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Oh no. Oh my god. No. No. No. They're kissing. Don't do it. Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York
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Magazine and the Fox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser. And I'm Scott
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Galloway. Hello Scott. How's it going? It's good. Um I'm I'm trying to I've
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been setting up my home gym. I'm I actually You know what? I didn't I'm
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trying to I took a week off of alcohol and edibles because I and I found this research that is I find accurate and it
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said that if you cut out alcohol and edibles from your life for just uh for 21 days or more you lose 60%
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of your will to live. Oh, I knew that's where that was going. Oh my god. Also,
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Elsa, it's been a while. Hold on. Hold on. I'm not stopping there. My in-laws
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are staying with me. Oh, how's that going? You like them? Oh, they're wonderful. It's perfect because they
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don't speak very good English, so we don't communicate. I'm convinced that
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in-law your relationship with your in-laws starts to come off the tracks when you begin communicating. But, uh,
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something kind of awkward happened over the weekend. Uh-oh. I had left my computer out there involved. My
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mother-in-law opened it and what did she see on my computer? No. No. What? Well,
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you can imagine. One guess. Porn. Porn. Porn. Yeah. So, but I had the perfect excuse. What? I said, I get my weather
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from cockgobblers.com. Okay. Before this didn't happen. Okay. Cockgoblers. I mean, that is good
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branding. That is really That signals awareness. It signals intent. It tells you what the product offering is. Yeah,
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I love that. Yeah, I love that. I get my weather there. Yeah, right. Okay. Well,
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I'm going on a big trip. Yeah, you need to travel less. I actually am worried
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about you. I haven't in a while. I haven't tried. This is the first big trip I'm taking. Good. I also think you
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need and I'll see you in France. Spend some of your money and enjoy yourself
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and relax a little. I'm not a vacationer, Scott, like you. Yeah, you should start. It's a lot of fun. I'll
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show you how. I never not liking gardening. I like doing organizing my things. And can I give you
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a hint? Two hints. One, don't take your kids. And two, travel to hotels, not to
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cities. Oh, well, I'm go I'm going to be in San Francisco, so I'll be at my
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beautiful home there, which I love to. Let's not travel. That's enough of our
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revelations. Personal revelations. We've got a lot to get to today. I'm so glad
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you're You didn't really show your mother-in-law porn, did you? I hope not.
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No, that's that's a lie. I clear a lovely lady. I clear my browsing history
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once you Okay, now I'm all paranoid because I found out people actually listen to this thing and they get angry
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when I say stupid things about them. Oh, okay. Um, that aren't true. By the way,
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um, okay, let's make sure my in-laws are to be blessed with young, competent
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in-laws is just they are we moved to Florida because to be near them and it was one of the best moves we ever made.
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They're really lovely people. Also, uh, having grandparent that is a I did not
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witness that. I did not participate in that cuz all my grandparents passed away. Oh wow. The grandparent child
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grand grandkid relationship absolutely is just so in incredible to watch. Absolutely. My grandmother was critical
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to my life. I have to say she really was. She raised me in a lot of ways. So anyway, uh we've got a lot to get to
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today, including uh Elon's farewell to Doge, his long [ __ ] goodbye, the Trump taco trade, and what happens when
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we tried Google's new AI video generator, VO. But first, uh, Donald Trump's tariff strategy has been dealt a
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major blow. The US Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that the Trump overstepped his authority by
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using emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs, in fact, not bypassing Congress. The three judge panel found
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that federal law did not grant Trump unbounded authority to tax imports from nearly every country around the world.
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The White House plans to appeal, and the case is likely going to the Supreme Court. They're working hard over there.
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Uh tariffs on steel, aluminum, and a few other sectors are still in place, but they're imposed under a different law.
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Uh this is going on. And let me just bring in taco trade. Uh have you heard you you've heard about taco trade? Taco,
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short for Trump, always chickens out, is a new acronym coined by a Financial Times columnist. It describes a pattern
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where Trump rattles the markets with his tariff threats only to backpedal a few days later, sending stocks surging. The
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latest example, Trump found 50% tariffs on EU goods last week hit pause on Sunday after a good call with European
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Commission President and when the markets reopened Tuesday, the Dow jumped over 700 points and the S&P 500 saw its
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biggest gain in weeks. Uh Trump doesn't like the taco terminology, mostly because he probably doesn't tacos.
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Remember that whole thing with tacos he had going? His pissiness was on full display when asked about it on
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Wednesday. Let's listen. Oh, isn't that nice chicken out? I've never heard that.
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You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number and I said you
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have to open up your whole country and because uh I I gave the European Union a 50% tax uh tariff and they called up and
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they said please let's meet right now. Please let's meet right now. And I said
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okay I'll give you till Janine. I actually asked them, I said, "What's the
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date?" Because they weren't willing to meet. And after I did what I did, they
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said, "We'll meet anytime you want and we have an end date of July 9th. You
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call that chickening out?" Oh, man. Is he sensitive about that taco trade? So,
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talk about the two things, the the court ruling and then this taco trade. The idea that his unpredictability has
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become predictable. Well, I just have an adjacent thought. And the first is that
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there's a lot of sort of quote unquote conspiracy theory from the right that there was
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this gigantic cover up of Biden's cognitive decline. First off, if it was a cover up, it was the worst cover up in
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history. They let him go debate and put his cognitive decline on full display. But it's no it was no more a cover up
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than the cover up of Trump's cognitive decline right now. Did you see his speech at West Point? I agree. I agree.
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I was really struck by. So is is this a cover up? The guy is rambling about nonsense. So it's are we in are we in
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the midst like one you might do? But go ahead. Are we in the midst of a cover up? Anyways, the in terms of the taco
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trade, Trump since the inauguration, Trump administration officials have announced new or revised tariff policies
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more than 50 times. And I'm having trouble finding one deal. I mean, he talks about deals, announced
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a deal with the UK, but nothing was signed. It was a it was an agreement to have further discussions. I I don't He's
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saying it's helping them come to the table by his crazy moves, his his wave or something, whatever he calls it. This
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is how terrible a business person and negotiator Trump is. Yeah. Trump puts a policy a tariff of 145% and then he
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admits himself, well that was kind of high and then he lowers it to 30 because the markets the markets throw up. So
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he's essentially if he's a poker player, he shows up to the table with all this
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bravado and swagger. He goes all in and then before he even sees what the other players say or do, he goes, I fold. I
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fold. He negotiates against himself and nobody takes him seriously. But here's
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the real story in my view. This is nothing but a weapon of insider trading. And that is he can
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create volatility. He can take markets up for some of their biggest gains in history when he takes these ridiculous
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trades off the table. He can take markets down. And the people around him are trading stocks like [ __ ] crazy.
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including you're going to find that some of his hedge fund buddies that he speaks
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to or tuxman in bedite some of whom we talk a lot about are going to vastly outperform the
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index. Yeah. And even even representatives Marjorie Taylor Green there was a whole bunch of people
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trading. Let's talk about this. Let the fish rots from the head. Mhm. The nation's top cop is the attorney
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general. Yeah. Pam Bondi. Pam Bondi on April the 2nd sold one somewhere between 1 and 5 million in Trump media stock.
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Why April 2nd? That was the same day the liberation day tariffs were announced. So we have the person supposedly
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ensuring the markets have rule of fair play is trading stocks the day her boss announces tariffs that will take the
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markets down. She sells a ton of stocks and it is everywhere. uh the state department officials um Michael Platt
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staff director and congress uh sold around escalating the the trading in and out of the market based on who knows
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what when huge spike in options volume right before he makes these announcements which means that people
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know something and people hear this I just want to try and connect the dots here people hear this and go okay
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there's always been grift speaker Pelosi uh speaker Joe Pelosi, there's Osman
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Griff. So, so if some people are getting richer, fine. What people fail to make the connection is the following is that
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when you buy same day options because you know he's about to reduce the tariffs and the markets are about to
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scream up, somebody is on the other side of the trade that doesn't have that
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insider information that is selling that person that option and is going to get taken to the laundry, is going to lose a
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[ __ ] ton of money. And the reason why off a $27 trillion economy, we have a $50 trillion market cap stock market,
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which gives companies the ability to raise money. It gives people the chance to save money for their retirements. It
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gives people incredible compensation upside if they get options. The reason why we have such incredibly deep pools
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of capital that create prosperity and risk aggressiveness, we have $5 million in risk capital for every startup.
