i think i i know almost all of them and i think they're like let's get this person away i think they would like him to sell his shares and not buy anymore That's, that might be a condition.

That would be something I would, you don't want him near you anymore.

I still don't understand why they don't kick him off the platform.

And by the way, if Elon doesn't buy this, Trump is never coming back.

They're not going to wait until that.

They've already gotten the damage from not letting Trump kicking him off.

They're never letting him back on.

That's the end of it for sure.

So this is, this is, we'll see who's right.

And I think the good money or the smart money right now is on your side, but you're taking it.

Our prediction is, I think this is going to go longer and be uglier for Elon than people are currently saying.

And I think you're saying cooler heads will prevail and they will settle and get it and move on.

They're very reticent people.

These people are not like fucked this guy.

They're just not.

So we'll see where it goes.

We'll see where it goes.

But

it'll be a bit.

It'll be a bit.

Okay, Scott, that's the show.

We'll be back on Friday for more.

Anyway,

beat us out, Scott.

Today's show is produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Intertot engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel 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 and business.

Block me harder, you bitch.