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Europe has 1 million is because people believe there's a rule of fair play and
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fair trade. Now let's look at let's look at Russia. Russia is one I'm sorry 114th
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the size of our economy. 2 trillion or about 28 trillion. The total value of the Russian stock market is $80 billion
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because people don't trust it. People are like unless you know Putin you don't
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know what's going to happen. And there's so much insider trading and kleptocracy
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that the markets don't have any trust. So what do you have? You have essentially even on a size adjusted
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basis our stock market is 70 times the value of the Russian stock market even ramping it up to to adjust it for market
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I'm sorry adjust it for the difference in the size of the economy. So when a
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bunch of people think I lost money and I'm not on the inside, I'm not going to
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participate in the markets. Yeah, I agree. This is that's a really fantastic
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take actually. I really what's going on here. He's also doing it because he
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doesn't have a plan at the same time and people are either he is in on the grift,
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right? Or he's so dumb and a bad business person they're playing him and
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rewarding his allies. there. He's rewarding his allies and also doing what he does, which is run businesses right
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into the ground, which is his that seems to be the consens consistent part of his
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business career is to run businesses into the ground in some fashion with these sort of capriccious things. And
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the fact that he gets so angry about it was really revoly. It's like he he knows
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exactly what he's doing. He's trying to put it off. And I it's really depressing
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when someone like Scott Besson says, "Oh, acting crazy is a strategy." I'm
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like, "No, it's not. It's not as I mean maybe once but you can't do it over and
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over and over again and that's what he's doing. And so Europeans he's like oh
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they came to the table because they made that threat. I'm like they probably
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waited until you did this and then they're like okay now time to come to the table. Um but they are long they are
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long gaming him so badly. It's it's really an astonishing thing and he deserves every single insult he gets
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about how he's conducting these the court thing. How do you feel like they just are just all the courts? 96% of
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courts are against Donald Trump on all these rulings, not just the tariff ones, but all of them. 96%.
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Okay, I'll talk about the courts now. I want to give you just some more data
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here around the insider trading that has gone [ __ ] out of control and it's
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going to it's going to scare the [ __ ] out of capital to leave the US. Okay, I feel for the most part 80 to 90%
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of executive actions, tariffs, EU tariffs, Apple tariffs, har going after international students at Harvard, all
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of this they know will likely be swept away and these organizations will get injunctive relief and these things will
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not stand. I think it is again they're like okay what could get us kicked out
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of office how we lose con Congress is if Americans wake up and instead of focusing on the international students
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that might be kicked out of Harvard which will be turned over and we the media clutches its its progressive
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pearls for good reason. I realize it has larger implications but folks this is going to have no impact on anybody
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because it's going to go away over the long term. is bad and I'll come back to
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why it's bad for our best one of our biggest exports and that is education. But it is a distraction from what really
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impacts people. And this is my problem with the left is we get outraged and we're more interested with proving and
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grasping at social virtue as opposed to actually focusing on what impacts the material and psychological well-being of
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millions of Americans. And this is what is going to impact tens of millions of Americans. This big, beautiful tax bill
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is about to cut taxes for 5% of the wealthiest Americans and take away Medicaid for 8 million people and
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increase the deficit by almost 4 trillion, which will be a tax on tens of millions of young people. So they I and
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by the way, it's going to disproportionately impact red states. So if we focus on that and say what is
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really impacting millions of people, it's the rep we might actually take back
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control of Congress, but instead we go for oh no, let's get outraged about Harvard. Okay, I get it. But they are
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purposely trying to to misdirect us. Now in terms of these court cases he if he wants he can make really uh he can make
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life really difficult when essentially imposed tariffs in different ways but it's not going to happen. I have made
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the same prediction over and over in a year from now two years from now the tariff and global trade situation will
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look remarkably similar to the way when he started and he will have grifted and his people will have grifted their way
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into insider trading. Can I give you some more data? Sure. But we have to move on but go ahead. Okay. Okay. Just
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because this insider trading thing, I don't think people realize what this does to the unbelievable
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incredibly cheap capital and pools of capital that the US trust that people have in the market all the problems
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they've had. Now they've had insider trading issues for for 99% of our existence on this planet. People would
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never give money sell something to strangers in a market. They thought it was all insider, right? So the the trust
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in markets is is literally the jet fuel of our one of the jet fuels of our prosperity. Okay. So this has been going
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on for a while. In his first term, Carl Carl Icon sold 31 million in steel related stocks the day before Trump
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announced steel tariffs in 2018. On March 30th, 3 days before Trump's initial tariff announcement, at least
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three hedge fund managers attended a private dinner in Mara Lago, and all three dramatically increased their short
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positions in the 48 hours following that dinner. One of those phones, Bluestone Capital, is run by a guy named Brian
00:16:03
Chevlin, who was instrumental in the early days of Trump's media spa merger.
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Bluestone Capital increased its short position in Tesla by 300% or four-fold on April 1. One day, one day, Cara,
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before the tariff announcement that sent Tesla shares down 17%. And then the fund
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then closed most of its short positions on April 8th, right before Tesla rebounded 18% up on news of the tariff
00:16:33
pause. So this guy either has a [ __ ] crystal ball or a gut like we've never
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seen or investing or he is getting information from people at the very top about non-public information. So, why
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would an average investor ever buy or sell Tesla stock when chances are someone on the other end knows more than
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I do? And we have an SEC who's not enforcing any of this or it's someday,
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you know, as I told you, there's a lot of people outside of government following all of this and collecting all
00:17:05
this information. If our government's not going to, there are technical people, even some podcasters. Yes, I'm
00:17:10
keeping notes on all this [ __ ] Exactly. But they're keeping the actual transactions in case they people with
00:17:16
actual power. Power. Yeah, exactly. Not yelling into Tik Tok. They are going, this is someday they will probably run
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off with this money, but it is absolutely a grift. And someone who understands the griftiness of it, Elon
00:17:27
Musk has talked about it, is officially, he's using the term grift, but he's
00:17:31
talking about the problem with deficits and tariffs. Um Elon Musk is officially an ex special government employee,
00:17:37
posting on his social platform that the Doge mission will only strengthen over time, which means it will not. It's
00:17:43
over. um must thank Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending, but only after throwing some shade at
00:17:49
his former boss. Here's what he told CBS News. By the way, the guy who hates old
00:17:53
media is [ __ ] all over old media these days. Let's go. You know, I was like disappointed to see the massive
00:18:01
spending bill, frankly, uh which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work
00:18:08
that the Doge team is doing. I think a bill can be can be can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it
00:18:14
could be both. My personal opinion. Yeah. Yucking it up with Elon. He's not uh the only one out there. Doge
00:18:21
spokesman Katie Miller is following him. For those who don't know, she's married
00:18:25
to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller. By the way, there is a lot of very funny memes about this on
00:18:30
the internet, but I'll let you go there and find out what they're insinuating.
00:18:34
Um Elon meanwhile has ordered himself back into the offices of X, SpaceX, and Neurolink with mixed results. The SpaceX
00:18:41
Starship system exploded in a Tuesday test. It went further, but it's still this is the third failed launch in a
00:18:48
row. Um it did go further. Uh these are this is what he does a lot of time. X crashed twice in one week, which must
00:18:54
attribute to uh fail over redundancy, whatever that is, issues that need to be addressed. On the bright side, Mus says
00:19:01
Tesla's been testing roots in the streets of Austin with no incidents and promises delivery to customers next
00:19:05
month. Meanwhile, Whimo does millions of these all the time. And Neurolink just raised $600 million at a $9 billion
00:19:13
valuation, which is good for him. Um, so couple things. One is uh they have wiped
00:19:19
out they're sending up a I think it's a recision package of just $9 billion from
00:19:25
uh from Doge cuts that they may try to fix, but that's $9 billion in our multi-t trillion dollar promise that uh
00:19:32
Musk made to us. Um I think he's been used as a jump for by Trump in a lot of
00:19:37
ways, sort of a handwavy thing. And then Trump turns around and and and ruins the
00:19:42
whole thing through a deficit. I think Musk does understand that the deficit and the tariffs are a real problem. Uh
00:19:48
whether he can bring back his businesses, that's an open question. He's certainly talented. Uh your
00:19:52
thoughts, Scott? Well, I'm I'm glad you brought it up. It was a good week in the
00:19:57
sense that Neurolink, which creates diversification for him, raised money at a nine. I thought it was seven, but
00:20:02
you're saying it's 9 billion. That's incredible. And in and also a testament
00:20:06
to his genius and vision to do things like that. Uh we'll see how it it pans
00:20:11
out. But yeah, I don't you know if you the two seminal impacts of Doge are the
00:20:18
following. It has almost no impact on the budget because if you look at it essentially what's happened here is he's
00:20:24
also cut um I think it's uh a ton of staff at the IRS and the estimates are that that will
00:20:31
inh reduce their ability to collect what would have been another $400 billion in
00:20:37
revenue. So give him his word that it's 150 billion in savings. That means that
00:20:41
Doge is essentially taking the deficit up another quarter of a trillion dollars a year. Nobody believes that 150 number.
00:20:48
By the way, most people think it's about 10 billion. I like what Mitch McConnell
00:20:52
believes that the chocolate and peanut butter of our power around the world is a combination of hard and soft power.
00:20:58
and he's essentially gutted our soft power by taking I mean that $75 million
00:21:04
in US aid was just when there's genocide in a nation a bunch of people show up
00:21:10
and try to hold people accountable such that it doesn't happen again and a lot
00:21:14
of those people are Americans when there is a war torn ravaged village town in Ukraine a soup kitchen gets popped up
00:21:23
and a lot of those people are Americans and that just makes people mostly Jose Andre, but now it's not the
00:21:31
government, it's Joseé Andre, but go ahead. Well, but we do we do have all sorts of hospitals around the world that
00:21:37
that help kids with vaccines. And I mean, there's just a ton of stuff. The old Hershey bar American GI story
00:21:45
100%. And that will have a long-term impact on our brand. Uh, Doge is cutting more than it's or it's it's going to end
00:21:54
up costing us more than it saves. And again, I go back to the same thing, Cara. It did its job. It was it was a
00:22:01
distraction from this administration's decision to blow up the deficit to give
00:22:06
a tax cut to you and me. I mean, the griff that's what Democrats should be focusing on right now. Yeah. I mean,
00:22:13
it's been a failure for him. Also, at first, it sort of raised his wealth substantively, and it certainly got the
00:22:18
regulators off his back, which was one of his goals. Absolutely. It got him some Mars stuff that he wants,
00:22:24
allegedly. you know, the Mars money. So, he got his Mars money, he got some regulators off. He lost a lot of money
00:22:30
in the in his in terms of his in terms of Tesla and also his personal brand is decimated, I think. And he certainly
00:22:38
could get it back, I suppose, but he's certainly done not draped himself in glory in this effort at all. He looks,
00:22:44
you know, one of the things about these tech people is they look a little godlike and now he looks like he has
00:22:50
feet of clay, right? and you've seen parts of him that are a nuisance and irritating and weird. Um, so it hasn't
00:22:56
been, you know, this is stuff a lot of us who spent time with him have seen, you know, his like telling jokes like
00:23:02
that and laughing at his own jokes and stuff like that. He seems odd and strange. Um, and so I uh I I just feel
00:23:10
like this has not been a plus for Elon Musk. He may bring it back. He may do other things. The question is whether
00:23:16
he's going to return to politics or if he's had it with them. It felt like he a
00:23:20
little bit kind of he had it. He kind of has enough of this and he realized he got he got taken by the world's most
00:23:28
adept con man which is Donald Trump. 99.9% of the time if you're on a board or you have a temptation to take a
00:23:37
political stand as a corporation. The answer is no. You don't do it. And not
00:23:42
only that, he not only bet one way. He went into politics which is sort of a no no. He bet the wrong way because
00:23:49
threearters the people that he's endeared himself to by taking a red pill stand, threearters of them say they
00:23:55
would never buy an EV. So it's just very unusual that he would decide to go into
00:24:00
politics in a way that alienates his core market. Oh, maybe it's some psychological problem he has. Please
00:24:06
hate me. Hate me. Please hate me. I don't know. It was It's very strange.
00:24:09
We'll see if he can recover. He's certainly a talented business person. He
00:24:13
may have gotten data and information that he didn't have before. Who knows? I
00:24:17
think that needs to be investigated. Not not just me, but Sad Bannon does. What exactly did they download? Where is the
00:24:23
data? What happened to it? I think there needs to be at some point a real look at
00:24:28
what they did, what do Doge has done. And we'll see if they continue. But without the engine of of and the threat
00:24:34
of Elon Musk, I don't think it's going anywhere. They will just they will just
00:24:38
they will just smother it. But I always feel I always feel a need to try and bring I always feel a need to try and
00:24:45
bring some semblance of balance around Musk. I was I've thought for a long time
00:24:51
Whimo's just so far ahead they'll never be able to catch them. And I did speak
00:24:54
to an analyst around Tesla and said Tesla does have some very real advantages around autonomous and that is
00:25:00
they have more data because they have a huge you know they have hundreds of thousands of cars that have been in the
00:25:06
market for a while and all of that is great data and also the average cost of a Whimo car is almost a quarter of a
00:25:13
million dollars. Yeah, it's Jaguar. Yeah, it's outfitting it. It's just
00:25:16
really expensive and they say that the Tesla autonomous driving vehicle is going to be substantially less
00:25:22
expensive. So they may be sacrificing safety for that. There's all these debates over whether they have enough
00:25:27
points of failure. And look, he doesn't he takes them off. This guy likes to go
00:25:32
commando on a lot of stuff. Well, you bring up an interesting point because a lot of people say regardless of what has
00:25:37
happened in the markets or the perception of his brand. The Tesla brand's gone from the eighth most
00:25:41
revered brand to the 93rd. I don't think I've ever seen a destruction like that.
00:25:44
I don't even think that happened to Exxon when with the Valdes. But you bring up an interesting point and that
00:25:50
is a lot of people say, "Well, he's playing the long game." Because all of
00:25:52
the inspectors and all of the lawsuits that were getting in the way of his regulation around autonomous or going
00:25:58
after him for lawsuits or whatever have all just disappeared. So it still might have been he might he might in fact be
00:26:05
playing chess, you know, who knows? Yeah. In his case opposed to Donald Trump who is eating the pieces. Musk
00:26:12
does. That said, I would not get into Tesla right now. I think they're they they don't have as many points of
00:26:16
failure. You know what I mean? He doesn't care about safety as much as others. And I just don't I I have talked
00:26:21
to a lot of experts about how they're putting them out there. And they're just
00:26:24
I would rather have an extraordinarily safe eventually it'll be looser, but not
00:26:29
today. And I don't I just don't trust them. I trust those I trust those Jaguars more than I would trust a Tesla.
00:26:35
So again, I I would get in I mean I don't get into Teslas because I don't I
00:26:40
don't like the men and I don't want to paint the fence as someone who I think
00:26:42
is such a terrible role model for young men. But on the safety point, I would get in a Tesla because I I think an
00:26:48
autonomous Tesla. Yeah, an autonomous Tesla just because I think Yeah, because I think from a perception standpoint, I
00:26:54
think if they have two or three crashes in their first month, they're pretty
00:26:57
much out of business. I think just from a pure economic standpoint, they got to make sure this thing is pretty safe. He
00:27:02
has a theory about what they need on those cars. It's very different from every other person I know. And they all
00:27:09
are like, "This is a risk you should not be taking." And it's not cuz they want
00:27:13
me to ride in their cars. I I have I'm going to send some people to you because
00:27:16
it's really he he he he argues with the entire industry about how much how much
00:27:22
um we need test pilots and it's a dangerous job. I'm you can get in them.
00:27:27
I'm not getting in them for ever. But but I would I would recommend I I do not
00:27:31
feel unsafe in a Whimo. I suspect feel you know what I did about what a year and a half ago? I went to the DMV. Yeah.
00:27:37
And my son, who has barely driven a golf cart, took a test saying that he understood the difference between a
00:27:43
single yellow line and a double yellow line. And then they gave him a driver's
00:27:47
permit and he was allowed to drive home. Yeah. I mean, it was just like, God be with you. Well, I'd rather Here you go.
00:27:53
Okay. I will get a test with your son. I was at the DMV going, "Wait, he can drive right now?"
00:28:00
I'm like, and I I said to her, I looked, I'm like, "Are you sure that's a good
00:28:02
idea? He can drive right now?" Oh, and your son probably was like, "Dad." And
00:28:06
on the way home on a red light making a left, he pulled out into the intersection. I'm like, "What are you
00:28:12
doing?" He's like, "I stopped first." I'm like, "You can't make a left." I
00:28:16
don't know. I think there's a lot of dangerous drivers. I think humans are
00:28:20
much more dangerous than autonomous. I um I You know what? I'd rather take a
00:28:23
like Okay. All right. That's my favorite story. Sorry. A quick lucky story. Regular quick lucky story. She comes
00:28:29
over to our place with her aunt, with her sister, they drove there, which is crazy. Yeah. And after her kind of, you
00:28:38
know, mildly offensive comments to me over and over, she gets she leaves and you're giving
00:28:45
her instructions to get to Palm Beach, which is north of where I live. And first off, I'm horrified. I walk out and
00:28:53
I see Lucky behind the wheel. I thought you were giving instructions to your aunt or whoever, your niece, whoever
00:29:00
that is, who's who is much younger than Lucky. She's like 90. I see Lucky behind the wheel. And so I
00:29:07
walk over and think, "Okay, Lucky, all you have to do, you come out of the driveway, you bang a right. Got it. Stop
00:29:14
talking to me. Stop talking to me." Right. Heads out, gates open, bangs a left
00:29:23
without looking. And I'm like, she's going to end up in Havana. It's true.
00:29:28
Can I just say I I didn't let my children drive with Lucky after at any point. Never. Never. She like, "Why
00:29:35
can't I drive them?" I'm like, "Cuz I want them to live until the next should
00:29:39
not be driving." No. No. No. I have not gotten a car. It's a cover up. You're
00:29:43
engaging in a cover up. This is one of the things she do. She'd throw us in the
00:29:46
car and we never knew where we'd end up. This is why we stay home. Anyway, let's
00:29:50
go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's many feuds with Harvard Putin
00:29:54
and Tim Cook. Scott, we're back. I know you don't think it's important, but I do
00:29:57
actually. The feud, and I think it's a real feud. The feud between Donald Trump
00:30:01
uh and Harvard doesn't appear to be wrapping up anytime soon. Trump now says
00:30:05
the school should cap international student enrollment at 15%. Why is he telling people what to do? This follows
00:30:11
last week's legal fight where a judge temporarily blocked the White House from
00:30:14
revoking Harvard's ability to enroll in international students. Uh Trump is also
00:30:19
moving to cancel remaining federal contracts with Harvard. It's not just Harvard. The administration is now
00:30:23
considering social media vetting for all foreign students. So free speech, hello.
00:30:27
And is halting student visa interviews. In the meantime, Secretary Marco Rubio, what a show he's become, also says the
00:30:34
US will aggressively work to revoke the visas of Chinese students. Ah, crazy. He's also accusing Russian President
00:30:43
Putin of playing with fire after Russia recently ramped up attacks on Ukraine, launching its largest drone and missile
00:30:49
attack of the war so far. Uh in the post on truth social, Trump also exclaimed that Putin has gone completely crazy.
00:30:55
But despite uh floating sanctions of Russia over the weekend, Trump now says he's holding off because he thinks taco
00:31:01
he's close to a deal and doesn't want to screw it up. Taco Trump said uh he was
00:31:05
going to resolve this conflict on day one. It's not day one anymore. And he bragged about his relation with Putin.
00:31:10
So, that's something. And lastly, uh it's not the only one. He's still got
00:31:15
Tim Cook in his crosshairs of Apple threatening a 25% tariffs on iPhones made outside the US. The move comes in
00:31:22
the wake of Cook reportedly buffing the White House's invitation to join Trump
00:31:25
on his recent Middle East trip that all the others went along on all the other tech mogul. There is also Financial
00:31:30
Times report that Apple contractor Foxcon is preparing to spend $ 1.5 billion on a new plant in India. And
00:31:36
problems for Apple are piling up in addition to these tariffs. Cook is also judg juggling legal battles, global
00:31:42
regulators and a rising AI competition. Um there's a book out about by uh Patrick I think it's Matt Meyer talking
00:31:49
about how much money Yes. I had him on the pod. Yeah. Uh spending in uh has has created the Chinese tech sector
00:31:57
essentially. They trained them up. So let's start with all these things. I know you think they're distractions, but
00:32:01
I think he's quite committed to this Harvard thing. either he didn't get in
00:32:05
or something is going on here, but he seems obsessed with controlling the amount of uh of uh foreign students that
00:32:12
enter the United States, too. And Harvard is proxy for doing that at this moment. So, look, if you look at there's
00:32:20
few there's few people that have added more economic value than graduates, foreign graduates of our uh elite
00:32:27
institutions. 70% of graduate students in AI research in U in the US are international students and over half of
00:32:36
America's startup companies valued at at least 1 billion. So over half of our
00:32:40
unicorns have at least one immigrant founder. So let's even go beyond that. Let's just go short term. I have said
00:32:48
the term we should use for international students is there are cash cows. They pay full freight. they're not eligible
00:32:55
for a lot of financial aid unless they're PhD students who are the brightest people in the world who we
00:32:59
bring in we actually pay. I was on the first day of class at the first day of class NYU at business school I say get
00:33:05
to know the international students because they're real they're rich kids.
00:33:08
So the richest kids in El Salvador and Brazil get to know them. They like to party. They're fun and they're really
00:33:12
rich and when you go and hang out in Brazil you want to know them. By the way, America does a small number
00:33:19
of things really well. Hands down. are the best in tech and software. I don't
00:33:25
even know what the export val volume is of that. I tried to figure it out this morning. I couldn't figure it out. We
00:33:30
make the best weapons in the world. We sell about 300 billion, 350 million, about a third of a trillion dollars. We
00:33:37
export weapons around the world, right? Violence and death are fantastic businesses for us or the ability to
00:33:44
deliver them. And we have the best military industrial complex in the world. We make the best media in the
00:33:50
world. And we ship we the total export volume or business of our movies and TV. So all the money we make from Fantastic
00:34:00
4 and you know uh Frozen and Big Bang Theory and the White Lotus that is we get $40 billion
00:34:11
in uh revenue from exporting our TV shows and our movie. We get $43 billion from the tuition and the
00:34:21
economic value of international students who come here to buy our education. So,
00:34:26
US education is really a bigger US export than movies or TV shows. And and if you want to raise
00:34:34
tuition on domestic students, just take away the full freight high margin cash flow of international students. I'm not
00:34:41
even talking about the brain drain, right? The money we get from them. It's we make so much coin from
00:34:49
international students because why? It's the ultimate luxury item. What's the
00:34:53
ultimate signal of your success? If you live in China or South Korea or Singapore, your kid gets in and attends
00:35:01
an elite American university. Of the hundred best brands, we own like 70 or 80 of them. So, it's great for his Why
00:35:08
is he doing the Harvard thing and then Russia next? Go ahead. I think Russia just tickles the sens his sensors. I
00:35:15
think his his uh a lot of his far-right supporters love this and attack Putin and then come back on it cuz he's being
00:35:25
played. I don't I don't know what he is thinking on the I mean the you want to
00:35:32
talk about someone who makes absolutely no sense. You know Putin's bombing cities. I don't like what he's doing.
00:35:37
He's sending missiles in the city. Okay. You realize he's been doing that for two
00:35:41
and a half years, right? Nothing. No, I don't know if he got personally insensed
00:35:45
or I don't know what's going on there. It's it's a sclerotic impossible.
00:35:50
And Marco Rubio has to be the clown behind this elephant cleaning up his [ __ ] trying to make some sort of sense
00:35:56
of our nonsensical foreign policy. He's being played. He's been I think it
00:36:00
occurs to him and he's mentioned it. Maybe he's been playing me. Yes, he has,
00:36:03
sir. Um been playing him. I think look for Russia right now. The war is its economy. It's now it's not going to pull
00:36:12
very quickly away from it because they don't got nothing else and they got this
00:36:15
war and he Putin has created Russia as as a military economy now um with this war and he hasn't won and so they're in
00:36:25
a world of hurt to get out of this and create a dynamic society and so war is their best choice right now in a lot of
00:36:32
ways. So not going to be easy for them to to pull themselves out of this situation. Um Putin Putin's life depends
00:36:38
on it. I mean, we think that he has total control. There's a lot of other people. Yeah. If if Putin if Putin loses
00:36:44
face in Ukraine, we're going to find out he's going to fall out of a window. He
00:36:48
cannot not win. And the economy is now based on it. And Trump does is being played like a like a fiddle. It's just
00:36:54
like and this going back and forth publicly is so embarrassing. Same thing. It's the same thing as the tariffs. It's
00:36:59
the same stupidity that got us Trump stakes or the casinos in in He's just not very good at business. Um the Cook
00:37:07
one is really particularly strange. Um and it all is about feelings. It's all
00:37:11
about feels it feels like. Um he has a point that Tim that that that Apple has created a very robust technology economy
00:37:20
in China over the many many years 50 billion something like that. Um and not in the United States but there were
00:37:26
reasons for for them doing that obviously to save money to to do it at a cheaper amount. What do where do you
00:37:33
think Apple is at this moment on the outs? For sure. It's so fascinating. You
00:37:37
referenced that book by I think it's Patrick McGee and he really opened my eyes. So Apple has upskilled and trained
00:37:44
25 million Chinese. That's amazing. Think about that. They've upskilled the
00:37:48
population of California and uh Patrick's thesis and I thought it was a fascinating one is that essentially
00:37:55
Apple's investment and upskilling of their tech sector has given rise to Xiaomé and Huawei. basically that the
00:38:03
Chinese who are very smart and play the play the long game have an IP flow that is one way at the same time now that
00:38:09
Cook is trying to move manufacturing to China I'm sorry from China to India China is getting in the way of that flow
00:38:16
and not issuing visas to Chinese who Apple Chinese employees who Apple wants to send to India to set up manufacturing
00:38:22
capacity there also the notion that I said I I used that stat that that analyst used I think it was Dan Ies that
00:38:30
uh foam produced in the US would be $3,500. And he said, "It might as well be a million. We're not capable of it.
00:38:36
There are a thousand parts in every iPhone that make a million phones a day. So that's a billion distinct parts from
00:38:42
hundreds of different sources that we'd have to coordinate." He said, "It I genu
00:38:46
I believe now it would it was easier for Oenheimer and the army and these universities to get to splitting the
00:38:53
atom than it would be for us to get to producing all of the iPhones. Yeah. We just couldn't do it. What is happening
00:39:00
with it? What what how will this affect you know they they have their their they
00:39:04
have their legal issues of course with the government right now in terms of cases and all kinds of stuff. But this
00:39:09
falling out I mean he this appeasement that Tim did I I never thought would work. There's no appeasing Trump.
00:39:16
There's no appeasing this guy. He's he's endlessly thirsty. And the minute he
00:39:21
didn't I I think I did talk to to Maggie Haberman over on my podcast this week
00:39:26
and he was genuinely angry that Tim didn't go like genuinely angry. Straight. He takes these slides
00:39:33
personally. But the market the market is starting to respond to the taco trade and that is the juices coming out of it.
00:39:41
Because if you look at Apple Mhm. I mean, if he did what he said he's going to do, it would seriously diminish the
00:39:47
most profitable product in history, and Apple stock would take a pretty big hit.
00:39:52
Apple's off. I mean, it's down 15% in the last 6 months, but that's off an enormous high,
00:40:01
and it's still it's still up. It's still up in the last 12 months. What would you
00:40:05
do if you were Tim? uh be nice, stay out of his way and and put out fake press releases that says that says, "Oh, we're
00:40:14
investing in a you know, because of the great work of President Trump." It depend does Tim want to be totally
00:40:22
focused on shareholder value or on the rights afforded him as an American. Who I mean, it depends who you're calling
00:40:28
on. If it's calling on his fiduciary obligation to shareholders, he should just kiss his ass, put out a bunch of
00:40:35
fake faux press releases and wait for the midterms, stay out of his way, and what do you know, Trump will move on to
00:40:41
the next red dot that angers him and and the cult of iOS will be fine. Yeah. If Tim Cook recognizes that the reason I'm
00:40:50
a billionaire, the reason why if I want to marry a woman or a man, I can do that
00:40:55
because America has had the foresight and the rule of law to afford to give people rights or if I want to continue
00:41:03
to access the deepest pools of capital in the world. If I want to have a a society where I am fairly safe, if I
00:41:10
want to have a society where uh someone can't wake up and come take all my [ __ ]
00:41:15
just because they don't like who I am. Mhm. Then he should, in my view, take a
00:41:19
stand and say this is an American company and what is going on here is is unamerican. Nobody has done that. I
00:41:26
don't want to put that pressure on Tim Cook cuz nobody has done that. He is going to be a billionaire the rest of
00:41:31
his life. The question is at the end of his life, does he want to be known as an
00:41:34
American hero? And most of these CEOs, and I understand it, have decided my job is just to stay
00:41:43
out of the angry child's way until he gets mad at somebody else and go about
00:41:47
my business. You know who could do that? An owner of a company, a Zuckerberg. Someone who has full control is the only
00:41:53
one who can do that. Is the only one who who has the who has the ability. Tim is
00:41:58
not the owner of Apple. The shareholders are, right? And so it's got to be that
00:42:02
guy, whoever that guy is. There's a Zuckerberg controls his company. Very few are companies are controlled. I
00:42:09
guess Snapchat, nobody cares. It's It'd be very hard for Apple to all of a
00:42:13
sudden get high and mighty about American patriotism when they've essentially outsourced their entire
00:42:18
supply chain to China and upscale China. I'm just the company that has the ripest
00:42:22
opportunity here to to wrap themselves in the flag through the lens of sport and immigrants is Nike. Oh. And their
00:42:29
stock has been kicked in the nuts so badly they don't have a whole lot to lose. That is the rip the ripest
00:42:33
opportunity and branding right now would be for Nike. Not even to mention Trump's
00:42:37
name, but to talk about American immigrants who have excelled, built the world of sport and competition and rule
00:42:45
of fair play. When you're on a when you're on a field, you have to have rule
00:42:48
of fair play. And and they also have the creative resources. They are known as risktakers. And the majority of their
00:42:57
business just do it. Their majority of their business comes from young people who are more progressive and don't want
00:43:02
to be part of a [ __ ] fascist state. All right, let's get on it. All right,
00:43:06
last quick quick quick quick Harvard. What should they do? Many people there was a New York Times
00:43:11
piece saying they've got to they're going to get hit hard by this even if
00:43:15
Trump is wrong. Get rid because of the of the all the things he's doing is very
00:43:20
damaging to Harvard that they were like they may not win this fight with him until he goes away, which is inevitable.
00:43:27
I don't I I don't see I think Harvard has so many I in a weird way I'd go long
00:43:34
Harvard. I think Harvard comes out of the stronger. I think Harvard was developing such a awful reputation for
00:43:40
the definition of elitism and and how progressive progressivism when it goes out of
00:43:46
control can accidentally turn into racism. And I think them standing up, if you think about it, what I'm urging Nike
00:43:54
to do, Harvard's been the first important organization to actually stand up and say, "Fuck you." And they're
00:44:00
winning in the courts. They have a lot of powerful alumni. They have the capital. Yeah, you're right. It cleans
00:44:05
them out. It clean It starches them white. That's correct. You're right. It
00:44:08
starches their hat white. I never thought I'd be wearing a Harvard t-shirt. I wore I wore one at the 92nd
00:44:15
Y. I know. A month ago when I was on with Jeff. You like to slap those Harvard people a lot. You like to run
00:44:20
around Harvard yard and slap them. When you have a $54 billion endowment and you
00:44:24
decide to let in the number of students that a good Starbucks serves, you're not
00:44:26
a public servant. You're a [ __ ] Chanel back. There he's back. He's back.
00:44:29
All right. All right. Let's go on a quick I'll be here all week. We will
00:44:33
attack them once they're once they've won the fight. All right, Scott. Let's
00:44:36
go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump dives deeper into crypto if possible. Scott, we're back. President
00:44:43
Trump's romance with cryptocurrency is getting more serious. Early this week,
00:44:46
the administration killed Biden era guidance against using crypto in 401k plans. Oh my [ __ ] god. Trump Media
00:44:53
and Technology Group, the parent company of True Social, announced is raising $2.5 billion to invest in Bitcoin, a
00:44:58
Michael Seller move. And listen to what JD Vance told a crowd in a keynote address at Bitcoin 2025 conference. I'm
00:45:05
here today to say loud and clear with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House.
00:45:16
In our administration, we understand the full potential of the digital assets industry, not just as an investment, not
00:45:24
just as a flashy technology, but as a symbol and driver of personal liberty for all our citizens. Also, Grift, he
00:45:31
left out Grift. The president's crypto holdings now reported represent around
00:45:35
40% of his net worth or approximately $2.9 billion. Scott, you had a rant where you called the crypto dealings
00:45:41
where you called the crypto dealings in Trump's first 100 days the greatest grift in our history of our economy. And
00:45:46
now it is a divisive issue for Democrats. Some want to support the Genius Act, which regulates stable coin.
00:45:52
Others say it supports Trump's grift. Uh what do they do here? Public companies
00:45:56
are leaning into crypto as well, not just through social. There are reportedly 114 publicly listed companies
00:46:01
that own Bitcoin, up from 89 at the beginning of April. Um uh what do you think about also the reports that big US
00:46:08
banks are having internal discussions about expanding into cryptocurrencies? Look, he he their smart one of the
00:46:16
genius moves of the Trump campaign was recognizing that this was not going to be a referendum on women's rights. It
00:46:22
was a referendum on struggling young men. I'd still hold to that. And I think
00:46:25
the evidence is everywhere. That's that's who showed up was was young men
00:46:30
and the people worried about them that swung this election in terms of the people who pivoted hardest from blue to
00:46:35
red. And the easiest way to signal that was to go Joe Rogan embrace Musk and also really embrace crypto which has
00:46:43
this almost like you know testosterone smell to it. It's so male e and tes what is
00:46:51
testosterone smell and is that your smells like I'll tell you later when I inject it in my ass. Uh yeah. Okay.
00:46:57
Actually, I don't think it has a smell. I don't think it has a smell. I don't
00:47:00
want to think about that. Smells like victory in the morning. Okay. All right. Anyways, that's right.
00:47:07
Um I think they're smart to embrace sniff on this podcast. Go ahead. Sorry. I think they're smart to embrace the
00:47:12
crypto community. I think financial services innovation is a good idea. I you know, fine. I I'm a no coiner. I was
00:47:20
on the board of a company that was a you know, the leading hardware wallet. It feels to me that the Democrats screwed
00:47:26
up by not at least being more clear about what the regulation is so people could actually do something with it. And
00:47:33
and I think Trump has leveraged beautifully the crypto community and also it's the perfect vehicle for a
00:47:40
griff because there's no records. I mean, people say you can track it, but I
00:47:44
don't, you know, my sense is when a guy launches a meme coin the Friday before
00:47:48
his inauguration and it runs to 70 billion and then and now it's like I said, he's made a billion dollars a
00:47:54
month since he's had this thing, I think they're smart to embrace it. I also
00:47:59
think a lot of or small and mediumsiz investors are probably going to lose a lot of money. And what I tell people is
00:48:06
if you want to take two, three, 5% of your net worth and put in and put it in Bitcoin, I wouldn't do any of these
00:48:12
other coins. There is a genius to Bitcoin because it has established a credible sense of scarcity because
00:48:17
people do believe the technology will result in that they will stop mining at 21 million coins. I do think that's
00:48:23
actually a very elegant way of creating a currency that has more veracity than a
00:48:28
fiat currency, which everyone has failed throughout history. the other coins I see as just like that's just Vegas. But
00:48:35
I think he's smart to embrace the community. I think it's working for them. Yeah. I think it has to become
00:48:39
something more than just like a speculative instrument like that. It's that it's useful in some fashion. And
00:48:45
there's all kinds of companies working at that. For Trump, it's a it's a gam
00:48:49
it's a casino. This is a casino kind of mentality that he's got around it. Um
00:48:53
and and a fee getting fees. Most of the money he's made has been in fees of the
00:48:57
transactions. The current income they made over 300 million fees so far. Right. Yeah. And so uh and then the
00:49:02
value of it is that you and it's not traceable in some ways. And so it's a
00:49:06
perfect sort of bribery grift slash scam kind of thing which he's very familiar
00:49:12
with. Um that said, you're right, the B administration didn't really lean in.
00:49:16
They had uh the SEC head who was openly hostile. I think these people got activated politically and they should
00:49:22
have been because they needed to defend themselves and they they took out Sher Brown in Ohio for sure. like they they
00:49:28
they targeted a lot of things and so they really got organized in ways that uh that Trump helped facilitate and were
00:49:35
able to do that and I think they will remain political. Um but at some point though there has to be safety around it.
00:49:41
If you put a lot of Bitcoin in these 401ks and they get destroyed uh through scam um it's going to be a real problem.
00:49:48
But Bitcoin is or crypto just going meta is a bit of a of whenever you have these
00:49:53
levels of income inequality you have war famine or revolution. I think it's a
00:49:56
form of revolution because I think young people have decided if you're going to
00:50:00
continue to bail out the market such as the incumbents stay wealthy and I never get disruption. I can never buy a house
00:50:06
or stocks on sale like you guys have gotten to do time after time every seven years with the recession. I'm going to
00:50:11
create my own asset class. And I get it. I you know I can I can empathize and understand it. It's like great Scott.
00:50:18
You had your time in the sun to buy Netflix at 11 bucks a share. But now that you and your other seniors voting
00:50:24
yourself more money and using my credit card to bail your ass out every time the
00:50:27
economy gets rough and I have an opportunity to buy in inexpensively, [ __ ] that. I'm not going to play your
00:50:32
game. I'm going to invent my own asset class. Yeah. And they have become very
00:50:35
politicized. And so it's up to the Democrats to not be ju the don't cut your nose to spite your
00:50:42
face kind of thing. I think is a play here. Trump is grift in this thing, but you can't not lean into it just cuz he's
00:50:48
doing that. You come after him later if you have to, but you can't. A lot of
00:50:52
them are, we can't do it because Trump will grift more. He's going to grift no
00:50:56
matter what. No matter what, he will he will find a way to grift and we can't
00:51:01
make policy based on uh you you need to lean into those Democrats in a way that's safe and good for consumers and
00:51:09
good for young people and not worry about the Trump part until later. That's
00:51:13
my feeling. Anyway, one more quick break. when we come back. Uh, is Google's new AI video tool a studio
00:51:19
killer? A story we didn't get to chat about last week is Google's launch of
00:51:23
VO3, which is a video generator that creates full video with audio. Its main competition is OpenAI Sora, but the key
00:51:31
distinction is V3 is supposed to be able to incorporate audio that includes dialogue between characters as well as
00:51:37
animal sounds. The main buzz about it on the internet as well. Will this replace
00:51:41
movie studios? Some of the stuff is pretty impressive to look at. And will this flood the news media with
00:51:46
misinformation? Oddly enough, I interviewed Jesse Armstrong, who is the creator of Succession for his new movie
00:51:52
that's coming out this week called Mountain Head. And this is one of the plot points uh in it. Uh is a is a is a
00:51:58
social media company with a sort of a a Musk Musk Zuckerberg character who runs a company called Tram that floods uh
00:52:06
puts out tools like this and causes worldwide destruction. Um, in any case, uh, you talked a lot about, uh, this
00:52:14
during the writer strike and, uh, we're going to talk a little bit about it by
00:52:18
stuff that we made, too. But quick thoughts. I think it goes after commercials first and quick hits where
00:52:25
if you're selling stuff on Facebook or Shopify, and you need just a 30-se secondond kind of competent, elegantl
00:52:31
looking, I I think it'll start there. It'll start moving its way up. I just
00:52:35
see it similar to what CGI did in terms of reducing the cost of special effects.
00:52:40
it'll start to move its way up. It'll just lower the cost of the means of
00:52:44
production. It'll be especially hard on certain people. But I still think as someone who has, you know, a
00:52:51
limited but increasing amount of exposure to the industry, the way I see it is we're we
00:52:57
outsource their shitty manufacturing jobs overseas, but the real value add in the higher paying jobs are in design,
00:53:04
distribution, product marketing, all that good stuff back here. I think this is kind of the same thing and that is I
00:53:10
don't want to say the low value work but things like you know lighting and sound
00:53:16
and extras you know the people that Tom Cruz is going to be very aggressive and smart
00:53:22
about protecting his own IP and his own his own likeness the what I have seen with and
00:53:29
we talked about this before whenever I write I use I use AI to brainstorm and to when I say I don't like this
00:53:37
paragraph what additional data could be out there. But when I try and write stuff with just AI, it's very anodine.
00:53:45
It lacks all sex appeal. It's all chip, no salsa. I still think that for the
00:53:50
boring stuff, it works for press releases, things like that, like commercials are showing a pro. I think
00:53:55
you're absolutely right. I think this is something I discussed with Armstrong,
00:53:58
who's just a brilliant person. He was like, I'm not really sure what to think.
00:54:02
I've seen some of this and it's very impressive. I'm like, but it's not you,
00:54:04
Jesse Armstrong. like you can't make you you for the for the untalented it will
00:54:09
be a problem for or the stuff that's anodine as you said it will be a problem
00:54:14
and and there's a lot of people like that right there's a lot of people who
00:54:16
make sort of the boring Scott work that are going out okay now for our personal uh experience on on doing this uh we had
00:54:27
our video producer Kevin mess around with it and he said he's not too worried
00:54:31
about his job just yet uh we just hired him I hope not here are his initial findings, uh, V3 automatically puts
00:54:39
makeup on Cara, but not Scott. It crashed and failed to generate video an aggravating number of times, and people
00:54:46
are complaining online uh, about its audio failures as well. What VO3 can do frighteningly well is generate videos of
00:54:54
fake people. For example, this AI newscast we asked it to create. Scott Galloway has broken the record for most
00:55:02
dick jokes told in a podcast. The competition was extremely stiff. That was good. That wasn't a real
00:55:12
person. That person I was showing the video to someone and like who is that person? I'm like that person doesn't
00:55:16
exist and they're like a very they were attracted to the person. Um it was a
00:55:21
fake newscaster reading a very realistic but unconfirmed story that the competition was stiff. I don't think the
00:55:26
competition is stiff at all. Um uh when prompted to use images of real people like me and Scott, it failed to generate
00:55:33
audio and came up with some less than ideal results. Here's what we got with
00:55:37
the prompt. Cara and Scott podcasting on Mars. Oh, what we're seeing here is
00:55:43
Karen Scott. Cara look with a lot of makeup on. And Scott, why don't you describe it? Well, no. That's Carara's
00:55:49
straight cousin. That's not Cara. Um I'm I'm more handsome than that
00:55:54
guy. Aren't I Cara? I think so. It's a And I have a third hand. Explain what
00:55:58
we're seeing. Explain what we're seeing. I have a third hand. At least I got the
00:56:00
panory right. Oh, look at that hand of yours. I have a third hand. What? Who is that? Who the [ __ ] is that? He's got
00:56:09
your hair. But you also look younger than that person. Yeah. Yeah. You don't
00:56:14
look like you. That guy looks like he knocks on your door and says, "The law
00:56:18
mandates that I notify you I've moved in next door." Um, all right. Uh, here's what we've got
00:56:25
with the prompt. Cara and Scott as bodybuilders. Oh, hello. Oh my god, that does look like
00:56:32
you. That does look like you. Describe. Uh, it's us as bodybuilders. And the
00:56:37
faces are actually quite accurate. Jeez, this is so disturbing. Oh my god, this is rough.
00:56:46
That is really rough. This This looks like the beginning of the most disturbing cinemax. It's like from It's
00:56:52
like from that um movie Stanley Kubric, the the uh Oh my god. The with Malcolm Mal, the Malcolm McDow, the really
00:57:02
disturbing one about Yeah. Clockwork Orange. Yeah. Clockwork Orange. You know, when they basically want to turn
00:57:07
him off violence and sex and they force his eyes open and they show him. This would literally turn watching this. Do
00:57:14
not watch this, folks. It will This will turn you off any physical encounter with
00:57:18
anyone for a long time. This is so rattling. Cara and Scott is bodybuilders. So rattling. All right.
00:57:24
Here's what we got with the prompt. Cara and Scott getting married. Okay. Oh,
00:57:28
that's nice. Oh, that's nice. We're holding hands. We're walking down there,
00:57:32
by the way. Oh my god. No, no, they're kissing. Don't do it. Unfortunately, it
00:57:37
looks like Stanley. Don't do it. It looks like It looks like Stanley Tucci and Marlo Thomas. Not like you're And by
00:57:44
the way, I'm a good foot taller than you. That is just unrealistic. Don't do
00:57:48
it. They're kissing. Don't do it. It looks like you. That doesn't look like
00:57:50
me, does it? Don't do it. Look, I'm totally hesitant. I'm like, I'm a
00:57:53
lesbian. What's happening here? Look at me thrilled to be married to you. A very
00:57:57
heavy version of me. Any They make me a lot fatter in uh Anyway. Okay. George Clooney doesn't have anything to worry
00:58:03
about right now. Well, no, he'll he'll be able I do think that the but but
00:58:07
again, it'll be more of a transfer of wealth from the entrance to the incumbents because the incumbents that
00:58:13
already have established their IP will be able to scale it. A guy like Jesse Armstrong is going to make a lot more
00:58:18
money because he's going to get to produce three things a year, not one. And because he has already established
00:58:23
brand equity, he'll it's like a really good lawyer, I think, is going to make
00:58:28
more money because they'll be able to scale themselves faster by outsourcing
00:58:32
the 80% of the creative part and then have the creative part. Yeah. But I think the the entrance are just going to
00:58:37
have a really tough time because there's going to be less training, fewer jobs at
00:58:42
the lower mid- levels that really teach you about creative and film making and give you an opportunity to shine and
00:58:47
rise up. It's just going to be I think the incumbents are just going to get wealthier and wealthier. I would I would
00:58:52
agree. One of the things I was talking to Jesse about is like what if you put all of your work in in succession? They
00:58:57
could make more seasons of succession eventually. They will be without your input. And he's like, "Well, we have
00:59:03
those rights and the contracts." I said, "But do you like it?" It it'll be
00:59:07
interesting to see what what happens. Like if like for example, I would love more episodes of the West Wing and
00:59:12
they're not going to make them, but they could, right? If they put if they jammed
00:59:16
all the West Wings in there, uh they could possibly make a pretty decent thing. I have the feeling they will be
00:59:22
able to. Well, that's that's a really interesting thought because it ends up
00:59:26
that HBO owns the IP to the White Lotus. Yeah. And that was I think a hundred or
00:59:32
$200 million I want to call mistake for the original producers. Now they still make a lot of money because they want
00:59:37
that incredible talent back to make seasons four, five, and six. But if at some point it's no longer worth the $150
00:59:44
million in production for that season. Yeah. They might say, "Well, we'll spend
00:59:48
three million and we'll use new characters and we'll do seasons five, six, seven, and eight and squeeze and
00:59:54
then it makes it even harder for new entrance uh to break in." I can't figure
00:59:58
out does it help does it make it less expensive? It could help the studios or whoever owns the IP. Whoever owns the IP
01:00:05
of the original IP and there's got to be a lot of it. So you could make more all
01:00:10
kinds of shows like Happy Days. Lots of There's lots of shows that went on for
01:00:13
10 seasons and that you could possibly it could write them. It could write them. It could. Anyway, we want to
01:00:20
hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever is on your mind, or go to
01:00:25
nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 8551 pivot. Elsewhere
01:00:30
in the Cara and Scott universe this week on the latest episode of ProfG Markets,
01:00:34
Scott spoke with Azwath Deodorin, professor of finance at NYU's Stern School of Business. Azwath shared his
01:00:42
take on the recent tariff turmoil and what he's watching with the next round
01:00:45
of earnings. Let's listen. This is going to be a contest between market resilience and economic resilience as to
01:00:52
whether in fact the markets are overestimating the resilience of the economy. And that's what the actual
01:00:58
numbers are going to deliver is maybe the economy and markets are a lot more resilient than we gave them credit for.
01:01:04
In which case, we'll come out of this year just like we came out of 2020 and
01:01:08
2022 in much with much less damage than we thought would be created by what we saw happening on the ground. Yeah.
01:01:16
Interesting. That's interesting. He's so smart. He's so smart. That's a good
01:01:20
question. And by the way, an Indian immigrant who got his PhD at UCLA. That's correct. And and is is arguably
01:01:27
one of the 10 best instructors in America, right? I know that is a kid training young
01:01:33
Americans. So much value. And okay, but yeah, let's let's go after those folks.
01:01:38
Yeah. Well, the good thing Baron's at NYU. Scott, before we go, you have a quick fail. Uh Trump is claiming, you
01:01:45
know, one of the things Trump's calling for or claiming that America would benefit if they Harvard reduced the
01:01:50
number of international students is it would open up more seats for domestic students. I do think there is some truth
01:01:57
to that that we need to expand freshman seats for Americans. There's um great
01:02:01
university systems like University of California do take their commitment to native Californians really seriously. I
01:02:09
do think, you know, University of Wisconsin is living up to its mission. Uh but what if he was really serious
01:02:17
though, it's all such [ __ ] because also in this big beautiful bill, he's
01:02:22
talking about gutting um Pell Grants. And that is he wants to cut Pell Grants by about 67 billion
01:02:29
through 2034, reducing grants to low-income students by more than 15th from 2027 through 2034. And really, it's
01:02:36
more like one half when you take inflation um into account. And more than half of
01:02:41
PEL students would have their aid reduced in some way. I'm not exaggerating, Cara. I'm here. There's a
01:02:46
lot of things that led me to being here and having the wonderful life I lead. One of them is PEL grants. I got PEL
01:02:52
grants because my mother was a secretary. We were considered in the lowest quartortile of income earning
01:02:58
households. Every summer I had to save $2,300 at least work and save $2,300 because I knew I would get a PEL grant
01:03:06
for $13 to $1,800 and I could go back for my next year at UCLA. So Wow. I didn't realize
01:03:12
you were a PEL grantee. The reason I got through UCLA was was because of PEL grants. Wow. And by the way, the Cal
01:03:18
State system in California is the large granter of PEL grants. Pell grants in my
01:03:22
opinion and I'm biased here is where affirm all affirmative action needs to go and that is affirmative action should
01:03:27
be based on color should be based on green specifically the economic situation you face and without Pell
01:03:33
grants without affirmative action I'm a beneficiary of affirmative action it's
01:03:38
called PEL grants and these things are a lifesaver for those of us who just wouldn't have access to college give you
01:03:45
that extra amount of money that you don't that will give you the wouldn't
01:03:48
have graduated from UCLA I just wouldn't I couldn't the relief that you don't have to work,
01:03:53
you know, slinging burgers. Well, and it's a grant. It's not a loan. I I don't
01:03:57
have to worry about, okay, with my philosophy degree and 150 grand in student debt, am I going to is this
01:04:01
worth it? These are like, okay, the the the fastest way for us to level up America, full stop, is to put more money
01:04:10
in the pockets of people who don't have money. That's correct. It's not It's not
01:04:14
complex, folks. Yep. All right. and Pelgrants figured that out and it's done
01:04:18
a great save Pelgrants. Uh a really important program. I'm going to give a quick uh positive one was Go See
01:04:24
Mountain Head by Jesse Armstrong. I'm curious what you think about it. It's
01:04:27
really crazy. Mountain Head. Mountain Head. It's an HBO show that's going up,
01:04:31
Max show. That's going up on um I get that in Aspen every year at the summer
01:04:35
solstice. Stop it. I knew you'd say that. Anyway, Mountain Head. Steve Carell is starring it. It's really good.
01:04:41
Uh anyway, uh and it's by Jesse Armstrong who's fantastic. There's so
01:04:44
many good lines in it that it's crazy. Um, one line I'll do one line. They were
01:04:49
in They were looking They were in nature. They were up in Utah essentially and they look around and the guy who
01:04:54
plays Mark Zuckerberg/ Elon's characters goes, "Oh my god, it's so beautiful. You
01:04:59
could [ __ ] it." And I just thought it was the best line ever. That's exactly
01:05:04
how they look at nature and think. Anyway, it's Jesse Arm. It's Jesse Armstrong. Yeah, it's Jesse Armstrong.
01:05:09
So, it's so fantastic as you might imagine. All right, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure
01:05:14
to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott,
01:05:18
read us out. Today's show is produced by Larara Neon, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin,
01:05:22
Kevin Oliver, and Karen Roth. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Aaro, and Dan
01:05:28
Shalon. Nishak Kuras, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast
01:05:34
platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at
01:05:39
nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech
01:05:43
and business. [Music]